In which Your Humble Correspondent plays devil's advocate

[thatcrazycajun]

Being a Gemini, I find it easy to be of two minds about a variety of subjects. Additionally, I grew up in a family that was (and mostly still is) highly conservative in its political views, so I could not help but be exposed to how "the other side" thinks...and thus, have some understanding of why they see things as they do, even if I cannot bring myself to agree with such a worldview.

With this in mind, I'm going to channel my inner Lou Dobbs for a moment on the subject of immigration reform, in response to this commentary posted on FireDogLake.com about Dobbs' recent CNN tirade against panelist Laura Flanders on his daily program.

Liberal apologists for illegal aliens (oh, I'm so sorry, excuse me—I meant to say "undocumented workers") like to claim that calling these lawbreakers what they are is racist and dehumanizing. They argue that mitigating factors—the work these people do for us (often, the liberals insist, work that legal aliens and Americans simply will not do for the amounts being paid, which is highly debatable), their alleged inability to find adequately paying work in their countries of origin (most of which seem to lie below our southern border) to support themselves and their families, and the fact that many of them pay taxes, buy goods and services here and otherwise contribute to our economy—should exculpate them for the crime they committed that put them here in the first place.

Well, I'm sorry, I don't give two hoots in hell how much of an otherwise model citizen an illegal may be; if s/he did not follow the legally required procedure for coming to the United States of America, then they have no business being here at all, and they have committed a federal felony for which they need to be held accountable. Letting them stay unmolested, much less giving them the "path to citizenship" the Democratic Party's "leaders" in Congress insist must be part of any legislative approach to immigration reform (can you say "amnesty"? I knew you could), is just plain, flat-out wrong—for several reasons:

• It sends a message to would-be illegal immigrants all over the world that they can just ignore our borders and our laws and come here however and whenever they like—and stay as long as they like—with impunity, and our national sovereignty be damned.


• It sends a message to criminals here, both citizens and not, that the law is not equally applied to all lawbreakers and some crimes can be gotten away with cold.


• It is a slap in the face to all those who worked hard and followed the rules to come here legally, as well as to citizens born here and all those still on years-long waiting lists to come here.


• It allows people who ought not be allowed any access to our government services to drain our public coffers, thereby reducing the amount of services providable to citizens and legal aliens.


• It will lead to an even bigger flood of illegal immigration, straining our national resources of people and funding to the breaking point and beyond, bankrupting our government and seriously degrading the quality of life for everyone.


• It depresses wages for legal workers by giving employers a ready source of super-cheap, docile labor.


• And yes, it makes legitimate citizens who speak, read and write English, obey the law and share a common culture feel invaded and overwhelmed by aliens who often refuse to assimilate, with the government going out of its way to accommodate them with foreign-language documents and services, all with our tax dollars.

Calling these people "illegal aliens" is not by any means an attempt to demonize them. It does not allege that they are inhuman monsters with three heads or horns who eat babies; it simply acknowledges the two overriding realities of their status—"illegal" meaning in violation of the law, and "alien" meaning not born or naturallized as a U.S. citizen. If they want so badly to immigrate here and take advantage of our economic success, they are more than welcome to do so --  either legally, in the prescribed fashion, or else AFTER they have paid their debt to society, the same debt owed by a bank robber, a kidnapper or a murderer, or anyone else who commits a felony under federal law. Illegals must be rounded up, incarcerated, tried and if convicted, deported back to where they came from.

"But wait," I hear you liberals crying, "if you convict them of felonies, they won't ever be eligible for citizenship even if they do try to come back here legally!" To that I have a two-word response: Tough shit! They should have thought of that before they came here and broke the law. I cannot exaggerate the importance of keeping this key fact in the forefront of any discussion about illegal immigration, the one I know you liberals want us all to forget: THESE PEOPLE HAVE VIOLATED FEDERAL LAW!! And not just any old laws, either, but some of the most crucial ones: the ones that determine our sovereignty and security and identity as a nation, the ones that are supposed to let us decide who enters our borders and who does not, for how long and under what conditions. And you want us to not only let them off scot-free for it, but reward them for it with a "path to citizenship"! Why are we conservatives the only ones who see something horribly wrong with this picture?

And don't you dare try telling me we don't have the manpower to round up all these lawbreakers and send them back whence they came. If we have hundreds of thousands of people to send into a Mideastern country to depose a ruler we don't like and then to quell the resulting internal strife, we certainly could recall all or most of them, along with many other military assigned to foreign lands, and put them to work finding and jailing illegals. We should be more worried about our own security than Iraq's, anyhow. Between our military and the high technology for border security now available, it should be entirely doable to secure our borders completely and permanently.

Our borders must be secure. Our laws must be respected. We should not be in the business of providing a solution to other countries' economic problems. And anyone living in this country must be able to show documented proof that they belong here, or be deported—period. No other policy is conducive to our very survival as a nation and a culture.

So...responses?

Comments

[scruffycritter.livejournal.com]

Speaking strictly to the economics:

We have labor shortages here, and they have unemployment there. They fill a need we have. If we didn't need them, they wouldn't have reason to come here.

The problem really is all that simple, and because of that it makes me question to motives of the border enforcement crowd.

Spending money on "protecting the border" to prevent illegals from coming is like trying to caulk all of your walls to prevent roaches coming into your apartment. The answer is clean up the place and take away the incentive for them to come.

Want to fix the problem? Fine the businesses hiring these folks. Make it not cost-effective to give illegals work. They'll quit coming for jobs. Then the effort we put out to keep 9-11 hijackers away might be cost effective.

If the counter-argument to fining businesses is "But that would hurt the economy" than we *should* be looking at letting people in legally to do the work. It's a statement that our immigration numbers are flawed and that is the real issue that needs to be addressed.

Truth be told though, if I had to choose who to let in: I think the person whose willing to indebt himself to a Coyote to reshingle my house IS a worthy person to come here. Or at least more suitable than someone who overstays his student visa to attend flight school.

I've never met anyone who could say, "I was up for a job but they gave it to some wetback instead". When I find one, I might believe there's an economic threat from these folks. Since there's not, we need to get zen with what we're already doing and allow the people our economy needs in. And quit screaming that our laws need to be enforced because if they were, we'd all suffer.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

The bottom line is that setting a low limit for legal immigration (to satisfy labor interests who want to keep wages up and nativists who don't want lots of furriners coming in) and then not enforcing it (to satisfy business interests who want cheap labor and already-here friends and relatives of the people who want in) is pure political weaselry.

Until a critical mass of politicians develop the spine to decide that one or the other is more important and make the de facto and de jure policies agree with each other, that's the situation we're stuck with. I'm not holding my breath on that.

[scruffycritter.livejournal.com]

Amen.

Reality Check and Ideology

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Fact: We got 12 million people here. The idea that we ship them all home is ridiculous. Never mind what it would cost -- and by cost I include the fact that these 12 million have produced a significant number of American citizen babies whom we cannot deport and therefore would need to raise ourselves, sans parents. Now lets throw in he impact on our economy of suddenly losing that labor pool. It's that wages would jump. Its that we would have ahuge hole in our workforce in which the legal labor market is already tight.

You up for that tax increase to pay for enforcement? You up for actually enforcing the law against Wal*Mart and other employers? (well, I am for that last, but the Tancredo's of the world aren't.) You up for paying the extra money in increased cost of living.

As for using the army to hunt 12 million people down: I shall leave aside pose comitas laws for a moment to observe that we can't track down armed insurgentds in Iraq. This same army is going magically become the slueth team that rounds up 12 million people?

Yes, they broke the law. So? Reality is still there. I'm sorry. When enough people break the law, the law is gone. Poof. Because enforcing it is no longer feasible.

Plus, I shall observe that people are never consistent on this "rules are rules" crap. There is always proportionality and adjustments for reality. Do we take away someone's drivers license because they were 5 miles over the speed limit? ten? Heck, usually we require multiple offenses or very high speed. But all speeders "broke the law." Why not stick it to them equally?

Because our application of the law is nuanced, and influenced by reality.

Ideologically, for me, I regard all those who wish to come to America as my ancestors did and build a new life here as my fellow citizens: far more so than the folks who want to turn my country into a theocratic dictatorship or who cannot be troubled to participate and do their duties as citizens.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

You want to chuck all the illegal immigrants, start with the descendants of the folks who came in on the Mayflower (and equivalently early non-native Americans). Oh, I'm sorry -- do only white men's rules count? How convenient.

As others have said, the best route to enforcement of actual existing immigration laws is economic: make it impossible for employers to benefit from exploiting illegal immigrants. And be damned sure that your enforcement is against ALL illegals, not just the ones whose skin color is more from melanin than those whose aren't. (Say, the ones who happen to become engineers and doctors. They're fewer, but there are still a number of them.)

Secure borders have always been a joke; there has always been illegal immigration, and it's benefited the country as they and their descendants worked hard to get the better life they came for -- in contrast to the often bigoted, lazy folks who already had those things. If you want secure borders, try China or some other nondemocratic tyranny. I hear the technology developed here is doing a great job of sealing them off.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

do only white men's rules count? How convenient.

Nah, you'll find plenty of African Americans and Asians who are down on immigration reform. It's about closing the door after I get in.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Granted, the attitude is not limited to any one racial group or ethnicity. I was trying to suggest that any European, African, or Asian immigrant may be considered to be here on questionable grounds.

As the descendant of illegal immigrants, I believe that an influx of new blood is a good thing for a country, and attempts to lock the door or to bar those already here from achieving citizenship are both futile and counterproductive. (How many of those who most vehemently urge border fences and barbed/electrified wire could pass a naturalization exam? I'd bet the number is far fewer than those who come here actively seeking better opportunities.)

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Damn! You want to put me out of work, so close to my retirement? I spend the better part of my day helping folks with no social security numbers to apply for the minimal medical benefits the hospital I work for is willing to give them.

This line of argument reminds me of someone who turns on all the lights in the house at night, opens all the doors and windows, then complains there are too many moths.

Pretty much everything else that needs to be said has been said by others - except, perhaps, for mentions of the boatloads of Jews who escaped Nazi Germany, came to America, and were turned away and sent back home to die in concentration camps.

Never again!

[catalana.livejournal.com]

I think we have a problem with illegal immigrants, but I have no idea what to do about it. If we provided no social services, completely open borders wouldn't be a problem. However, since we do provide at least some social services, we cannot simply let anyone enter who wants to because we'd go bankrupt. How we manage to find a pathway between these two extremes, I have no idea. I suspect that whatever answer we find will be imperfect.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

However, since we do provide at least some social services, we cannot simply let anyone enter who wants to because we'd go bankrupt.

I've seen the econ analysis on this both ways. Economic systems are complex. Legal immigrants contribute to social security (which, we were told, was going to collapse any day now because we would have too many old people) and are subject to withholding. Social services are often provided at the local level, usually funded by things like sales tax (that everyone pays) or property tax (that only some citizens pay) as well as income tax (that some states don't have).

Complex systems usually defy straightforward analysis.

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

What on earth makes you think that following the rules will actually result in legal citizenship?

Do you scrupulously follow the letter of every single law of the US? Never gotten away with speeding?

What foreign country have you lived in lately, and how familiar are you with their legal structure? How many foreign languages do you speak, and how much time have you spent teaching English and immigration procedures to people attempting to apply legally? When you have been the problem, and participated in the solution, then I might consider you qualified to rant in this mannter.

How about a little less self-righteousness and a little more "there but for the grace of god go I?"

[cellio]

*Applause*

I have nothing against legal immigrants. I'm married to one, who is now a US citizen. I'm descended from immigrants (all of us non-natives are). I have many friends who have gone through the legal process to be here.

And you know what? I see them take crap for what their illegal brethren have done. Bah on that.

This is not about racism; I feel the same way about all illegals, my race and others. This is also not about "Americans first" nationalism. It's about the same law applying to everyone.

Yes, we have the fact on the ground of 12 million illegals here now. We can't round them all up and export them right now. But we can make it harder for them to hide here, and when we do find them we can ship them off. Incremental improvements.

By the way, if we have "jobs Americans won't do" and we also have people able to work (but not doing so) on welfare, well, there's an obvious connection to be made.

Let me throw out another idea: no automatic citizenship for anyone born here whose parents aren't here legally.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Actually, welfare is damn hard to get and damn hard to keep these days, thanks to the 1994 reforms. And a fair amount of those are meth heads in the "heartland".

[scruffycritter.livejournal.com]

Actually it only looks like an obvious connection.

To see what I mean, let me ask you who would you want installing the gutters on your house:

A) The guy who traveled hundreds if not thousands of miles and risked his life for the opportunity to just to be able to give his family a better life.

or

B) The guy lived here all his life, went to schools on our dime, but didn't care and had no work ethic, and so actually had be forced into taking a job doing industrial labor??

Maybe you don't have a problem with the color of their skin, but won't believe we are serious about the "illegal immigration" problem until we severely punish people who employ them. That would fix the problem, but nobody wants to do it. "Protecting the border" and not punishing the employers is every bit as effective as trying to keep out roaches by caulking the walls and leaving your trash to pile up.

[cellio]

Most of the jobs I've seen cited as "jobs Americans won't do" are not nearly so appealing as home repair. It's usually crop-picking, trash-handling/janitorial, and stuff like that.

It's an interesting question, though: what are the jobs that employers say they "have" to hire illegals for? Is there data?

And by the way, I'm fully behind fining employers who know or should have known that they hired illegals. (If the illegal committed fraud convincingly, that's different.)

[scruffycritter.livejournal.com]

Yeah it is an interesting question. My gut says it's not the trash-handling, janitorial stuff they come here for. If a job pays so little up here that one won't have money to send home, there is no point coming here to take it. I really don't see that many hispanics working at my local Chik-Fil-A.

When I think of the "typical" job for an illegal immigrant male, it's day labor: Construction Helpers, etc. Essentially, skilled and semi-skilled labor pays MUCH BETTER here than it does there and there is a shortage of people willing/able to do it. And since whoever can bid the job cheapest wins...

Female: Nannies and Housekeepers. Those are classics. We'd be jailing the rich people who employ them. We simply cannot have that.

And there is also Farm Labor. Typically harvesting jobs which are seasonal and that means you travel a good deal depending on which fruit or vegetable is due to be picked so it's not an easy job to have if you want to stay in one place. There's a reason they are called "Migrant Farm Workers".

I don't know how you could make the Lazy American Welfare Recipient(tm) do any of those jobs...certainly not the last if he has kids.