Washington pundits and Beltway politicians are furious at critics of the bill, from radio talk-show hosts and writers for conservative magazines, to frontline congressional representatives and Republican presidential candidates such as Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney and likely aspirant Fred Thompson.
These critics are dubbed cynical nativists - or racists - who have demagogued the issue and scapegoated hardworking illegal aliens. Even President Bush alleged that conservative obstructionists were somehow not working in America's best interests.
But who's really being cynical when it comes to illegal immigration? The government? Of course. It has caved to pressure groups for more than a quarter of a century.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 ensured neither reform nor control. Instead, the law simply resulted in millions entering the United States through blanket amnesty and de facto open borders.
In many cities, current municipal laws bar police officers from turning arrested illegal aliens over to immigration officials.
So why should the public believe that the proposed new law, with hundreds of pages of rules and regulations, would trump local obstructionism or effect any real change?
The public shouldn't believe it, and frankly, I question the timing -- especially the timing of the urging of this dire sense of urgency.
What's the hurry? These people have been illegally crossing the border for years, and nothing was done to stop them. Now, it's urgent that they be legalized? Why? I'm not enough of a hardliner to advocate rounding them all up and deporting them, but as I said before, this situation is a classic illustration of the principle that sometimes doing nothing is better than doing the wrong thing. IMO, legalizing the millions of illegal border crossers would be doing the wrong thing.
As to the timing, I suspect the whole thing is an attempt to swell the voter rolls in time for the 2008 election, and I am therefore deeply suspicious. Calling people "racist" for not wanting millions of unassimilated illegal border crossers legalized is just the cheapest of cheap shots, and reveals desperation, and, as Hanson points out, elitism:
Most cynical of all, however, are the moralistic pundits, academics and journalists who deplore the "nativism" of Americans they consider to be less-educated yokels.
Few of these well-paid and highly educated people live in communities altered by huge influxes of illegal aliens. Their professed liberality about illegal immigration usually derives from seeing hardworking waiters, maids, nannies and gardeners commute to their upscale cities and suburbs to serve them well - and cheaply.
In general, such elites don't use emergency rooms in the inner cities and rural counties overcrowded by illegal aliens. Their children don't struggle with school curricula altered to the needs of students who speak only Spanish.
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Comments
Honestly, I don't see what offering amnesty would even accomplish. Illegal aliens working in the US are the cornerstone of South-West harvesting, food-processing, etc. The reason that they are paid to go out and pick strawberries is because no "honorable" American citizen would humiliate himself with such a career choice. So what happens when they become legal and quit those dead-end jobs? More will have to come in to replace them. They're too tightly enmeshed in our economic infrastructure now. The only long-term hope that I can see is the forcible breakup of Mexican and other Latin American monopolistic companies. Latin Americans are stuck in poverty not because their countries are weak and exploited by the US. Heck there are 37 Latin American billionares on this list: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_The-Worlds-Billionaires-Latin-America_6Rank.html
Carlos Slim, the third richest man in the world, made $19 BILLION THIS YEAR and is slated to knock off Bill Gatea and Warren Buffet in maybe 2 years. His company contributes HALF of the Mexican stock exchange's value and 7% of Mexico's GDP!!!
It's time for America to leverage Mexico into some anti-trust action to open up Latin America for some real economic diversity and competition that, you guessed it, will create jobs...
Besides, if you can get decent jobs in your own country, would you sneak across the border to pick strawberries?
Aaron · June 15, 2007 09:35 PM
The current immigration 'reform' is so thoroughly tainted with dishonesty that the entire effort should be scrapped. A new reform effort should be started immediately - from scratch. Out of principle and because the are so far out of touch with the American people, anyone involved in the the drafting of the current legislation should be disqualified from any future participation beyond submitting amendments to new bills that decouple border security from processing illegals already here.
The only thing that might incline me to believe any of the current crop of proponents would be each signatory taking an inescapable oath that they'd serve 10 year prison sentences for fraud if the border was not secured as promised.
Because that's what this bill is - a fraud.
I won't even get into the demonization and insulting of the bill's legitimate critics.
Roy E · June 16, 2007 07:04 AM
I consider this to be a matter of the Nation State, and how Nations act and how citizens are to act in accordance with that setup. Yes, a very Nationalist approach, but then Nations are *allowed* to have Sovereign direction from the inside and not be hindred by others.
As to companies enticing such illegals here: I did not elect them to set immigration policy for the Nation.
End all subsidies to companies, and then shutter those that behave outside the Constitution and auction them off piecemeal, never to rise again. Companies are not given to make illegal contracts, which is what they are doing in breaking the Laws of the Land and the Laws of Nations. If they cannot exist without federal monies or without cheap labor then they can very well go the way of the Dodo. That is 'capitalism' at work. And a 'free market' requires adherance to the laws within Nations and between them.
The US did NOT take in everyone that came its way during the so-called 'open immigration' period before 1920, and did a much, much harder task than what we have now: they sent 3-4% BACK after checking health and records. That required checking every immigrant and having quarantine. Millions of them. Before 1920. So that we could *discriminate* and send those not meeting the standards of the Nation BACK.
What a pitiful excuse of a Nation we are if we can not operate as well NOW as we did THEN. Before 1920. Before computers. Before modern databases. Before all sorts of biometric scanning. Before international watch lists for criminals and terrorists. Finding the 3-4% undesireables is a much, much harder task than one can imagine given the influx of people and scanty resources of the Nation in that era.
And this Congress can go to hell if they cannot use the Powers we grant it to secure this Nation.
Victor Davis Hanson traded late night posts with me on Free Republic 8 or 9 years ago. I understand the man thoroughly. He is not a racist or nativist by any stretch.
But he has come to understand the vast change that unregulated migration is having on this country.
Bush and Clinton are not down in the trenches where Hanson has been. They seem to think that cultural change can happen overnight, without a backlash. They are dead wrong.
I don't want to see this country degenerate into reactionary facism. But radical change pushed from above by self-annoited elites is the surest course for such an event.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the majority of illegals who have wormed their way into this country. But having said that, why do those who belong to the ruling class, those who attend conferences of the Council on Foreign Realtions, so want to push this integration of North and South American cultures? Why do they pretend that we don't see the bilingualism being foisted on us by those intitutions like Banco de America and Wells Fargo, as well as the bilingual ballots, bilingual education, etc.?
I am certainly NOT a conspiracy advocate, but the force of this movement leads even me to question just why and now?
I must state that I have a personal antipathy toward Spanish culture. Call it cultural bigotry if you want. But I can find nothing in the history of the Spanish Inquisition, the Spanish Conquest of the The Americas, or the insipid Spanish Renaissance that would want me to advance that culture above the Anglo cultural history of this country.
(And please don't quote me the one great novelist, Cervantes, the one great painter, El Greco, or the one great composer, Domenico Scarlatti - oh, never mind, he was Italian as was Columbus)
So just what is this love affair with Salsa all about? Por favor, no entiende.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Honestly, I don't see what offering amnesty would even accomplish. Illegal aliens working in the US are the cornerstone of South-West harvesting, food-processing, etc. The reason that they are paid to go out and pick strawberries is because no "honorable" American citizen would humiliate himself with such a career choice. So what happens when they become legal and quit those dead-end jobs? More will have to come in to replace them. They're too tightly enmeshed in our economic infrastructure now. The only long-term hope that I can see is the forcible breakup of Mexican and other Latin American monopolistic companies. Latin Americans are stuck in poverty not because their countries are weak and exploited by the US. Heck there are 37 Latin American billionares on this list: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_The-Worlds-Billionaires-Latin-America_6Rank.html
Carlos Slim, the third richest man in the world, made $19 BILLION THIS YEAR and is slated to knock off Bill Gatea and Warren Buffet in maybe 2 years. His company contributes HALF of the Mexican stock exchange's value and 7% of Mexico's GDP!!!
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1610610,00.html
It's time for America to leverage Mexico into some anti-trust action to open up Latin America for some real economic diversity and competition that, you guessed it, will create jobs...
Besides, if you can get decent jobs in your own country, would you sneak across the border to pick strawberries?