May 30 2006
Conservatives Don’t Get It On Immigration
I have read all across the major conservative sites where people say we cannot have an comprehensive bill on immigration (i.e., expand the guest worker program and document the immigrant workers) because it is not where ‘the people’ are. That’s a hoot. It is were most of us our except the far right conservatives. Check out this reasoning from John McIntyre at RCP (someone I admire a great deal):
This is a critical juncture for the GOP on illegal immigration and how to fashion a comprehensive solution to the broader immigration debate. … This past weekend two beltway icons, David Broder on Meet the Press and Bill Kristol on FOX News Sunday, encapsulated the conventional wisdom by saying President Bush would benefit from passing a comprehensive reform bill. They are wrong – especially if we are talking about any compromise that looks remotely like the Senate bill that passed with 85% Democratic support over the objections of nearly 2/3rd of Senate Republicans. Kristol, Broder and the majority of establishment intelligentsia don’t appreciate the political dynamics at play in the broad middle of the country.
Actually they do. The broad middle is not ready to make felons out of people who work for a living. I live in Herndon, ground zero in this debate. The issue of illegal immigrants is hot here ever since the town council decided to create a magnet for day workers to hang out and find work. The problem was unemployed people massing in large numbers near neighborhoods where they would just hang out all day. They never addressed that with the day worker center – they just moved it from one place to the other. That is not a guest worker program! Note that these people are not working and that is the problem. And yes, do not use our tax dollars to promote illegal acts. That was adding insult to injury.
You will find large group houses in our neighborhoods that violate our neighborhood bylaws and have traffic in and out of them 24 x 7. It takes months to get rid of the excess people if they want to stay in the house. This is also not a guest worker program. These people need to follow our by-laws and stop overcrowding rentals.
On the flip side, there are many immigrant families who work hard and live in the area and are our neighbors. No one is ready to see them rounded up out of their homes and schools. No one. There are problems, but we don’t want the Police State to come in fully armed and threatening to deal with them at gunpoint. We want a better solution. We want a comprehensive solution.
The ‘middle of America’ is much more sophisticated than people realize. Check out these poll numbers:
Dowd’s memo says that an internal RNC poll conducted by Jan Van Louhuzen finds that “overwhelming support exists for a temporary worker program. 80% of all voters, 83% of Republicans, and 79% of self-identified conservatives support a temporary worker program as long as immigrants pay taxes and obey the law.”
There is no way 20% of the people on the right make up the American Middle. What conservatives risk is alienating the 80% who don’t just oppose their ideas, they viscerally despise them and how they have been communicated (the old ‘you are with us or you are scum’ approach). The overheated rhetoric took a really nasty idea like deportation and just made it even uglier.
McIntyre is right, this needs to be handled carefully else all the trust that has been built up over the years convincing people conservatism is not some mean, heartless, ugly variation on the Nazi’s (the favorite spin of liberals) will be lost.
There is a quiet rage building among average middle class folks on the illegal immigration issue, and if the Republican leadership doesn’t take control of the problem very soon they will allow the more extremist wings of the anti-immigration debate to become the face of the Republican party on immigration.
Actually, that has already happened. And it is working against the Republicans and Conservatives. Right now I oppose any idea of rounding up people at gunpoint and deporting them so much I would – easily and without a second thought – work to tear down the Republican majorities to avoid that policy.
The Miers fiasco was an early indication of the dark side of conservative mob-think. It was all kicked off by David Frum at National Review who clearly had a personal ax to grind against Ms Miers, and a lot of people blindly played along in his vendetta. But Frum’s vendetta would never change the face of America.
The Dubai ports fiasco was also driven by fear and ignorance – but this time it was more than someone’s personal issues. We successfully insulted the best ally we have in the Middle East and spurned a country that was willing to pay for the installation and use of the most sophisticated cargo screening systems at their ports world wide. That would have meant goods coming here would be checked prior to leaving the foreign port. That PR disaster pretty much convinced me the conservative movement had run out of gas and was flailing around trying to find something relevant and big to debate. And it came very close to impacting us as a nation.
How we treat immigrants (and people in general) is another thing all together. That is the essence of America. It has been our edge and superiority over the rest of the world. We did not treat people differently based on nationality or culture. American’s also never used laws about simple paperwork to disrupt peoples’ lives. It takes massive fraud for these so called ‘white collar’ crimes to invoke jail time.
Libertarian conservatives, in the old days, would never reach for a silly number pulled out of Congress’ wide posterior to be the basis to brow beat and harrass people. The difference between a legal guest worker and illegal one is where they were in the line to get permission to come here. Congress thinks up some number each year, based on absolutely nothing, and declares that the number of immigrant workers we need each year, all year. It is abritrary and, like most things out of Congress, totally irrelevant to reality. That number separates a person working to raise a family from his neighbor – nothing more. That is the basis for be called a law breaker.
That is like saying the first 50 people who speed by a radar trap will be allowed to go free and the remaining will be ticketed to the fullest extent of the law. The same actions are legal for those under the number and illegal for those over it. And I cannot for the life of me find any reason to deport (or harrass people to the point they are forced to leave) someone based on such a ludicrous thing as this number.
The American people understand there is no simple, magic-bullet solution. Conservatives would be wise to stop trying to convince us there is. At this point, I am wondering what other descriptive term I can use to describe my political views, since Rep and Con are becoming so tainted that I find it harder and harder to identify myself that way.
I have shunned becoming a Republican (again). Reagan and Bush nearly got me to join up. The loud mouths in their parties reminded me why I refute partisanship. The ‘follow or else’ mentality in both parties is completely un-American. America was supposed to be about ‘work together and find a solution’. But cons are now worried that Bush has found some Democratic supporters for his immigration plan. If Democratic support is all the conservatives have to wail against, then (a) they are completely out of arguments on the policy and (b) they are heading down the wrong path with Americans. Democratic support is no more wrong than Republican support. It was OK when we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
America deserves a comprehensive solution to a very complex problem which has been simmering for decades. We do not deserve arguments like ‘this cannot be right because they are for it more than we are’. We deserve much better than that and we are waiting to see if anyone can deliver.
Terrye, what you don’t seem to understand is that no one wants them “rounded up at the point of a gun and put on Nazi styled cattle cars and shipped out”. But that is the rhetoric that some use to make us who believe in the rule of law look bad.
What we do want are immigrants that respect our laws and want to be a contributing factor to our society, not a social drain. And we want Mexico to clean it’s own house, creating a society where it’s citizens can earn a living and not have to leave their native land. But corruption reigns in Mexico and hence, they export their own and import cheaper labor from Central America.
Do you think Mexico is providing those Central Americans with education for their children, free medical care, Social Security benefits?
If this Senate bill fails, we will not be left with nothing. We will still have our original laws, WHICH HAVE NEVER BEEN ENFORCED AFTER WE WERE PROMISED IN 1986 THAT THEY WOULD BE.
Are you even aware that most Mexicans who come here illegally had jobs in Mexico?
Perhaps it is you who is smoking something you shouldn’t be. God knows, there is enough of the stuff coming across our southern border.
So forging paperwork is not a serious crime? Forging Drivers Licenses and Social Security cards no big deal…??? Employers driving legal Americans out of jobs because illegals are much lower priced …no big deal? Deal with it…?
You are extreme in the view working for living without all the proper paper work is a serious crime verses a misdemeanor. Deal with it.
That is hilarious…
Some of you quoting polls might want to consider that Rep Chris Shays is quoted as wondering who those pollsters are polling since when he went back to his constituents in the last break they were absolutely up in arms about the President’s proposed amnesty. I guess that Rep Shays is a far right wacko?? hehe…
Its also fun to see that name calling is still going on strong. Don’t deal with the message, attack the Messenger. Y’all declare yourselves moderates…your tactics resemble leftists.
But you are a good example of people who do not.
Left by Terrye on May 30th, 2006
Strange, in that I am almost 100% in agreement with everything you say. So what exactly did I say that you disagreed with. But I will point out that in that particular case, Snow was wrong. I believe if you check out the facts you will see that it is, in fact, a felony punishable by a $5000 fine.
Oh for heavens sake.
People are talking past each other.
Meanwhile the socialists in Mexico are making gains. Now…. right now, I am more concerned about a Hugo Chavez wannabe in Mexico than I am with Mexican roofers and landscapers. Yes, I want to see a compromise bill and tougher enforcement and a wall…but in and of itself such measures will not solve the problem and attacking everyone who fails to see the issue the same way you do will only alienate people. I have heard and read some things from the right that just plain give me the willies lately.
You know when that little boy was returned to his Cuban father the right wing went ballistic. The fact that his mother was trying to enter the country illegally was beside the point. Fidel is a commie and that made all the difference.
Well what will the response be if the same kind of people taking control in Bolivia take control in Mexico? Do we want an overtly hostile neighbor who with another overtly hostile neighbor is right on our border and who another overtly hostile Latin country controls about a third of our oil? Do we want to make this worse than it has to be? Fox might be a less than desirable neighbor but he is not Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro.
Say you just build a wall and hire more agents…well without additional detention facilities what good will more agents do? And if we do need some additional labor and people are willing to hire them in a way that complies with the law what is the harm in a guest worker program? Wouldn’t that just help take pressure off the border?
I [unlike some people] am not a fanatic about this. I just want a compromise that we can all live with so that we can move on. I am sick to death of the debate to be honest.
But I honestly believe that this is hurting conservatives in a country where most people do not view themselves as conservatives and I think that if people see families seperated and working people arrested etc on the news it will turn them off big time. That does not mean I don’t respect the law.
Sometimes discretion really is the better part of valor.
[Comment ID #12191 Will Be Quoted Here]
AJ, what did I say that was uncivil, in fact I usually bend over backward to be kind. All I ask you or anyone else to do is, provide a link. I’m gonna assume that you can’t provide one. By the way, if you question something I say, let me know what it is and I WILL provide you with a link.
I don’t believe that challenging what someone says is being personal,
But let me be the first to apologize if I offended someone by being personal.
Geez Enforcement, go back and read your posts! This is the last time I am going to take time out of my schedule to deal with your issues. You wrote:
“Anyone that knows what is in the bill would, assuming they have more than one brain cell, vote against it.”
Are we done now?
I will point out that I understand what the word comprehensive means and I fully understand that calling the senate bill comprehensive don’t make it so.
As I said before, it has a one pronged approach, make illegals, legal. It doesn’t provide for improved border security, it only says it will hire more agents and put up a little fence, it says nothing about stopping illegals. I doesn’t provide for any enforcement on illegal employment. Link me to that provision if you can. I am not on the angry right, I am conservative and I sure don’t buy any of Buchanan’s baloney. I only want to stop illegals from coming in. I don’t care if we deport any or not. I will point out that when I question something I just ask for proof, just by a link, I notice that you don’t bother providing any. There does seem to be a lot of unnecessary personal attacks on the comment line but I don’t believe you can show where I have been guilty of that. By the way, I prefer not to be banned from any site, but if you feel that it will sufficiently stifle disagreement with your opinions, feel free.
Conservatives DO GET IT!
The elitists and open borders crowd inside the beltway do not.
The overwhelming majority of law abiding Americans get it too.
The swarm of foreign workers is undermining the quality of our life and severly straining our social services and public benefits.
Conservatives want the border secured and the existing laws enforced. If the border was actually secured from illegal entry into this country and the existing laws were actually enforced, then we would not have the gigantic problem that we have today. It is the lack of any barrier to entry and failure to enforce the rules taht have created this big magnet.
Conservatives fundamentally believe in the rule of law and limited government. The Senate’s so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act greatly expands the government welfare state and undermines the rule of law, and will naturally be opposed by conservatives. Aside from the forgiveness of 79 different violations of Federal law contained in the Senate bill, from forgery and identity theft to alien smuggling and tax fraud, and the bill actually creates a whole new protected class for affirmative action and prevailing wages with Earned Income Tax Credits , social security and US citizenship without any real cost to the illegal aliens.
The illegal immigration problem has been building for many years and the Senate bill does not solve the problem whatsoever, it will only make matters far worse than they have ever been.
Ask yourself why are we even debating or discussing the illegal immigration issue? Beacuse, the problem has become so great that it is affecting nearly every region of the country, not just the border states any longer. This issue is being driven by the people, not the politicians.
There is no doubt that the issue is very complicated with many different constituencies, but the Senate “amnesty” bill is definitely the wrong approach. It will take time to solve this problem, but it can be done.
What is really so wrong with deportation? If someone has failed to obey a lawful deportation order, should they be rewarded with getting to stay in the country longer, while a lawful applicant for residency is denied entry into the country. I’m sure that they want to work here too, but they are following the rules and cannot get in legally.
You don’t have storm the barrios and migrant shanty-towns with National Guard to begin deport undocumented workers. If the existing laws are enforced with employers, the border secured from entry, and local law enforcement officers are required to detain illegal aliens and turn them over to ICE/INS rather than just let them go, then over time the numbers will attrit downward over time to manageable levels.
As I have said before.
First, secure the border with a real fence and barriers to prevent unauthorized entry in the country.
Second, enforce the existing immigration and employment laws and institute new measures to strengthen internal enforcement by requiring ALL local to detain illegal aliens.
Then once the border is secured, you can begin to implement a TEMPORARY guest work program with no earned citizenship.
Big business and small business owners want and need the cheap low cost labor provided by the poor, uneducated, illiterate masses of low skilled foreign workers. If these are jobs that Americans are really not willing to accept then employers should have to prove it by advertising for workers, and when it is demonstrated that an insufficient number of domestic workers are available to fill the positions, then the firms may be allowed to bring foreign workers in for a limited time frame. A system can be set up to screen for health issues and criminal backgrounds. The government must be able to control the number of foreign workers and who is able to legally enter the country to work. The employers must be responsible for the costs of providing public services to these workers requires by abdiing by all state and Federal labor laws and collecting all applicable taxes, and charges. As long as the temporary time frame is limited to no more than two years and no more than six cumulative years, and the foreign workers are not eligible for social security, EITC, welfare, food stamps, or in-state tution, then the bill can enjoy broad support with the conservative base, and big business.
Conservatives do get it!! It’s not difficult to understand.
You know what is funny about all this talk of rounding up all these poor defensive people.
That is how it is done in Mexico.
Why can’t we just duplicate their system
Well since I need a job I will do it and provide my own Gun if that is OK with you folks. But be rest assured they are well armed too.
We do get it AJ and I wish you would stop calling us idiots. blind, foolish, xenophobic.
You can tell us we are wrong, where we are wrong but please leave out the names.
I have said it before and will again.
I think you and your allies care more about the Aliens wishes than your fellow Americans.
Watching some of your fanboys AJ makes me jealous but hey enjoy it.
What should come first.
Sorry it’s not Mexico.
Last where is it written that they( Mexicans) should be all the immigrants?
There mere fact that we are allowing them to be the majority who comes here itself belies the fact it is not about immigration.
I am sorry you want to bring in you Filipino Grandma Too bad our quota is filled.
Hey maybe you can sneak her in.
Spartan,
Please show me where I called people who oppose a guest worker program “idiots, blind, xenophobic”. You have me confused with someone else. Blinded by hate and emotion? Yeah I could see that applying.
Well, it was the station at 1220 AM in the San Francisco Bay area. The time was a little after 11AM the host was not the usual host, was a guest host … first name Lawrence, didn’t catch the last name. I don’t generally listen to that station at that hour so I was not familiar with the show. I generally listen to Hugh Hewitt on the way home on that station.
But why would I have reason not to tell the truth? I resent your implication. Do you have any reason to doubt my integrity? Is it simply because I disagree with your view? You know, in my life experiance, when someone accuses someone they don’t know of something without any evidence, it is generally because they themselves would do the same thing and therefore expect others to.
Crosspatch:
But why would I have reason not to tell the truth? I resent your implication. Do you have any reason to doubt my integrity? Is it simply because I disagree with your view? You know, in my life experiance, when someone accuses someone they don’t know of something without any evidence, it is generally because they themselves would do the same thing and therefore expect others to
Don’t even know you, so know nothing about your integrity. However let me point out that you didn’t tell even one thing that he said was in it that you said wasn’t. As I said, all the things that conservatives wanted in, got took out, so why would he be saying they were put back in. I just say that don’t make any sense. So just for the heck of it, tell me one thing he was saying was in it that you know was defeated that was something that a conservative wouldn’t want in it. Remember this is a liberal bill, the conservative amendments were the ones that got defeated, so why would he be saying they were in there? You don’t even know his name but you know he is a conservative talk show host? hmmm. I notice you got quickly off the subject and went straight to name calling.
It’s interesting to me that the no-amnesty-ever crowd has so far not had much to say (at least that I’ve seen) about the possibility of the Mexicans electing this Chavez clone to replace Vicente Fox. The fact that this possibility is one of the balls that President Bush has to keep in the air in his complicated immigration juggling act prevents me from blaming Bush very much for the immigration mess.
What disturbs me about the reaction of some on the Right is their apparent implacability on this issue. I would have thought that, in politics in a republic like ours, you can’t afford to be implacable about an issue, because you sometimes — make that often — have to make deals with people who do not share your principles in order to get anything done, because you can’t just impose your solution on everybody else, even if it’s a good solution, even if it’s the only solution that makes sense. But I guess when frustration reaches the boiling point, this kind of calculation goes out the window and impatience takes over.
AJ, Thanks for promoting rational discussion.
“Conservatives” are not monolithic. We have our differences and areas of agreement. Immigration illustrates our differences. If we don’t work out our differences, we will pay a heavy price.
I offer the following:
• Immigration is more of an economic problem than a police problem. The solution must include an economic component.
• Modern technology improves the registration and tracking possibilities over the 1986 solution.
• We spend too much time parsing words like “amnesty” and “illegal” ie. (What part of “illegal” don’t you understand?) and too much time feeling “betrayed” instead of advancing workable ideas that aren’t limited to single idea slogans.
•Isn’t the northern border more of a security threat with the greater number of Muslims residing in Canada?
I have looked around recently and only have seen a handful of congressmen even acknowledging that they are hearing from thier voters on this issue. I compare this to many breathlessly running to the podiums to hold press briefings in the Dubai Ports situation about voter reaction. If you read most of the way vast numbers of representatives are on cruise control, it means they must be deleting all that spam in thier inbox or just ignoring the uproar this must be causing. No agenda here, just observing an unexplainable lack of concern by many members. Too many are acting like this has equivalent import to a modification to dmv administrative requirements. It just doesn’t jive.
Sure I may have missed some of it , I can’t be everywhere, but what I have seen, somehow doesn’t fit what I would expect to see.
“Immigration is more of an economic problem than a police problem”
Perhaps you have never heard of MS-13. MS-13 is mostly illegals (95%) from El Salvador. The estimated gang membership is upwards of 10,000 in the United State and these gang members make the Mafia of Al Capone look like Scout Leaders.
And while illegals represent 5% of our national population, they represent 29% of the federal prison population and as much as 50% of the population of some state prisons. I guess that blows the theory that they are all just here to provide for their families.
The Muslim factor in Canada is becoming a problem. Canada has really lax immigration laws, and the ones they have are not enforced any more than ours. Canada has the attitude “we are wonderful people and no one would want to hurt us” but they are beginning to see what they have reaped.
And yes, Mexico currently has a presidential candidate that is a advocate of Hugo Chavez and a true Marxist. But from all I read, he has little change of winning over Fox’s party.
What the proponents of the Senate bill do not understand is that it will change NOTHING. #l, how is the Senate going to pay for what they want? The bill is not worth the paper it is written on if it is not funded, which it is not.
Excuse me, where did I call anyone a name?
Here’s my overall solution to the problem that would fix things for at least 100 years. Allow Mexico to annex the US. Problem solved. We would have more votes so we would run things anyway and the border at Guatemala is a lot shorter. Then in 100 years or so we could allow Canada to annex us, we change our name to North America, we have no Northern border to worry about, a much smaller Southern border and there you have it!
Of course that solution is way too “out of the box” to be considered seriously. I am being sarcasting but allowing Mexico to annex us gets rid of the “reconquista” issue forever. So, they annex us, we elect George Bush president and things continue along after we play serious havoc with some drug cartels.
Uhm, sarcastic … geez, the speller is giving out at it’s not even 7pm.
You know, in my life experiance, when someone accuses someone they don’t know of something without any evidence, it is generally because they themselves would do the same thing and therefore expect others to.
That I would put in the name calling category.
I notice you still didn’t say what the Radio guy was saying that was in there that you disagreed with. That’s what I meant when I said you got off the subject. Come on, tell me what conservative amendment that got turned down did he say was in there?
I do believe from your argument that you do have integrity, you just used something to make a point with that wasn’t the right thing for you to use.
Because as soon as he started saying that the originally proposed immigration quotas and increases thereof were in the bill when I knew the ammendment had been, uhm, ammended, I knew that either he had no clue what he was talking about or he was intentionally attempting to mislead people about the true content of the bill and at that point I realized it was a waste of time listening to him. Anything else I happened to hear was as I was making a left at the light while at the same time fumbling for the “off” switch on the radio.
And name calling generally involves calling someone a name … such as “knucklehead” or “imbecile” or something like that. I made no such references.