U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo is the only outspoken Republican who seems just as angry and puzzled by President Bush’s amnesty plan for illegal aliens as I am. He asks:
1. The president says his plan does not offer amnesty to lawbreakers, but if an unlawful act is forgiven and not penalized, is that not the same as amnesty? Isn’t it amnesty if people who entered our country illegally are not required to go home before applying for a work permit?2. Why is it not reasonable to believe that offering a “legal route to employment” for people who entered the country illegally will only encourage millions more to follow the same path in the expectation that they, too, will eventually be offered legal status? Is The White House aware that the National Border Patrol Council, which represents rank and file Border Patrol agents, says the president’s plan will produce another surge in illegal alien traffic?
Surge in illegal alien traffic? In my opinion, the president, a wealthy, insulated man, isn’t too affected by the overrun of illegal aliens like regular people are, who sit in emergency rooms for hours while doctors treat uninsured illegal aliens.
And public schools, especially in California, are overwhelmed with non or poor English speakers who are burdening the system. People like Bush can afford private schools. Remember Steve Sailer’s article from yesterday’s post? Insulation, insulation, insulation! It’s easy to be “for” something when it doesn’t negatively impact you.
On national security, Tancredo asks:
3. The president says that his plan will free up the Border Patrol to catch drug smugglers and terrorists. In view of the very real terrorist threat facing our nation and the certainty that terrorists are well aware of how easy it is to cross our open borders, would it not be more sensible and much safer for the country to first make our borders secure and then experiment with new guest worker programs, rather than the other way around?
See my previous response.
On Jobs, Tancredo asks:
5. The president says his temporary worker plan will be limited to “jobs Americans won’t do.” But since willingness to do any job is always relative to the wages being offered for that job, isn’t it true that millions of jobs will be lost by Americans to foreign labor willing to work at a lower wage? When an employer lowers the wage of a job so only a foreign worker will take the job, as is already happening in construction trades and many other occupations, how can anyone say this is not taking jobs away from Americans?
I’ll bet plenty of high profile people who say they’re against illegal immigration employ illegal aliens “under the table.” Bernard Kerik comes to mind. I’m only assuming he’s against lawbreaking, as he was a cop.
Also see California’s $9 Billion Albatross.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 12 comments }
Kerik may have been a cop at one time, but he is not a cop in the real sense anymore. He is a millionaire politician. What he might have raised an eyebrow at years ago when he was on the street, is accepted practice in his current circle of friends. That is, until one get “outed” when up for a better job.
This immigration thing is the one area where I get totally frustrated with Bush and the majority of politicians from both parties.
The problem of immigration, especially out here will not be addressed honestly until people on the local levels of government begin to speak up and take action. while the President ought to be defending and protecting our country by sealing up the borders, the individual border states are not doing enough to make the powers that be stand and deliver. One example is the LAUSD school system which caters to the immigration problem by providing bilingual education materials, ESL classes, and strongly preferring to hire teachers who speak spanish. So rather than encourage assimilation and addressing the real causes of overcrowding, they simply throw more money at the problem and develop more ineffective programs that pander, waisting our tax money, rather than help. Until our local leaders begin to speak up and demand justice nothing will honestly be done about the immigration problem.
Today in her column Star Parker asks where are today’s leaders? Where are our honest men and women? I can tell you where they are not, on the LAUSD board.
I am unemployed and live in California. About 5 months ago, 2 jobs became available in my field (production supervisor) where the requirements about matched my resume. Until I got to the bottom of each of the ads-”Must be bilingual/speak Spanish”. So because each company hired non-English speaking workers, I had to speak their language to be able to supervise them. Needless to say, just typing this brings back the heart pounding anger I felt at the time.
I’m not saying that I would’ve for sure got those jobs, but I was disqualified before even applying.
La Shawn, an interesting topic would be to lay out a framework for resolving the illegal immigration & border issue. I’ve seen and sympathize with the various commenters’ moaning & groaning about what’s wrong with current & proposed policies.
Montie/Jerry, in response to your above posts, I submit that as a government of we-the-people, WE ARE THE LEADERS as represented by appointed officials and elected politicians at all levels of the govt. I think what would be cool as an exercise of our leadership, for the pyjamma set, to hammer out a rational — compassionate if need be — bottomup policy which addresses as much as possible everyone’s concerns.
In other words, why don’t we set out to formulate an comprenhensive outline of what the govt should do. Who knows what germs of wisdom might sprout from the collective power of the bloggerati? Heck, our product could evolve into an email initiative with which everyone can bombard their representatives.
As seed material, may I humbly suggest the postings of SCSIWuzzy, Matthew Fountain and of course yours truly which can be found in the blog entitled Pro-Enforcement, Not Anti-Immigrant http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2004/12/01/pro/
What say ye?
I heard some pro-immigration prof today on the O’Reilly factor -
He said the “ID CARD” or “Driver’s License” - whatever it is - will include background checking more thorough than ANY American would receive; fingerprinting; and photo ID.
No doubt Rep Tancredo is correct on most issues, but to ignore the ID card issue because it will “encourage more illegal immigration” is nonsense - it’s already almost maxed out, and can’t get much worse.
I have to scratch my head why anyone in Mexico would be MORE likely to come here if he knew his background would be checked, he would be fingerprinted, and photographed.
I would be happy if:
1 The border was sealed.
2 Serious ID procedures were done before cards were issued..
3 Anyone NOT totally complying would be deported immediately, no questions asked - no “human rights” trials.
4 Extended families would not be welcome, and children born here would not automatically become citizens.
And a strong statement from the President -
That Bush and the American People are IN CHARGE of immigration to the US, and NOT Vincente Fox and the Mexical People.
Codespeak : We are doing them a favor, not the other way around.
The real problem is politicians who are more interested in keeping interest groups happy rather than performing what is in the best interests of the people.
Bush is lobbying for votes and protecting his brother, who is ultra-popular with Hispanics. Not only that, illegals=low paying jobs=more profits for large corporations. I wish we could pull a “Trading Places” for the politicians in Washington.
What do you say, the usual bet???
The whole lack of employees argument is a canard.
What came first - the low paying jobs that could not be filled because no-one was filling to work for the low wages OR the illegal immigrant who wanted work and was willing to work for almost nothing because that was more than he/or she would be paid in their own country.
We now have the ludicrous situtation where a major union has the gall to have illegals march accross the country to the US Capitol to protest for better working conditions for illegals.
What a country.
The crime is that the countries south of the border have not changed their ways to improve the lot of their people to the extent that the people are happy with their lot in life. What is the good of free medical and education in Mexico if the quality of either is such that it does nothing to help anyone.
PS:
In contract law there is suxh a thing as performance. When there is a question as to the legitimacy of a contract one of the criteria to judge a parties understandig of whether they have a contract is what they have done to perform the contract. Providing illegals with a quasi legitimacy with drivers licenses and social services could be seen as a level of performance on the part of government.
If the illegal question was ever taken to an international forum could the level of performance of the government be viewed as tacit acknowledgementent of the rights of illegals to stay and work in the US.
In a Wash Times article today, by Tony Blankley, he writes about the illegal immigration problem, for years ignored by both political parties, becoming the ‘hot’ political issue in America. He says so much so that Hillary Clinton is positioning herself to the right of the Republicans on border security and immigration.
The Democratic Party, long the champions of wage workers and their unions, have lost their support due to its outspoken support for wage depressing issues like the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement and the failure to support control of business use of illegal cheap labor. Couple this with its failure to support the more conservative Christian values of wage workers and you have a formula for failure.
If Hillary, or any other electable candidate IMO, runs a campaign promoting bold and serious policies addressing the abandonment of the American workers and their values, you have a real contenda’!
I’d like to hear a realistic solution for dealing with the illegal (read: mexican) immigration problem. While I can understand though I do not agree with the frustration of those who are against Bush’s (non)amnesty plan, I doubt there is a cost-effective alternative.
The economic pressures are simply so severe that anything short of a Great Wall will be ineffective. The security risks are too great to maintain the status quo. A few thousand dollars will get you smuggled across the border. More will get you to any major us city. We already have thousands upon thousands of border patrol agents doing what they can.
A somewhat free border with advanced security measures (biometric ID cards, etc) will decrease -hopefully to a point of manageability- the market for smuggling.
As far as adverse effect goes, lets be honest, illegals aren’t taking away high $$ jobs. Plus we don’t have an unemployment problem. This isn’t a zero sum game. More gets done with more willing workers, particularly cheap ones. In any event, the benefit to the US in security and to Mexico in $$ outweights any detriment to us. I think we (conservatives mostly) are bordering on mild zenophobia.
-JG
PS. I just found your blog and like it. I vote to keep the comments.
I have to disagree with both La Shawn and the majority of posts. However, I’m not certain of my position. I just think we need to have the proper discussion.
My premise:
Immigrants from societies less free than ours, that come with only a desire to work hard and better themselves, and succeed in bettering themselves, provide us with a verification that our society and ideals are properly expressed in our civic institutions. Their success forces us to concede that hard work and individual initiative are sound foundations of our society. Assuming that immigrants come to this country to work, if they do not succeed, as is the case over much of Europe, it reflects that the institutions of the society are dysfunctional.
- if you don’t agree with this, I concede the the argument. Now I will address individual issues.
1) President’s plan doesn’t offer amnesty?
I must concede this, as the plan does offer amnesty. But I disagree that illegal immigrants have necessarily broken a moral code by sneaking into the country.
First, strictly speaking, Mexicans are not bound by U.S. law until they are in the U.S. I’m sure many of you will argue this is just semantic, but then would you agree that it was illegal for the U.S. to go into Iraq… for some, an argument over legal jurisdiction and standing.
Second, and more important, viewed in the extreme, morality can override legality. As conservatives we have tended to focus on the rule of law; after all, it has been the lefts tactic to ignore the rule of law in implementing its agenda. Examples: MA Supreme court reinterpreting marriage; San Fran Mayor marrying gays when it was against the law; Florida supreme court overriding the State Legislature’s constitutional right to run the election.
However, who among us would argue against the morality of a slave stealing food for his children? I AM NOT making a moral equivalency, and I am not saying that the motive of the individual should lesson the sentence for illegal immigrants. I’m just stating that It does not follow that an illegal immigrant will be unwilling to follow other laws of the U.S. just because they violated the laws necessary to work in the U.S. We do not suspect all shoplifters of being murderers.
2) Legal route to employment will encourage millions to follow?
Why do illegals come to the U.S. now? Excluding those that come for welfare, they come to work, and they find employment. For this to happen, U.S. employers must also break the law. While protection of workers rights is important, so is the right to enter into contract. If a balance can be struck between demand for immigrant labor, legal temporary workers, and U.S. citizen workers rights, then ILLEGAL immigrants will not be able to find work. Why employ an illegal if you can employ an legal temporary worker. If the balance is tight enough, law enforcement should be able to prosecute both illegal immigrants and those that employ them; no more illegals.
3) Shouldn’t we secure the borders first?
I haven’t actually seen details of how hard this would be or how much it would cost. Has anyone? However, it will be easier to secure the borders if less people are coming across. My understanding is that at common crossing points, the problem is not that we can’t catch anybody, its that we can’t catch everybody. The less people coming across, the easier to catch them.
5) Limited to “jobs Americans won’t do?”
First, lets give some weight to the idea that if one is willing to work for less, its not inherently bad for the economy or society. After all, we don’t think its bad to have price competition between citizen suppliers of labor or products. Additionally, companies already are able to outsource many low paying jobs overseas. Having a low pay labor force would enable some of that to remain here, and there would be managerial positions.
Still, there is a very real difference. Certainly our government should be protecting its own citizens. I think we should be doing that by making sure our schools actually work so that our citizens are prepared for leading jobs in the world. This argument is essentially about protectionism, which is best left to its own discussion.
6) My conclusion:
If we can strike the right balance, I think Bush’s proposal is correct. Even if it doesn’t work after a few years, we know who to expel from the country. Have fun finding all the illegals without first offering worker amnesty. From this perspective, Bush’s policy is at least pragmatic.
This past election can be viewed as a referendum of whether the U.S. would engage the world or withdraw and limit its power. With leftist movements in South America and Europe, and Islamofascism everywhere, I believe we should be promoting our ideals where ever we can. Our own neighbor should not be excluded. By allowing current illegal aliens proper and legal access to our system, and then making them go through legal reentry channels after their term has expired, we will be exporting our ideals, and working knowledge of our institutions, to Mexico.
And for those that win the right to stay, having worked hard, played by the rules, and won a lottery? You could do worse than to have such a citizen or neighbor.
Josh, well said. There needs to be a pragmatic discussion instead of bunch of ‘there oughtta-be’s. I think and hope this is what GW is trying to lead us towards. OTOH, if GW is going for just a plain old amnesty without implementing some sort of command and control of our border system, he will have failed in defending us from one of the geatest threats to the American way of life.
Comments on this entry are closed.