When I was still chief executive at Optus, I was invited to address a Herald function. I imagine the Herald thought I would talk about telecommunications or some such. But the week before, Pauline Hanson gave her so-called maiden speech. I thought it disgraceful; its key message was that Aborigines were not an underprivileged group and the influx of Asians into this country would seriously damage our society.
I read a definition of racism and bigotry and extracts from her speech and invited the audience to compare the two. In the Federal Parliament the next day, she said I should be dismissed from my job and never allowed to work in business again.
Shortly thereafter I was invited to coffee with the then deputy lord mayor of Sydney, a gentleman of Chinese extraction. When I got there I was offered no coffee and taken into the Great Hall. A young woman said, “Mr Cousins, we are the choir from the Quandong Province in China and we will sing for you, because you have defended us.” They proceeded to sing.
I told the deputy lord mayor it was wonderful but completely out of proportion. I merely made one speech. He replied, “That’s all you did. But it was one speech more than anyone else.”
When you step off the ledge of doubt, there are rewards. And when you leap, someone, somewhere will sing for you.
Lovely. We’ve needed more of this kind of thing here in the context of our immigration discussions. There is no question that federal immigration law/policy is totally inadequate to current conditions, but a lot of the commentary around that glaring truth has been tinged, if not coated thrice over, with some very overt, ugly racial and ethnic hostility. It would help if some of our community, political, and religious leaders would shame that element out of the debate. Mr. Cousins’ vignette provides some encouragement, perhaps.
NoVA, very respectfully, and speaking as the proud son of a naturalized American citizen whose family came here for economic rather than political reasons, I agree with much of what you say. However, it has been my experience that the coat “coated thrice over” is not the true nature of the true majority of those who are concerned by the issue. Rather, it is the false image used by those who wish to discredit a movement without engaging the actual issues.
Sorry, APB. The “true majority” are not bigots. We are feeling a lot of things about the huge influx of Latinos over the Mexican border, but we see it as a school, health, infrastructure problem, which we would be having no matter who (race-wise) comes in, unchecked. It’s not who you are, it’s HOW MANY, and the lack of any security on the borders. We, the US cannot sustain this influx without going broke, and then why would you want to be here anyway? California is broke already, how soon do you think it will take for the rest of the country to follow? I’m truly glad you are here, and pursuing your dreams, but the US just can’t let all people who want to come here in at once!
I guess this will label me as racist, but doesn’t the culture that currently inhabits its lands have a right to protect and assert itself? Can it not put limits on peoples of other cultures coming in and transforming the society into some new culture? Or is it just whoever has the most people, irrespective of who the original culture is, gets to make the culture into whatever they want? This, to me, is about more than fear of another race. It’s about whether or not a culture has a right to continue itself over and against newcomers. Europe is probably going to lose itself to Islam. Is it racist to wish this weren’t so?
I see your point, Jennifer, but remember Europe wasn’t always French, German, British, etc. either. Before that, they were Romans. And before that, I don’t know what, because Greece didn’t conquer north, they went east.
The “true majority†are not bigots.
The ‘true majority’ are indeed bigots, they simply hide it better. There are hundreds of reasons advanced to justify bigoted actions. And many of those are supposedly Christian views. The important thing to look at is not the rationale for why something is done, but rather the outcome. There are plenty of examples from history where we look to our desired result and then come up with reasons why ‘it had to be this way.’
It’s about whether or not a culture has a right to continue itself over and against newcomers.
There are also a number of example where a culture has taken measures to protect itself. The outcome is not usually pretty. Again, we need to look at the outcome and not the rationale and ask ourselves what is the truly Christian position.
RE: “The “true majority†are not bigots.”
Yep — APB, Crabby, and Jennifer — by Brian’s definition you are “bigots.” Wear it with pride and honor.
Brian from T19 wrote: “The ‘true majority’ are indeed bigots, they simply hide it better.” How nice for Brian to be able to see into the hidden motivations of so many people. I think he is deceiving himself, both as to his ability to discern and as to the actual number of “bigots.” (I am proud to be the wife of a first-generation American.)
A country has every right to construct an immigration policy. I don’t think that principle should change. I think there are other questions worth trying to answer. Is there a net benefit? Do they pay taxes? Do they contribute to the market system? Should businesses in the US have rights to hire whoever they choose? Or should governments restrict them?
Add that there are some cultural issues at stake. Mexicans and chicanos have always been around the Southwest. Many of them were there before we went there.
Further, it is not wrong to point out the hypocrisy of saying that capital has no borders, but people do.
[blockquote]There are plenty of examples from history where we look to our desired result and then come up with reasons why ‘it had to be this way.’[/blockquote]
A more succinct description of how celebration of pan-sexual behavior ( and I include serial monogamy) crept into the Episcopal Church has not been my privilege to hear.
Jennifer: Islam is not a race. It is a religion. So, whatever your views on Islam, I don’t think they can be construed as racist. That would only happen if you allowed your reservations about Islam as a religion to be attached to your views of semites, Persians, Indonesians, etc as a group without individual differntiation.
As to your other points, I don’t think of “cultures” as inhabiting places. As Crabby and JW point out, if we use that as a test, European cultures in North America would fare rather poorly.
A Nation-State certainly has a right to protect its borders and, it is clear that the US doesn’t do a sterling job of it. A culture that resists changes is usually a weak and brittle culture. As Mr. Wilkins says, the policy debate requires a careful measuring and weighing of negative and positive impacts of the current immigration problem (there are both, and they exist in varying degrees in different parts of the country).
To my mind, there are place which have a certain homogeneity in ethnic and cultural terms, with exceptions within the context of the reality that there is a dominant group. This is pretty much true everywhere. Mass migration results in changes which temporarily creat imbalances, whether to a lesser or greater degree. It is undoubtedly true that aboriginal people in Australia were and are an underprivileged group, and equally true that large-scale immigration of Asian people will create an imbalances in Australian society and culture, which is mainly Anglo-European. However, in 500 years or so, these imbalances will disappear. It does seem rather odd to me that Euro-derived people are keen to excuse and overlook the fact that Han Chinese can be so overwhelmingly racist in their attitudes (and Han Chinese governmental policy) and display cultural characteristics which are generally regarded as unwelcome in most western democratic societies, yet when European people do not want to allow great numbers of them into their countries that is something which seems to be bad.
#3 Crabby in MD said:
[blockquote] Sorry, APB. The “true majority†are not bigots. We are feeling a lot of things about the huge influx of Latinos over the Mexican border, but we see it as a school, health, infrastructure problem, which we would be having no matter who (race-wise) comes in, unchecked. It’s not who you are, it’s HOW MANY, and the lack of any security on the borders. [/blockquote]
I’ve heard this quote before and (while not judging your motives) I can’t help but wonder if we would be having the same concerns if our schools and communities were becoming crowded with a new wave of wealthier and healthier Europeans.
#4 Jennifer said:
[blockquote] I guess this will label me as racist, but doesn’t the culture that currently inhabits its lands have a right to protect and assert itself? . . . Or is it just whoever has the most people, irrespective of who the original culture is, gets to make the culture into whatever they want? [/blockquote]
I’m about about as conservative as they come but…. I did cringe when I read this quote and couldn’t help but think of the aboriginal inhabitants of the land we now call The United States of America.
I don’t think there are any easy solutions. I just think we should be approaching this subject with a bit more grace and humility than we appear to be.
I happen to have spent most of my life in a part of the United States which was Spanish and Indian long before we Anglos ever showed up. I know that many of us enjoy the flavor which those cultures and those who preserve it add to our culture. I’ve known people who lived on ranches their forebears obtained by land grants from the King of Spain. I’ve know Hispanics who have lived around here before my family ever moved in. If anything, I’m the immigrant.
As for the influx of people from Mexico, perhaps we need to ask why? Mostly it is sort of like the illegal drugs that come in from Mexico–the drug trade exists because many Americans think drugs are “cool”.
If you want to stop illegal immigration, shut down the American businesses and individuals who hire them in order to pay substandard wages and very often to avoid paying payroll taxes. These criminal Americans are also able to avoid providing safe work places and expose the workers to serious injury, sickness and death.
It is not without reason that the Chamber of Commerce killed E-Verify and oppose serious immigration reform. With the [i]status quo[/i] their members are free to exploit workers from Mexico who, because of their illegal status, dare not complain about the practices of their employers. If a illegal worker files a complaint against his illegal employer, all the criminal employer has to do is turn him into the Immigration and Naturalization Service and hide another illegal worker. Problem solved.
P.S. The other problem we have around here is pimps and madams who smuggle Asian girls into the country and use them as prostitutes. For some reason, that doesn’t seem to come up much in these discussions of illegal aliens in the country.
Actually, stevejax, that is kind of my point. If we say, yes, a culture has a right to limit other cultures from coming in, then what we did to Native Americans was wrong, (clearly they were here first), but we are right to limit immigration from Mexico. If a culture doesn’t have a right to assert itself against other immigrant cultures, then what we did to Native Americans was OK, but now it is our turn to have our culture slowly blotted out, and subsumed by immigrants, chiefly those from Mexico. I am bewildered as to the answer to all this.
RE: “If you want to stop illegal immigration, shut down the American businesses and individuals who hire them in order to pay substandard wages . . . ”
Good idea — I’m all for enforcing our current laws regarding the workforce. However, E-verify was an expensive unfunded mandage boondoggle, which the Chamber of Commerce rightly helped to kill — praise God!
And how about we patrol our borders with the military, construct the wall, and cease forcing emergency rooms and other tax-funded government benefits to be paid out to illegal immigrants?
[Somehow my quick mind suspects that those ideas for “serious immigration reform” won’t be well-received by some of the commenters here.]
Hey, Ken Peck, it’s a pleasure for me to agree with you on a political matter! Yes, yes, E-verify, and stiff fines for businesses who don’t comply. I agree that there’s a lot of exploitation going on. And in North Carolina there’s a persistent problem with Mexican women smuggled in and used as prostitutes, patronized by the large population of male Mexicans living without their families.
A Senior Priest, before I lived overseas, I thought racism was a peculiarly European-American sin. Now I know it’s a universal human sin. There’s always some group nearby that is darker, or shorter, or has different eyes, or is just somehow different from the predominant group.
[blockquote]who hire them in order to pay substandard wages and very often to avoid paying payroll taxes. These criminal Americans are also able to avoid providing safe work places and expose the workers to serious injury, sickness and death.[/blockquote]
If I were one of the employers you refer to with such easy slander I think it would be appropriate to take issue…
The small business owners and contractors that I know who employ Mexican Nationals of dubious provenance do not do so to cheat the government by exploiting the helpless. They hire them because they are happy to work more productively for the same wages as local workers. In fact I know of Mexican Illegal employees who make MORE than their North American co-workers, because they are more productive.
The issue is lack of opportunity in Mexico (and the remnants of the third world in general). The government there has been run for over a century the way the current administration wants to run ours, with predictable results.
Immigration is a good thing, in general. Uncontrolled migration with the tacit encouragement of a government that wants to use it to bolster it’s political position is another.
I also seem to recall hearing of a certain senator who uses mexican migrant workers to cultivate her non-union grape plantation…..
Immigration without documentation is de-facto against the law, and disqualifies the immigrant. The humanitarian thing to to is to try and push the Mexican and Other South American Countries Into policies that encourage wealth formation. Totalitarianism, be it a right wing junta or populist socialism, will not do it, and the US, especially now, cannot support the entire hemisphere.
The history of the world has been one of successful cultures supplanting less competent ones. i.e., we stole this land from the Indians fair and square, and we’re gonna keep it. Or the Israelites displacing the Philistines. Often the culture is superimposed, rather than the population displaced, as in the case of The Roman Empire, or the Germanic and Norman invasions of England. The genetic evidence in England shows only minor Roman, Scandanivian or German influences. By far the largest contributor to genetic makeup of England is from a tribe in the Basque area of Spain that colonized Celtic Britain Thousands of years ago. The cultural influences, however, are significant.
I am enough of a Chauvinist to prefer the culture we have developed in the United States to the decayed cultural remnant of the Spanish exploitation and abandonment of South America.
stevejax: “I can’t help but wonder if we would be having the same concerns if our schools and communities were becoming crowded with a new wave of wealthier and healthier Europeans.”
That is a straw-man. This nation has always attracted the down-trodden and poor – look at the Statue of Liberty. The only problem with the Latin migration is the border security and economic issues it raises. My ancestors (some of them anyway) came in with the Irish immigration where 1/2 of the population of Ireland came here! Don’t know what that was in pure numbers, but you get my drift I hope. This country is a polyglot of cultures and races, and I celebrate that. I just think folks can wait their turn, and with the immigration bureaucracy the way it is, yes, that can take a long time. We can’t afford this for much longer.
Sarah1: I’m with you.
Part of the issue with Mexican immigration is, unlike earlier immigration waves, many Mexicans want to retain their Mexican citizenship and return to Mexico once their work years are over. In other words, they come to the U.S. for work and the benefits they get, but they really don’t have the desire to become “Americans” – and that’s a lot of what affects the U.S. schools, businesses, etc. – there is not even the hint to try to accommodate the country they are currently living in because they still consider themselves Mexican.
And because Mexico is physically connected (unlike the countries that those immigrating here in the 19th century came from – Italy, Ireland, etc.), there is a constant back and forth across the border. That would not be a problem if there were a viable guest worker program and if the U.S. immigration laws were upheld. But unfortunately, there is neither of these.
16. Sarah1 wrote:
[blockquote]Good idea—I’m all for enforcing our current laws regarding the workforce. However, E-verify was an expensive unfunded mandage boondoggle, which the Chamber of Commerce rightly helped to kill—praise God![/blockquote]
The CoC killed it precisely because it was an efficient economical way for any employer to determine if an employee was using a falsified SS#. It made it impossible in virtually all cases for a criminal employer to plead “I didn’t know”. The businesses and individual’s doing the hiring didn’t want to be able to verify the SS#s.
[blockquote]And how about we patrol our borders with the military, construct the wall, and cease forcing emergency rooms and other tax-funded government benefits to be paid out to illegal immigrants?[/blockquote]
Now talk about “expensive unfunded mandage [sic] boondoggle”! It would cost billions upon billions to “patrol our borders with the military” and that wouldn’t stop the flow as long as illegal employers hire illegal workers.
A multi-billion dollar fence along our entire southern border? Ridiculous. Nor would it stop the flow. I think even Lou Dobbs has figured this one out. Last year or so when he was on his “build a fence” campaign, every time he would show pictures of the existing fence–with people going over and/or through it. And, of course, we’ve seen that they also go under the fence.
The Mexicans aren’t entering the country to use emergency rooms or get “tax-funded benefits.” They come here because criminal Americans hire them to work.
It’s funny. We’ve actually seen “reverse immigration” around here–the “illegals” and even “legal” Mexican workers departing for Mexico? Why? The recession has resulted in layoffs and unemployment, fewer day jobs in home construction, yard maintenance, janitorial services, food services and the like which employed large numbers of illegal aliens. Maybe that’s the solution–shut down the American economy.
[blockquote]The small business owners and contractors that I know who employ Mexican Nationals of dubious provenance do not do so to cheat the government by exploiting the helpless.[/blockquote]
In other words, they break the law–and thus are operating illegally–in order to make an illegal profit. And around here they are often ignoring occupational safety regulations and endangering the employees–again in order to cut costs. Sometimes these illegal contractors get caught when the ditch the immigrant workers were digging collapses and kills one of them. Hey, the contractor saved money by not properly shoring up the ditch. He pays a small fine when the digger gets killed. But with the money saved on all the ditches and all the cheap labor, he easily pays the fine and goes on his merry, illegal, profitable ways.
[blockquote] I also seem to recall hearing of a certain senator who uses mexican [sic] migrant workers to cultivate her non-union grape plantation…..[/blockquote]
So convict her of the crime and assess the penalties.
[blockquote]Immigration without documentation is de-facto against the law, and disqualifies the immigrant.[/blockquote]
Employing illegal immigrants is de-facto against the law, and disqualifies the employer.
Wherever there is a border with better conditions (economic, political) on one side, there will be immigration across it. If the existing legal mechanisms are inadequate to police the disparity (e.g., Soviet bloc Eastern Europe or US/Mexico), there will be substantial illegal immigration, regardless of the physical risk. The policy/legislative challenge is to make the mechanisms and rewards of legal immigration substantially more enticing than those of illegal immigration. That can include tightening border security (in the US/Mexico example – the soviets and their local goons had those borders about as tight as one could imagine) and streamlining the process of legal immigration to the point where it becomes the preferable means of entry.
The problem arises because we have real laws to control immigration and the hiring of illegal immigrants and they are not being enforced.
The creates and atmosphere of contempt for the law which, in any highly organized country, is a sign of serious social disease.
Issues concerning the treatment of Amerinds and the like are not germane here. Nor is bigotry a real issue, since bigotry in some form is indwelling in all settled communities. Nor is the argument that change is the only constant any more than a straw man as well as a cliche. This issue can be simply stated: Will our laws be upheld or scoffed at? And the answer is…? Larry
Let me ask another question: So we need more Latinos, legal or illegal?
If the answer is that we are going to get them in enormous numbers and these numbers will harm the social systems in place, then the answer is ,”No.” If the answer is that we are going to get a smaller number but they will be desperate, hungry, poor, illiterate, and sick, and they will seriojuslhy harm our social networks, then the answer in, “No.” If the answer is a small number who are educated and an boon to to the society, the answer is “Yes.” But can we pick and choose? Of course we can. There is nothing unconstitutional about it.
The day of “Give me your tired and poor,” is over and done with. We cannot deal with our own tired and poor – we can’t even get them health coverage – without borrowing trouble from other countries.
But what can we say to the Latinos who want to escape? This is fairly easy to say: “Stay home and fix your own country. If you are not willing to fight to correct what is wrong with your own country, you’re the MAJOR part of the problem.” Larry
RE: “The CoC killed it precisely because it was an efficient economical way for any employer to determine if an employee was using a falsified SS#.”
Well no. The system was notoriously inaccurate, and it was an unfunded mandate that businesses had to fund. All very similar to the ridiculous government regulated — but of course privately funded — e-records boondoggle that is being forced on the healthcare “system” [sic].
A huge mess — and since I have close family members in medical care, I know precisely what I”m speaking of. The government shifts and twists and turns and constant changes in that “system” [sic] are notorious.
RE: “It would cost billions upon billions to “patrol our borders with the military†and that wouldn’t stop the flow as long as illegal employers hire illegal workers.”
Oh, like I said I’m all for *enforcing our current laws on not hiring employees* — let’s throw a couple of billion at that too. Obviously you’re not a person who is much concerned about “spending billions” anyway — so that number isn’t going to throw me off. It’s all about *where one spends the billions* and I, as a political conservative, prefer that we spend the billions on, you know, protecting our country from illegal invasions of all sorts.
RE: “The Mexicans aren’t entering the country to use emergency rooms or get “tax-funded benefits.â€
Who cares? They use them.
Regardless, we’re not going to agree on the appropriate allocation of billions as we don’t share anything approaching a similiar worldview regarding the place of the State and individual freedom.
But isn’t it nice that we’ve both asserted our own mutually opposing beliefs.
27. Sarah1 wrote:
[blockquote]
RE: “The CoC killed it precisely because it was an efficient economical way for any employer to determine if an employee was using a falsified SS#.â€
Well no. The system was notoriously inaccurate, and it was an unfunded mandate that businesses had to fund.[/blockquote]
Well, actually wrong on both counts.
The system was quite accurate–something like 92%. Actually it is in the interest of workers who are wrongly identified to be informed of the issue and have it corrected. For example, if I were to turn up as “illegal” because of an error either on my part or that of my employer in reporting my SS# it would cause problems with my taxes and SS credit.
The program was mostly voluntary. It was mandatory for federal contractors. Some states, I believe, required it. And it really isn’t all that expensive to log on to a web site to use the system. It was in the interest of law abiding employers to use it, since it would protect them if, using the system, they had unknowingly hired someone who was not entitled to work in the U.S.
[blockquote]RE: “It would cost billions upon billions to “patrol our borders with the military†and that wouldn’t stop the flow as long as illegal employers hire illegal workers.â€
Oh, like I said I’m all for *enforcing our current laws on not hiring employees*—let’s throw a couple of billion at that too.
[/blockquote]
Fencing the borders would cost a good deal more than “a couple of billion”. Deploying sufficient troops along the the borders to make any real difference would cost a good deal more than “a couple of billion” and would be an on going expense.
If we are going to prosecute illegal employers (something that will be expensive) then we are going to have to have something like E-Verify in order to remove the “ignorance” defense–“I didn’t know Igor Ivanovich was in the country illegally.”
You claim that E-Verify is too expensive–and then propose approaches which would cost orders of magnitude more and wouldn’t be particularly effective.
RE: “The system was quite accurate—something like 92%. Actually it is in the interest of workers who are wrongly identified to be informed of the issue and have it corrected.”
Heh — good to know what you think is “quite accurate.” Incredible. By your own admission 8 out of 100 wrongly identified one way or the other and that’s just fine by you. What a chaotic mess that turns out to be.
RE: “And it really isn’t all that expensive to log on to a web site to use the system.”
As I pointed out the cost of implementing e-verify is an unfunded mandate. And yes, it is far far more complex for a large corporation to add Yet Another Regulatory Hurdle to their employment protocol and would cost an inordinate amount for the corporate entity to fund. But you know, for a liberal what’s one more series of regulations anyway! Of course — the old Regulatory Hurdles are kept in place. Yep — it’s an expensive, inaccurate [by a conservative’s standards, not a liberal’s, of course] boondoggle, with the State in charge of the “information.” Brilliant!
RE: “If we are going to prosecute illegal employers (something that will be expensive) then we are going to have to have something like E-Verify in order to remove the “ignorance†defense—”
Really? Tell that to the big time corporate hirer of illegal aliens in my own state that is being prosecuted. Again — another utterly false assertion.
RE: “Fencing the borders would cost a good deal more than “a couple of billionâ€. Deploying sufficient troops along the the borders to make any real difference would cost a good deal more than “a couple of billion†and would be an on going expense.”
Like I said — it all depends on how one wishes to spend the billions and billions. I prefer the billions to be spent on constitutionally appropriate purposes.
But you know . . . . I’m a conservative, and so there you are.
It’s been a nice, typical exchange, Ken. See you on some other political threads.
RE: “The Mexicans aren’t entering the country to use emergency rooms or get “tax-funded benefits.â€
Who cares? They use them.
Regardless, we’re not going to agree on the appropriate allocation of billions as we don’t share anything approaching a similar worldview regarding the place of the State and individual freedom.
Sarah
Just out of pure interest, how do you reconcile your views on this issue with the teachings of Jesus? I don’t doubt that you can, I just am wondering how the two are consistent. Specifically, would Jesus turn away people from hospitals or allow them to go hungry because they did not follow the law? It seems to me that he would not, but I am interested to know your view.
#21 English Teacher Wendy, thank you, I rather thought that was the main point of Kendall’s posting this as well. This is a nice story. I really like those last two sentences.
29. Sarah1 wrote:
[blockquote]RE: “The system was quite accurate—something like 92%. Actually it is in the interest of workers who are wrongly identified to be informed of the issue and have it corrected.â€
Heh—good to know what you think is “quite accurate.†Incredible. By your own admission 8 out of 100 wrongly identified one way or the other and that’s just fine by you. What a chaotic mess that turns out to be.[/blockquote]
The errors fall into two broad groups–“legals” not verified and “illegals” verified. In the case of “illegals” verified, it is a defense for the employer who has done is due diligence by using the E-Verify system. In the case of “legals” not verified, the problems are either a error in the SS# or a name change (i.e., a woman marries and fails to report the name change). In either case, it is a problem which should be resolved and will benefit the individual when it is resolved. For example, if the employer has the employees SS# wrong, payments will be made to the wrong Social Security and IRS accounts.
[blockquote]RE: “And it really isn’t all that expensive to log on to a web site to use the system.â€
As I pointed out the cost of implementing e-verify is an unfunded mandate. And yes, it is far far more complex for a large corporation to add Yet Another Regulatory Hurdle to their employment protocol and would cost an inordinate amount for the corporate entity to fund.[/blockquote]
E-Verify is a quite small expenditure for large corporations unless, like Swiss, they are hiring illegals in order to break unions. Of course, then they are operating against the law, and are spending money to get around the law. The last few times I’ve gone through the hiring process, the employer was spending significant amounts on drug tests, credit checks and criminal background checks. Yes, they did check my legal status, but it was a small, in expensive part of the process.
[blockquote]RE: “If we are going to prosecute illegal employers (something that will be expensive) then we are going to have to have something like E-Verify in order to remove the “ignorance†defense—â€
Really? Tell that to the big time corporate hirer of illegal aliens in my own state that is being prosecuted. Again—another utterly false assertion.[/blockquote]
Sources for this? What “big time corporate hirer of illegal aliens”? Were they using E-Verify? Were they hiring illegal aliens that E-Verify was reporting to them were illegal?
[blockquote]RE: “Fencing the borders would cost a good deal more than “a couple of billionâ€. Deploying sufficient troops along the the borders to make any real difference would cost a good deal more than “a couple of billion†and would be an on going expense.â€
Like I said—it all depends on how one wishes to spend the billions and billions. I prefer the billions to be spent on constitutionally appropriate purposes.[/blockquote]
Well, if you want to spend $50+ billion on a 700 mile fence along a 1,969 mile border that will last 25 years, seize whole sections of privately owned land and split a university campus that illegals will either go over, through or under, then you are hardly a fiscal conservative. But yes, the contractors will love you–and will probably hire illegal aliens to build it so as to boost their profits.
And if you want to spend $10s of billions each year on the military to secure the border (something they are not equipped or trained to do and will not work), then you are hardly a fiscal conservative.
People enter the country illegally because employers will hire them. Stop that and you will stop virtually all of the illegal entries. The recession has done more to stem the flow of immigrants into the U.S.–and even to reverse it–than all of the billions being spent on fences and military stationed along the border. They have stopped coming and are returning to their homes in large numbers because employers aren’t hiring.
More sensible approaches to the problem include:
– E-Verify (improve it too) so that employers can easily verify residence status of employees
– Prosecute employers who hire illegal aliens and hit them with fines that will make it unprofitable to do so
– Modernize and streamline the processing of temporary and work visas so that it doesn’t take months and years to obtain one
– Make the tracking of foreign nationals in the country more effective (i.e., check to see if student visas are actually enrolled and attending a [i]bona fide[/i] school, worker visas are actually working, temporary visas are not overstaying, etc.)
27. Sarah1 wrote:
[blockquote]RE: “The Mexicans aren’t entering the country to use emergency rooms or get “tax-funded benefits.â€
Who cares? They use them.[/blockquote]
She also informs us
[blockquote]I prefer the billions to be spent on constitutionally appropriate purposes.[/blockquote]
That being said, I refer her to this
[blockquote]1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; [b]nor shall any State deprive ANY PERSON of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to ANY PERSON within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.[/b] ([i]Amendment 14, Section 1, U.S. Constitution. Emphasis added[/i])[/blockquote]
So it would seem that “emergency rooms” and “tax-funded benefits” are constitutionally mandated, even for [b]PERSONS[/b] who are in the country illegally.
And to return to one of the apparent points of the thread, why does Sarah1 single out Mexicans for her scorn? We have people entering the country illegally from all over Africa, Asia, Europe and South and Central America. (Maybe even Canada.) And some of those who are coming from Asia actually mean us no good by their presence. So why single out Mexicans who are coming mostly to make some money–a perfectly good, “conservative American” motive–even if it breaks a few laws like the capitalists who hire them to improve their bottom lines.
Ken,the context is clearly referring to citizens. You are twisting a text out of its setting for the sake of your agenda on this issue. Larry
34. Larry Morse wrote:
[blockquote]Ken,the context is clearly referring to citizens. You are twisting a text out of its setting for the sake of your agenda on this issue.[/blockquote]
Quite the contrary. The 14th Amendment quite clearly makes a distinction between “citizens” and “persons”. And so it is that the U. S. Courts have consistently ruled. “Persons” in the United States, regardless of their citizenship status are entitled to “life, liberty, [and] property”, “due process of law” and “equal protection of the laws.” The federal and state governments cannot simply order that non-citizens be executed, be locked up, have their property confiscated or denied equal protection of the laws without due process of law.
This is why, for example, public schools must educate non-citizen children. This has been argued in the courts and the courts have held that the 14th amendment prohibits school districts from denying “equal protection of the laws”. The same applies to emergency room treatment and other benefits they may be entitled to (for example a social security pension based on their contributions paid into the system).
What Sarah proposes is a violation of the 14th Amendment and would be laughed out of even the most conservative, strict constructionist court.
That the constitution protects person and not just citizens, is one of the beauties of the document.
I admit, I’m perplexed by the idea that anyone would want to maintain a “cultural identity.” Which cultural identity should I have maintained? The Norman one vs. that Anglo-Saxon one? The Dutch vs. that particular hybrid? The Indian one? Should the Yankees enforce their cultural superiority over the South? No – the point is that as a country we are already a mix of cultures.
But yes – any community has a right to make rules about the nature of housing in their locality.