Sep 30 2006
Deport Violent Illegal and Guest Aliens
As many know I am for the comprehensive bills on immigration reform. The naive idea held by much of the conservative chattering class that a fence will suffice only affirms the idea conservatives are not perfect. I am also for less strident punishments for those aliens who have come here, set up roots and been law abiding members of their communities. We do not send people to jail or confiscate their property or boot them into the street for not providing the government all the proper permission forms, so not have a work permit to live a good life here in our midst is not a felony. The fact someone might earn citizenship in ten years (after everyone else in line has a shot, plus background checks, training in English and paying all taxes due) is doesn unnerve me.
But all that aside, those conervatives who are agitated about illegal immigration have one reasonable point – violent illegal aliens. The ones not here to make a good living. The predators and hardened criminals. Here I join chorus with the broader anconservative population. And I go one further. Whether an alien is here legally or illegally, violent criminal behavior is sufficient to get the boot and to never come back. While the immigrant who wants to be a valued part of our community is welcomed, the criminal is not. And I have long advocated a one-strike-your-out approach to this problem. Now we see the Feds taking a stand using current laws to and process them out of here. That is good news and much more important than a fence. Fences keep people in as well as out. BTW, I hail from Herndon, VA which is on the front line of trying to balance support for new arrivals with a crackdown on bad behavior. People need to keep the two issues distinct. Being an alien actually implies a higher probability of being a good, law abiding, productive neighbor. And we all know violent behavior is not limited to aliens.
But wasn’t their first act on American Soil to break our Immigration laws?
Do you find them Assimilating well?
Do you see the articles on how their Anchor Babies are bankrupting hospitals all across the south?
Do you see the articles on the garbage and environmental damage they are causing across the South West?
Have you seen percentages of them in our Federal, State, County, and City prisons?
Did you know that 78% of Hispanics are un-insured?
How many of these do you think are illegal?
I’d bet the vast majority.
Have you seen the articles on how they drive downwages in areas where they have invaded?
Do you realize that in Los Angeles County over 90% of the outstanding warrents are for Illegal Aliens?
I know you say deport the criminals, but frankly, they all are criminals by defenition.
I’m not a big Pat Buchanan fan, but I must say, his new book State Of Emergency should be required reading for every legal American. It is as much a History lesson as an immigration book. I would encourage your faithfull readers to read it, as well as yourself. Also a good article from today:
Twist-Tied in L.A.
A confounding alliance of unions and illegal immigrants.
By Bridget Johnson
I think it was in National Review.
I love your writing on so many topics. This just isn’t one of them.
Illegals have driven Black Americans out of many areas, and many jobs. Especially in L.A. There is a great chapter on just this in the book: Fighting Immigration Anarchy by Daniel Sheehy.
In the book: Whatever it Takes by J.D. Hayworth in the start of Chapter 1 there is this quote:
” The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion.”
United States Constitution, Article IV, Section 4. Clearly, our Government is derelict in it’s #1 Duty.
I just wish more Americans understood this.
Do you ever read any Immigration Books that deal with this invasion?
I was surprised that there wer no comments when I saw this this morning. Then I checked back this afternoon, and still nothing. Not even enforcement guy! So, I figured someone has to say something! Might as well be me!
The Houston Chronical had a good piece this past week on the effects of the Illegals on Houston Hospitals. It was not a favorable article!
But hey, let them stay here, bankrupt our hospitals, crowd our prisons, use our welfare programs, drive drunk and kill our citizens, take the job’s “Americans Wont Do” ( at low wages) and in 10 years all will be fine when they become respectable citizens coming from the back of the line, of course.
Frankly, I don’t see most Third World folks, legal or Illegal, Assimilating as well as First World immigrants from generations ago. It seems to me most don’t come here to be Americans per say, they come here for purely economic reasons. Then send as much as they can back home. While I certainly understand wanting to come here for economic reasons, I’d prefer people coming here because first and foremost, because they want to become Americans. I want Immigrants to come here and EMBACE our Culture, Our Values, Our History. Frankly, I just don’t see this much any more. They demand their “Rights”, but as Illegals, just what “Rights” do they have under our laws? I see them protesting in our street waving Flags from their home Countries. I see most of them not even trying to learn our language. And frankly, why bother. Everywhere I go, Spanish is offered! I’m sick of the whole situation.
Enjoy your day.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4209908.html
Very good article. A snippet:
An estimated 70 percent to 80 percent of the 10,587 births at Ben Taub General Hospital and Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital last year were to undocumented immigrants, administrators say.
“The word is out: Come to Starr County and get delivered for free. Why pay $1,000 in Mexico when you can get it for free?”
Unfortunately, doctors say, Starr County isn’t alone.
”Our little snapshot is duplicated in all the municipalities between here and California,” said Tony Falcon, a Rio Grande City physician who was appointed to the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission in April. ”What you see here is what is happening in Brownsville, McAllen, El Paso and San Diego.”
Starr County Memorial Hospital had $3.6 million in uncollected medical bills in 2005, up from $1.5 million in 2002. The total when fiscal 2006 ends on Sept. 30 is expected to hit $3.9 million, chief financial officer Rafael Olivarez said. Unpaid bills for the past five years will reach nearly $13 million, he said.
To make up for the shortfall, Starr County’s hospital district is proposing a 25 percent tax hike.
Hey, why not tax the Legal Citizens more to pay for more Illegal Activity?
I’ve used enough of your Bandwidth. Enjoy your day.
Aj:
I agree.
I am not surprised the fence bill passed because both sides of the debate overwhelmingly support it. The debate is about the rest of the immigration system, which is broken and needs fixed. I think that hardliners made this more difficult than it had to be by trying to make illegal immigration a felony without giving a thought to what that really meant.
There should be a way that reasonable people can compromise on this.
BTW, this fence still will only stop half the illegals. For awhile anyway. maybe.
http://amren.com/
go to just released report on Hispanics to se why AJ’s remark that immigrants are more likely to be good citizens just doesn’t apply here.
Question is, does he realize it or is he playing politics, as in his
ridiculous “life and death” struggle with Islam proclamations?
The fence will help. It will keep not only the people deported before but new people out. We could not possibly do anything with no fence, though who knows when it will be built. The government moves slowly. But we could start deporting people, starting with the ones who came this year. It doesn’t have to be a mass deportation. Tell them to leave and if they don’t, then they really have committed a crime. When the fence is built, we will have the leisure to deport slowly. I am with Stevevvs on this. A good many of these people don’t want to become Americans, they just want the money they can earn and the free benefits they can get in this country. And, contrary to what some people think, they do take jobs away from Americans if only because they are willing to work so hard. Americans need to get out of this idea that the government owes them anything. In my life, I have always owed the government, not vice versa.
STEVEVVS:
“I was surprised that there wer no comments when I saw this this morning. Then I checked back this afternoon, and still nothing. Not even enforcement guy!”
I wanted to comment, but my position( For Enforcement) is well known and I’ve said too much in the past, and made a lot of people mad, and it’s just not worth it. Nothing anyone says is going to change anyone else’s opinion.
Just one comment tho. The comprehensive bill itself, in determining who could become citizens on background checks, now get this:”ALLOWS THEM TO HAVE ONE FELONY AND 3 MISDEMEANORS”
Now how is that for allowing ONLY law abiding people in?
Anyhow, I’m gonna stay out of this and let others do all the agreeing or disagreeing.
It is an important subject.
Ken,
you are deserting the left wingers on this issue?
They and the French are for illegal immigrants, that’s your side, didn’t you recognize it?
Why am I not surprised?
Give Jacque our regards.
AJ,
Another good post. The strength of conservatives is that they can engage in rational discourse.
I think that a “border only” solution is too simplistic. Immigration needs a complete overhaul that includes high tech documentation, screening to deselect criminals, a workable database instantly accessible to employers, and an intelligent screening of those already here.
We need guest workers. To deny this is to deny demographics and economics.
We need those already here and a part of the fabric of society.
We need modern processing and identification.
Without these, a fence will be false security at a high price.
I agree with For Enforcement, that it is crucial to get the legal language right. And I agree with Terrye that felonizing simple entry was foolish. That put simply “being here” on the same level as violent crime.
Stevevvs,
I think your sources are inflammatory. Buchanan is irrational on this issue.
See Linda Chavez re: hispanic criminality:
Linda Chavez
We all want them to assimilate. I think they are. That’s what I see. And by the third generation, English is their primary language.
By including them in the system, they could contribute to the services they use. Already, they contribute to SS and don’t get a pension.
as a proud member of the “fence first” crowd i won’t break out the bubbly until i actually see the fence completed. the folks who have taken the time to read my posts here and at other sites know i’m much more liberal than most when it comes to illegal immigration—but only if a fence is built first. all solutions are only possible if there is a barrier. the senate compromise, as predicted, was a canard created by folks who wanted the border left open. sure they included a fence proposal but it was with a wink and nod as it had been in all previous immigration acts over the past 40 years. everyone knew it would never get built, meanwhile all the other proposals would, leaving us with 25 million illegals in 15 years. people like myself accurately predicted it would never see the light of day. you can only be fooled and lied to so many times.
here’s a easy prediction–if this is the fence that gets built
http://www.weneedafence.com/images/Fence_Idea.jpg
there will not be any illegals coming thru the 700 miles where it stands.
once a border fence is completed we will have a restraint against which we can enforce assimilation laws etc. the marketplace will take care of the employment issues once the river of cheap labor dries up. i think the average american will be very surprised by how efficiently the marketplace resolves so many of the problems that politiicans create and then pretend to solve.
the biggest upside—from an earlier post last may at captains quarters
“with all the talk of reasons, approaches, new rules, clamp downs, worker enforcements, etc it’s easy to forget the mexico is part of the problem and the solution. there are many reasons why i support a fence and citizenship for every current illegal via a ten year green card. however i won’t bore you with those details again. i think i have already written a small book. but i will say, i am very confident, that after the requisite dance of the cranes, a fence and a ten year green card will be the back door compromise with very little workplace law enforcement–we are not going to create millions of unemployed. having said what we want–below is why we have to close the border for the benefit of mexico. if you truly respect and embrace mexican ways and culture we have to close the border immediately.
this was the final paragraph in my long rant i posted here and sent to our useless senators and congress people along with many columnists at the end of march:
“and finally to the race baiters’……
the “fence†sole purpose for existence is to secure the border from illegal immigration from primarily latin america. the fact that latin america is hispanic is strictly a coincidence. if canada was a third world country i would propose the same fence. for two hundred years we controlled immigration with quotas per immigrant group. i believe jimmy carter was the moron who changed this. the chief reason for quotas was for assimilation purposes–language, culture etc…. mexico encourages illegal immigration as an outlet so as to avoid the hard choices that it should be making to rectify a pathetic economic model it inherited from the spanish. there is a reason that english speaking colonies/nations have done better than spanish or french. every time you seduce a young hispanic to flee his country you further enslave the tens of millions they leave behind.â€
“to put the devastation that illegal migration causes to mexico in perspective this population link can be very instructive.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mx.html
mexico has a total population of 107 million with 68 million between the ages of 15-64.
if we rule out everyone below 18 and over 40–and this is a guess, what are we left with — say 50 million? what remains is the startling fact that upwards of 20% of mexico’s fittest people have migrated north. we are hollowing out the country.
there is no way mexico can survive on a long term basis without being resigned to third world status with its attendant pain and suffering. prediction: over the next 30 years, if we don’t close the border with a fence NOW, we will be blamed for causing the collapse of mexico. you may laugh, but there will be a sizable minority in this country that will demand, and their demands will be met, that we take responsibility and make some accommodation to the thugs in mexico city for having seduced their best and brightest to leave the country further enslaving the millions left behind. you know as well as i do, just read this board, that millions of americans already believe such a plot is taking place. it’s called evil corporations/repubs and dirt bag dems looking for votes.
no country can survive when such a large group elects to walk out the door seduced by open borders.â€
Macker, excellent comment. The most important thing, is to get it right. There’s something in it that everyone can like and dislike.
Not counting how someone get’s here. If people have good intentions, hard working, assimilate, law abiding, they certainly deserve special consideration.
If they are all the opposites, deport them.
Let’s face it, if I were a Mexican citizen, I would do what I had to,, to get to the US to make a decent living for my family.
At the risk of being called a “racist” again, I will add my two cents worth.
Anyone who wants to come to this nation for the betterment of their lives and the lives of their families, I say “come on”. But do it legally. Go through the proper channels like those who have preceded you. To not do so is not only a crime, but it is an insult to all those who have followed the rules.
All this talk of “going to the back of the line” is just so much rhetoric. The ones at the back of the line are the ones who are waiting in their native lands for legal entry. Not the ones who are here, earning a living, having access to the benefits of being in the United States and enjoying, already, what this nation provides.
Anyone who wants to be an American citizen should be willing to return to their native land and do so according to our laws.
Why are we so conceited as to think that all those here illegally want to be citizens? It only shows how out of touch those who claim that is the goal of the illegal is from reality. The main factor is to send enough money back to their native land to be able to return there and live a better life.
Enforcement says that by the 3rd generation they are assimilated. How different that is from the immigrants of the past. They assimilated when they got here. And by the second generation there was no difference between them and the Mayflower gang.
Try living in a border state. You will see how well they assimilate. Where they expect you to speak their language to accomodate them. Where they expect their illegal children to be taught in their native language. Where they expect that ER workers can speak to them in their native language. That is not assimilation.
As to Mexican citizens coming here to make a decent living. Mexico is not a poor nation. It is a nation with a hugh caste system. I wonder how Mexico would handle it if millions of our poor went there illegally and made the same demands that they make on us?
Wake up. Mexico has no intention of taking care of it’s poor. It will continue to shove it’s problems on us as long as well continue to tolerate it.
Our problem of illegals is not a financial one. It is a politcal one where Mexico intends to maintain the status quo of it’s caste system. The corruption there, alone, will not allow that to change.
Start billing Mexico for the health care of it’s citizens and tell Mexico “not one more peso” in foreign aid until the problem is solved and see what happens.
Enforcement says that by the 3rd generation they are assimilated.
I don’t recall saying that, I may have, but if so I would have been in error because I don’t believe it as a general rule. I believe in most cases that after an immigrant becomes a citizen, then withing a couple generations they are most likely assimilated. Maybe I said something like that before.
I don’t think illegals EVER become assimilated.
Retire05,
Don’t blame Enforcement for the assimilation factoid. That was mine and only referred to when Spanish was virtually forgotten, nothing else.
You make some good points about Mexico’s complicity.
But,
• Of course not all illegals want to stay. So we need a guest worker plan. And besides filling a need,isn’t a temporary worker plan a better and more direct form of foreign aid than government to corrupt government aid?
• All of the talk about “following the rules”…”back of the line”….”do it legally”…”return home first”… etc. ignore the realities facing these people( Bureaucratic black holes and years of waiting). Life is only so long.
• Why shouldn’t we do it “right” and integrate these workers into our system so they share in the cost of the benefits?”
• As for screening the permanent ones, of course standards must be set.
•PS, I live in California, a border state.
Well, it looks like the “hardliners” [ as AJ called us ] were right after all. The fence bill passed with major support from the Dems. We all know that they would never have voted for the bill unless they knew for certain that the majority of Americans would not stand for another amnesty. McCain & his ‘mini-me’ Lindsay Graham lose on both the immigration bill & the detainee bill. Life is good! I just had to comment one last time to gloat a little after all the insults we “hardliners” put up with.
Granbmary,
(a) The fence is a nice feel good fantasy, it won’t protecrt us. All theh highjackers on 9-11 entered leaglly – duh!. And (b), the bills to deal with the undocumented workers is coming after the elections. Especially if democrats take the house. And if Democrats take the house the one issue the right splintered on and which would give the Dems the house was this issue. Don’t gloat because your useless bone was tossed at you. This was always going to be a pyhrric victory.
Today’s Washington Times has TWO great articles. One on ILLEGAL Pollution:
http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20061001-124826-4512r
A Snippet:
Illegal aliens have turned parts of the Southwest desert into environmental disaster areas — dumping an estimated 25 million pounds of trash in the Arizona desert, carving out hundreds of miles of roads through the wilderness and destroying thousands of acres of habitat with cooking fires that have gone awry.
And the other on Productivity, Produce, etc. Both Excellent:
http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060930-095009-6408r
A Snippet:
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, in a paper on guest-worker programs, explains how illegal immigration slowed productivity growth in American agriculture. Take the case of raisin grapes.
The conventional harvesting method involves cutting the grapes off vines by the bunch with a knife, then laying them on paper trays and repeatedly turning them by hand for drying. In the late 1950s, grape farmers in Australia, faced with a labor shortage, came up with a more efficient way of producing raisins whereby the grapes dried naturally on the vine and were knocked into bins by a tractor-mounted harvester. Labor use was cut drastically and yields skyrocketed.
Did this new technique spread among raisin farmers in American? For the most part, no. The ready availability of cheap immigrant workers blunted the incentive to make the expenditure to switch to the more efficient method, with consequent long-term losses to both farmers and consumers.
Because of the excess supply of immigrant labor in American, notes Mr. Krikorian, the European Union is well ahead of us in bringing new agricultural technologies to market, which could result in the U.S. losing out to international competitors. But if we were to restrict cheap foreign labor, modernization would be spurred, not only in the farm sector says Mr. Krikorian, but in services as well.
I encourage all to read both.
I see some good comments after mine yesterday.
“We need guest workers. To deny this is to deny demographics and economics.”
Read the second link I provided today Macker
Aj, has anyone argued that the 9/11 highjackers came from the southern border?
What is coming over the southern border is a Third World Invasion. Until we all realize that, and stop that, this Country will continue to decline Environmentally, Economically, Socially, Politically, Medically, and in many other areas.
I think it would be in our best interest to build a Double Wall Fence across the entire Southern Border. And also, for at least 1-2 years, stop all immigration to give ICE time to straighten out it’s huge mess. It is totaly Dis-functional. Let’s get it back on track, then once we have the border secure, the huge back log of cases pending at ICE processed, then we can open up LEGAL Immigration again. The entire system is broken. Let’s at least try to fix it, then turn on the spicket again.
You know, prior to 1965 we had many years, and many DECADES, where we had NO IMMIGRATION. We did this to try to get new arrivals to ASSIMILATE. I think it was smart then, and would be even smarter now. Here is why. Prior to 1965 we mostly immigrated people from Europe and other First World Countries. Lets face facts, they come from similar cultures, lifestyles, and governments. After 1965 we did a 180, and now it’s primarily people from South America, Asia, The Middle East, etc. More of a Third Wold Culture, lifestyle, and government. They take longer to Assimilate. We are totaly different in every way from the life they are use too. I hope this will light a bulb in someones head. It’s not rocket science. Woops, sorry AJ, no pun intended.
Well, I guess you can’t post one, read others, and post another because my first one this morning is gone. So I shall re-post it again!
http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20061001-124826-4512r
A Snippet:
Illegal aliens have turned parts of the Southwest desert into environmental disaster areas — dumping an estimated 25 million pounds of trash in the Arizona desert, carving out hundreds of miles of roads through the wilderness and destroying thousands of acres of habitat with cooking fires that have gone awry.
The Second one:
http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060930-095009-6408r
A Snippet:
“In 1960, 80 percent of the 45,000 peak harvest workers used to pick 2.2 million tons of the tomatoes used to make catsup in California were Braceros [Mexican laborers] and growers testified that ‘the use of Braceros is absolutely essential to the survival of the tomato industry.’ In 1999, about 5,000 workers were employed to ride machines to sort 12 million tons of tomatoes harvested by machine on 300,000 acres. In the tomato case, the end of the Bracero program led to the mechanization of the tomato harvest, expanding production, and a reduction in the price of processed tomato products, which helped to fuel the fast-food boom.”
Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, recently wrote in the Financial Times: “The availability of low-wage immigrant labor has caused the U.S. to lag behind Japan, Australia and others with advanced mechanical harvesting. And thanks to the glut of cheap labor, home construction in the U.S. remains low-tech and inefficient. A tight labor market would force rapid productivity gains in nontraded domestic industries that today are labor-intensive.”
In manufacturing, the story is similar. Economists Myriam Quispe-Agnoli and Madeline Zavodny at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta in their study, “The Effect of Immigration on Output Mix, Capital, and Productivity,” developed a regression model that showed “changes in the labor supply due to immigration appear to lower labor productivity in both the low- and high-skilled sectors.”
http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20061001-124826-4512r
Illegal aliens have turned parts of the Southwest desert into environmental disaster areas — dumping an estimated 25 million pounds of trash in the Arizona desert, carving out hundreds of miles of roads through the wilderness and destroying thousands of acres of habitat with cooking fires that have gone awry.
http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060930-095009-6408r
“In 1960, 80 percent of the 45,000 peak harvest workers used to pick 2.2 million tons of the tomatoes used to make catsup in California were Braceros [Mexican laborers] and growers testified that ‘the use of Braceros is absolutely essential to the survival of the tomato industry.’ In 1999, about 5,000 workers were employed to ride machines to sort 12 million tons of tomatoes harvested by machine on 300,000 acres. In the tomato case, the end of the Bracero program led to the mechanization of the tomato harvest, expanding production, and a reduction in the price of processed tomato products, which helped to fuel the fast-food boom.”
Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, recently wrote in the Financial Times: “The availability of low-wage immigrant labor has caused the U.S. to lag behind Japan, Australia and others with advanced mechanical harvesting. And thanks to the glut of cheap labor, home construction in the U.S. remains low-tech and inefficient. A tight labor market would force rapid productivity gains in nontraded domestic industries that today are labor-intensive.”
In manufacturing, the story is similar. Economists Myriam Quispe-Agnoli and Madeline Zavodny at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta in their study, “The Effect of Immigration on Output Mix, Capital, and Productivity,” developed a regression model that showed “changes in the labor supply due to immigration appear to lower labor productivity in both the low- and high-skilled sectors.”
Ethan Lewis, economist at the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia, authored an econometric study, “Immigration, Skill Mix, and the Choice of Technology,” based on Census plant-level data. The study examined the impact of low-skilled immigrant labor on technology adoption in manufacturing. It concluded plants with fast labor supply growth “adopted automation technology more slowly… and even de-adoption was not uncommon…. The relative supply of less-skilled labor reduced demand for technology.”
http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20061001-124826-4512r
Illegal aliens have turned parts of the Southwest desert into environmental disaster areas — dumping an estimated 25 million pounds of trash in the Arizona desert, carving out hundreds of miles of roads through the wilderness and destroying thousands of acres of habitat with cooking fires that have gone awry.
http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060930-095009-6408r
“In 1960, 80 percent of the 45,000 peak harvest workers used to pick 2.2 million tons of the tomatoes used to make catsup in California were Braceros [Mexican laborers] and growers testified that ‘the use of Braceros is absolutely essential to the survival of the tomato industry.’ In 1999, about 5,000 workers were employed to ride machines to sort 12 million tons of tomatoes harvested by machine on 300,000 acres. In the tomato case, the end of the Bracero program led to the mechanization of the tomato harvest, expanding production, and a reduction in the price of processed tomato products, which helped to fuel the fast-food boom.”
Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, recently wrote in the Financial Times: “The availability of low-wage immigrant labor has caused the U.S. to lag behind Japan, Australia and others with advanced mechanical harvesting. And thanks to the glut of cheap labor, home construction in the U.S. remains low-tech and inefficient. A tight labor market would force rapid productivity gains in nontraded domestic industries that today are labor-intensive.”