Is this the Year of Immigration Reform?

Supporting illegal immigration is inconsistent with Democratic Party traditions, which have always stood up for the Little Guy--the Little American Guy.

Well, that guy's wages have been depressed by 5-25% from competition by illegal aliens. This should be a no-brainer. So everything the Democratic Party does to support illegals it does at the direct expense of American workers.

Not middle class knowledge workers, natch. Blue-collar workers. It's one reason why so many of them have fled to the Republican Party.

Not that the Republican Party opposes illegal immigration. Sure, its rank and file do. But the party bosses LOVE illegal immigration, because they use it to drive down wages and bust the unions.
So Republican politicians loudly clamor for getting tough on immigration while quietly ensuring that as many can get in as possible. Look at their behavior during times they controlled the federal government--not their words. Talk is cheap.

The only fly in their soup now is that the voting block of Americans who identify themselves as Mexicans is now so big it can tilt elections. Which leaves the GOP in an untenable position, with its patrons and its rank and file demanding opposite things. Lucky for them Republican voters are easily fooled by patriotic speechifying...

Meanwhile Democratic voters have been bamboozled too. Want to know the cause of all that illegal immigration? Just look at some simple, easily verifiable statistics:

1. Number of Mexicans in Mexico in 1940: 20 million.
2. Number of Mexicans in Mexico in 2000: over 100 million.
3. Percentage of Mexican-derived Americans in 1940: less than 1/2 of 1%.
4. Percentage of Mexican-derived Americans today: over 14%--mostly from previous amnesties, including the offspring of those amnesties.

Illegal immigration from Mexico overwhelmingly stems from population pressure. The Mexican government is simply exporting the result of its failed population policies here. It has nothing to do with us.

Nor must we Democrats support amnesty for illegals just because our party demands that we do. They need the votes, it's true. But they come at a very high price.

"We're a nation of immigrants" is a baldfaced lie.

True, every single American can trace his descent to people who didn't live here. So in that sense, sure, we're a "nation of immigrants." But by that token, every nation on Earth is a "nation of immigrants," except for Kenya and thereabouts, where our species originated.

It's also true that America permits more immigration than all other nations on Earth combined. Yet even with that stunning influx, 90% of Americans were born here.

How can a nation of 90% native-born people be a "nation of immigrants?"

It can't. So that trope is not only a lie--it represents a shameful attempt to win arguments about amnesty with bumper sticker slogans instead of actual reasons.

Never let anyone get away with saying it in your presence--even if you support amnesty for illegal immigrants. Because whatever our politics are, we should unite in opposing dirty politics--in assuming that the ends justify the means. As Emma Goldman said (look her up), the means reveal the ends.

The Nation Glares at Arizona...really?

Washington Post columnist (and reliably doctrinaire leftist) Katherine Vanden Heuvel wrote a column titled "The Nation Glares at Arizona." Basically she took Arizona's immorality as a given, and devoted herself to tactical issues.

Heuvel allowed any number of frothing Tea Party comments to be entered, as you'll see if you click on the link--but she censored out mine, which was considerably less frothy. Here it is--see what you think:

Katherine Vanden Heuvel’s arguments against the Arizona law are as follows:

1. 22 years ago Arizona’s Republican governor rescinded observation of Martin Luther King Day. He also defended calling Black kids “pickaninnies.”

2. Several other cites and/or states outside Arizona have declared boycotts of Arizona.

3. The Arizona law is “culturally insensitive (or openly racist).”

Let’s examine each:

1. This is supposed to “prove” that all of Arizona’s Republican legislators are racists, have always been racists, and always will be racists, because of some things one of them did 22 years ago.

Arguments like this are symptomatic of the isolation of ideologues from those with opposing views. It appears that VDH simply has never had to defend her ideas against anyone who doesn’t already agree with her.

And even if Arizona’s current legislature turned out to be racist, that isn’t an argument against this law—only against trusting the motives of its creators. But the logic and factual basis for a law don’t depend on the motives of its crafters—they depend on the logic and factual basis of the law itself.

Attacking the character of your opponent is a common dirty trick—Republican campaigns use this as a matter of course; but don’t be fooled—Demos do too, as VDH demonstrates here.

Debaters call this the ad hominem attack.

2. Boycotts: How is this a moral argument? From a leftist point of view, would boycotts of “sanctuary” cities justify opposing illegal immigration? Of course not. Therefore it’s simply a declaration of power: Surrender, Arizona. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

3. “culturally insensitive.” This is a Medieval syllogism. Illegal immigration is nonwhite. Anyone who opposes anything that nonwhites want is racist. Therefore resistance to illegal immigration is racist.

But as with #2, this is never applied the other way. For example, I know about white racists—as the descendant of what Southerners would call White Trash, most of my paternal line qualified.

Though to be fair to them, they did say that when the last of them to live in slave times was ordered to beat a slave, he’s take him behind the barn and beat the ground with a stick while the slave yelped. So for the time that ancestor was a good guy.

But since then I did a stint of teaching in ghetto schools, and that’s when I met such bigoted racists that they put my folks to shame.

Likewise, I find that people like Van Den Heuvel have zero respect for Anglo American culture. Every other culture on Earth (well, if it’s nonwhite), sure. You bet. But Anglo culture? It is to be destroyed as quickly as possible.

I always thought claims like this exaggerated the truth—nobody could hate their own society like this. But over the past four years I’ve read so many statements gloating over the coming destruction of Anglo America by a rising tide of nonwhite reproduction that I’ve come to realize sometimes even knuckle-dragging Southern whites aren’t totally lying.

Of course there’s the claim that it’s impossible to be insensitive to the group in power—as in only whites are racist. Everyone else is just defending themselves against the monstrous evil that is white folk.

But when I’ve been the only white person in the room—and I have on more than one occasion—then who’s in power? Or walking down the street in the part of town where the main street is named Martin Luther King Blvd.? Does an elderly white person in such a situation feel in power then?

I’ve traveled in 17 countries. My circle of friends includes people from half a dozen nations. But my parent culture is Anglo American, and I like it, I want to come home to it, and I don’t want to see it destroyed—and I find all the comments in this thread that accuse anyone who objects of being a racist, automatically—well, that’s truly “culturally insensitive.”

These aren’t one way streets—and everyone should apply to themselves the principles they expect others to uphold. Van Den Heuvel does not.

How illegals see it

Few Americans know any illegal immigrants personally. All they know is what they see from a distance in parades--men women and children marching peacefully, waving American flags (OK, often Mexican flags as well). Or perhaps they've seen the sort of documentaries PBS affiliates show constantly about poor, honest, hardworking folk just trying to get by, persecuted by jackbooted troopers (doubtless with Nazi flags hung in their homes).

And most of the Mexicans I've known were affluent members of Mexico's ruling class, or non-immigrants like the crews of the dive boats my spouse and I have used on dive trips in Mexican waters.

So I really appreciated getting a comment on a previous entry here from Lulu Moretti. Here's a portion of what she said:

I've spent quite a bit of time in Mexico visiting my brother-in-law and his Mexican wife. Through them I met many Mexicans who live and work in San Diego. Though none of them is in the US legally, they live as if they were, and pass through the border at Tijuana easily. They have ALL told me the same things: Americans are stupid because their laws are so easy to get around. The English language is ugly. In fact, they enjoy doing crude impersonations of "speaking" English - which none of them can actually speak including the ones working in the US for over 10 years.

What amazed me is while being in social situations with them they were so rude and took every opportunity to denigrate the US and celebrate Mexico! Not one person wanted to learn English or become a US citizen. They were proud that they were here only for the money and in general they hated the US and the gringos and Anglos and whatever other name they could think of calling me, us. They reminded my husband and I that they only wanted enough money so they could return to Mexico and live comfortably. These are not farm workers, but small business owners and employees of local companies.

I found those years to be more of an education about Mexicans - those who live illegally in the US - than I ever could imagine and a complete contrast to my sister's wonderful Mexican husband who came here when 23 years old, worked hard to learn English, and become a citizen. He says he is "not like most Mexicans". In fact, he speaks clearly about the greed of his former countrymen and their narrow focus on themselves without thought to anyone or anything else.

Note to movement Republicans re illegal immigration (another way of saying the preceding post)

In many mainstream media comment threads, Republican partisans try to change the topic from illegal immigration to the Democratic Party, blaming the latter entirely for the former, along with rank and file Democrats, all of whom are described as lib-er-uls (apparently the worst thing you can call someone).

This is beyond stupid. Don't you realize that about half of registered Democrats are on your side of the immigration issue--and that much of the Republican leadership is against you?

We'll all get farther in our efforts to stop illegal immigration--and to NOT give amnesty to those already here--if we make it a bipartisan groundswell. Only grassroots efforts will get us what we want, since both parties are terrified of losing Latino votes.

If you just take this issue as an opportunity to talk about how Obama is a foreign Muslim terrorist so-shul-ist yada yada, you push away all the Democrats who, like me, are on the same page as you about illegal immigration.

And you're nuts if you think the Republican leadership is with you, no matter what they say. Talk is cheap. I judge what the Republican Party is willing to do to stop illegal immigration by what it actually did do from 2000 to 2006, the six year period when it controlled all three branches of government.

And what they did do in that period is....talk. Some sporadic fence building, a few symbolic prosecutions of businesses--and the biggest wave of illegal immigration into this country in United States history.

That's what the Republicans did for us.

I'm not saying the Democratic leadership is any better. You'd better believe they're trolling for Latino votes for all it's worth.

However, Obama does seem to be making vigorous efforts to grab illegal immigrants who are felons, and they have increased border efforts, though not remotely enough.

Nearly all of us Democrats disagree with you about health care reform and Wall Street reform. I can't paper that over, hold hands and sing kumbaya with y'all.

But we can work together on this issue. And those of us who live in the territory of La Reconquista are especially likely to agree with you, because we've seen it firsthand, and we know from personal experience that virtually every word in every pro-amnesty article is outrageous propaganda.

Now here's the hardest part: the need to adopt a universal biometric ID system, which both liberals and right wingers oppose almost hysterically.

I don't propose giving up any of my privacy lightly. But nothing less will really deal with this crisis, and you surely must agree that it is a crisis.

Because regardless of what we do at the border, that won't help with the illegals already here, however many there are--10 million? 20 million? 30 million? No one knows, but we do know there are A LOT, and they're concentrated here in the Southwest, such that many outside the war zone don't fully realize how dire it is here.

Moreover, large number of illegals come here on visas and then let the visa expire. Border patrols won't nab these either.

And this is the only way to shut up the anencephalic Al Sharpton school of political screamers constantly accusing everyone opposing illegal immigration of racism.

A biometric universal ID can be used to efficiently screen every single person whenever they interact with any government agency, from schools to hospitals to polling places to the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, plus private employers.

You don't even need a card (that can be lost or faked). For example, Fujitsu makes a palm scanner that instantly reads the pattern of veins inside your palm. Can't fake that!

Every cop car can have a scanner, linked to the database with wifi.

It will catch anyone of any race or nationality, any way they turn.

This is the only way we can discover and control who's in this country, and catch all those who are here illegally. And palm vein patterns don't depend on skin color.

Regardless of your party, please join me in advocating this. It can build a virtual wall throughout our country, not just at the border.

And remember--there's not a prayer of it happening unless it's a grassroots bipartisan effort. Neither party in Washington is going to stick their necks out on this one.

Is amnesty for illegals a Republicans vs. Democrats thing?

Many partisans don't realize that the amnesty issue cuts across party lines. The vast majority of rank & file Republicans oppose amnesty & want illegals here now persuaded to return to their own countries. Yet the Republican-controlled Congress (prior to 2006) nearly passed a "comprehensive immigration reform" bill.

And around half of rank & file Democrats oppose amnesty as well. Yet they have no voice among the Congressmen they elected.

It many ways it's both parties' voters vs. both parties' elected representatives & their corporatist patrons.

Even a quarter of Americans of Latino heritage oppose amnesty, according to exit polls after several California elections that included anti-illegal immigrant initiatives.

And it should be obvious that most American Blacks oppose amnesty, while nearly all their elected representatives & self-appointed unelected leaders thump the tub for amnesty without letup.

There's a reason for this. Blacks & Latinos disproportionately occupy the lower rungs of our socioeconomic ladders, bringing them into direct competition with illegal immigrant laborers. And many rank & file Democrats haven't forgotten that their party traditionally stood up for the little guy--including working class Blacks, Latinos, Asians & Whites who've all gotten hammered by illegal labor competition.

And they haven't forgotten that the Democratic Party isn't the Democratic World Party or Northern Hemisphere Party. It's the Democratic Party of the United States of America.

You know, the guys you call if you're in another country & wind up in jail there. You won't be calling the UN or the Guatemalan consulate. You'll be calling the American one.

"Home" is the place where if you go there, they have to let you in. Same goes for "my country." That's the folly of border deniers. No one thinks they're a "citizen of the world" when they're looking out at the world through the bars of a foreign jail.

But there's a deeper reason why so many ordinary Democrats oppose amnesty & oppose our country being flooded by Latinos from the lowest economic & educational ranks of Mexico, & thereabouts: it's culture.

Americans like American culture. They're fine with Mexican restaurants and a certain infusion of la cultura Latina into our highly diverse culture. They aren't fine with our culture being displaced by theirs--especially when we aren't getting the full spectrum of Mexico's culture: we're just getting the bottom half of it.

I've lived in Mexico City & hobnobbed with its intellectual elite--the college crowd. I'd love to have them for neighbors.

But instead we get the scrapings of Mexico's barrel. I'm not talking about the crooks coming in. It's the ordinary folks who are constantly praised, even lionized, by the amnesty crowd. Mexico's peasantry is fine as far as it goes, but they're not middle class--not remotely. Anyone who's spent quality time in Mexico--as I have--& who speaks Spanish--as I do--knows that the standards of cleanliness, decorum, treatment of neighbors & all that are a lot sloppier when you go downscale substantially.

I've traveled in 17 countries, & one universal in the third world is trash piled up everywhere--even in places as innately beautiful as Bali, or La Paz, or Cozumel.

Now much of the Southwest is starting to look like those Third World countries.

People hesitate to broach this subject because those in the Al Sharpton school of politics immediately start howling Racist!!!! if you bring up stuff like this.

Which is pretty funny to those of us who have as many Southern white trash relatives as I do, & whose standards are pretty much as uncultured as the Mexican campesinos I'm talking about.

Several factors exacerbate this culture clash.

One is the fact that the Mexicans living here illegally believe, by and large, that they have every right to be here. Their government tells them so repeatedly. And so do officials in the religion most of them belong to, along with numerous American leftist supporters. That's why they proudly fly their flag--La Bandera Mexicana--at rallies here where they're demanding their rights as they see it.

Another is the constant chorus of American leftists saying it's all our fault--because "we" asked them to come here; because "we" are responsible for their destitution; because "we" stole the Southwest from them; because "we" are guilty of the Original Sin of being white and therefore by definition racist; and because "they" are taking over and there's something wrong the the current American majority for not welcoming our coming destruction as a people with open arms.

But corporatists asked them to come here & profit from their labor, then outsource their social costs to taxpayers. And their destitution stems from their overpopulation (from 13.1M in 1900 to 111M now). That's not our fault. And the Southwest was Indian first.

--------------------------------------------------

This was originally a comment on the first Ross Douthat column I've ever agreed with. He's a conservative columnist for the New York Times. The column was titled The Borders We Deserve. However, you won't find it among the 66 comments the NYT published. It was censored out.

We can only speculate as to why. My guess is that we aren't permitted to talk about the culture of the Mexican peasantry that has moved here & is moving here. I find this fascinating. I'd love to see all the comments the NYT censors out of illegal immigration articles.

Another thing you'll see there is the occasional comment that gets censored out after having been allowed in, because there will be a place marker for it accompanied by a starchy note about NYT editorial standards.

I won't include obscene or abusive comments in this blog myself, so I'm fine with editorial standards. OTOH this comment was hardly a rant. So from my POV the NYT considers anything that compares cultures--except to laud Mexican peasant culture--abusive and not fit to print, so to speak.

But as I said I'm just speculating, since the NYT never says why it censors a particular comment, beyond not very useful generalities.

When it comes to illegal immigration, conservatives don't understand liberals' motives

To conservatives:
In comment threads you call liberals stupid, anti-American, cynically trolling for Latino votes.

It's more complicated than that.

There are groups--ethnic, racial, religious--that were persecuted once--and not just by others. By the authorities. By the law. Blacks, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, to name a few. And many more in a somewhat grayer area--basically, anyone who looked/acted different than the majority--people with various handicaps, people who are extra bright or extra slow, even redheads (in England, where they're called Gingers), or just people who are homely or have too many zits, or are extra shy.

Plus there are individuals who may have been none of the above, but who had terrible, tyrannical family lives--usually a father who saw himself as the god almighty of his household, but sometimes a mother like that. Or whose parents treated them abusively because they were alcoholics or dopers.

Such people often develop a hatred of oppression and an identification with whoever they perceive as the underdog.

And those whose tribal identity (religious/ethnic/racial/national) is historically linked with persecution get a double of this underdog-o-philia.

They become liberals, who see what they see as oppression for any as oppression for themselves.

So they defend crazy people as "alternatively mentally enabled" and press lawsuits to get them out of the nuthouses and onto the streets. They argue that homosexuals have the same right to be married as anyone else. And they demand amnesty for illegal aliens.

I'm not saying my armchair psychology here is the only motive liberals have about illegal immigration. But I've known such people for many decades, and it fits what I've seen as an underlying motive, apart from other aspects.

And with those who have, as a group, suffered from government oppression, they may feel that they have to defend what they see as everyone's civil rights in every situation, or they fear that they'll lose their own rights.

I'm against amnesty for illegals myself. So none of this is a justification for amnesty.

I just think it's really, really helpful to understand what makes your opponents tick.

Start immigration arguments with verifiable facts

Whether you favor or oppose illegal immigration, you must admit the truth of the following facts:

1. Mexico's population in 1940 was around 20 million.

2. Mexico's population in 2000 was over 100 million.

3. Mexico's population growth has not come from immigration to Mexico--it has come from Mexicans having many, many babies. Mexico's dominant religion is Roman Catholicism. The Catholic church fiercely opposes the use of any form of birth control device or drug, including condoms. Catholic social policy dominates Mexico.

4. America's Latino population in 1940 was 1/2 of 1%. Which means, among other things, that the American Southwest was not populated by Mexicans when the Americans arrived. It was populated by American Indians, such as Navaho, Hopi, Puelo, Plains Indians etc.--for whom the few Mexicans there were no more or less than foreign invaders.

5. America's Latino population today is over 14%--more than self-identified blacks at this point. Much of that huge increase stems from two previous amnesties, which at the time were presented as the last amnesty ever, because new enforcement provisions would prevent further illegal immigration. In each case what ensued was real amnesty coupled with fake enforcement. The last such amnesty was in 1986.

6. America is in the depths of its worst recession since the Great Depression.

7. Unemployment for American unskilled laborers is over 20%, and promises to remain so for the foreseeable future. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment for Hispanics who are American citizens is 13%; for blacks, 15%; for teenagers, 26%. Most Mexican illegal immigrants are unskilled laborers. Liberal economist Paul Krugman states that large unskilled immigrant populations always drive down wages for unskilled labor--by around 5-25% today, depending on job and location.

8. Over the last decade Californians had a chance to vote on several initiative measures that sought to restrict government benefits to illegal aliens and make English California's official language. California has a substantial majority of Democrats (i.e. relative liberals). Yet these measures passed, and exit polls indicated that they had the support of around a quarter of Hispanic Americans as well as about 40% of Democrats.

Those are the facts, all of which can be verified independently. And they show that many assertions about illegal immigration are canards. Starting with the so-called American "job magnet."

Mexicans want to move to America because there are too many Mexicans. Mexicans weren't sneaking into America in 1950, despite a booming American economy, because there weren't yet too many Mexicans for Mexico's economy to accommodate. Few people want to leave their town, their country, their culture for a foreign one.

Of course now they don't have to. California has become Mexifornia. For example, the most-watched TV station in Los Angeles (American's second-largest city) only broadcasts in Spanish. Nearly all legal materials, signs, commercial customer support phone systems etc. are delivered in Spanish as well as English. Many storefront signs are in Spanish only. You can live your whole life in Mexifornia without having to speak a word of English. And of course, by law, all ballots are delivered in Spanish as well as English. Many radio and TV stations broadcast only in Spanish.
And from being a miniscule minority in California in 1940, Mexicans with American citizenship will be a majority of the state's population by 2050, as long as it continues to increase at the present rate.

Now it's one thing to welcome in thousands or even millions of people from one foreign country/culture. It's another for one of those foreign immigrant groups to become the majority in your state, making everyone else, combined, a minority.

That's the conquering of one country by another--a (mostly) unarmed invasion.

And it makes any American supporting this invasion...well, what do you call someone who works to help a foreign country conquer one's own country?

The New York Times' love affair with Mexican peasants

Today the New York Times editorial board ran yet another screed demanding citizenship for illegal aliens. You can read it here (free registration required). The Times ran 165 comments, most strongly opposing the editorial (including nearly all the comments that garnered high reader ratings). Mine got the 17th highest rating. Here it is:

What this editorial didn't say is more interesting than what it did. Basically it was concrete about what we should do for Mexican citizens who are here illegally, but fuzzy about what we should do to keep more from coming.

That's in line with the last "comprehensive immigration reform" passed by Congress in 1986, which combined real amnesty with fake enforcement.

And of course this editorial doesn't mention what happened as a result of the 1986 amnesty: a huge wave of undereducated, unskilled humanity pouring over the border once we'd erected a giant green light over it.

What's the current unemployment rate for undereducated, unskilled Americans? 20%? 30% 40%? Yet it's OK to spit in their faces, I guess. And why not? None of them are on the NYT Editorial Board, nor are they neighbors of the Board's members. Out of sight, out of mind, huh?

The Board could have taken this opportunity to endorse e-Verify, which is quick, simple, accurate, & can actually prevent companies from exploiting illegal immigrant labor to drive down everyone's wages & bust unions.

It could have admitted that the "12 million" illegal alien head count is speculative, since America lacks any kind of universal ID system--the only way we could really tell who's here & how many. The actual number of illegals in this country could be double or triple that. No one knows.

And if the Board ever ventured west of the Hudson to California where I've lived all my life, they might discover that the character of our state has been radically Latinized since the 1986 amnesty. The most-watched TV station in Los Angeles only broadcasts in Spanish, for example.

I mention this not because I hate Mexican culture--in fact I speak Spanish & have traveled in the Mexican countryside extensively. I mention it because I actually like my own American culture. Now the Board, in other editorials, has condemned Americans who like American culture, calling us nativists, as if we're knuckle-dragging xenophobes who break out in hives if we espy a foreigner. Well if so, I've got plenty of company, since at least 2/3 of Americans feel the same way I do.

And since so many do, you'd think the Board would try to address our complaints about the Southwest being turned into an American Quebec. It would endorse e-Verify, Universal ID, & other practical measures to regain control of our demographics. But instead it speaks about the 2/3 with contempt, as it did again in this editorial.

Lastly, the Board didn't mention that in 1940 Mexico had a population of 20 million, which exploded into over 100 million in 2000--vastly more than the Mexican economy can absorb. This is our fault how?

And if we are to admit millions upon millions of immigrants every year, why are we obligated to have most of them Mexican peasants? Why not people of every race & nation who have skills we actually need? Why Mexicans? Darfurians are in far worse straits. Chinese engineers are more useful. What obligation or need requires us to allow Mexico's oligarchs to outsource their home-made population crisis to America?
Not to mention how people trying to immigrate legally will feel once our government lets 10-30 million Mexicans jump the queue.

How did the New York Times Editorial Board's sympathies become limited to just one foreign country's population? In the words of Marvin Gaye, ain't that peculiar?

The New York Times published yet another editorial proposing amnesty for illegal immigrants, along with asserting that illegals have a right to conduct their day-to-day activities here without fer of prosecution, and that local law enforcement should do nothing whatsoever about illegal immigration. You can find this editorial at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/opinion/26wed1.html?_r=1

Here's my response:

This editorial argues by anecdote. Anecdotes can illustrate an argument, but they can't prove it.

For every anecdote of illegals as innocent victims of Americans, you can find an anecdote of Americans as innocent victims of illegals. None of those anecdotes finds its way into this editorial, however. Nor does a single statistic. Nor does empirical reasoning.

All of which makes this editorial pure propaganda, playing on readers' heartstrings through a one-sided sob story treatment of a difficult issue, using loaded language to tilt the playing field even further. (Such as renaming illegal aliens "undocumented immigrants", which strips away the taint of trespass.)

It all works because even among the college educated, many get their BAs without any real exposure to scientific logic, quantitiative analysis, or training in how to spot propaganda and avoid being manipulated by it.

Once you scrape away the propagandizing, here's what this editorial claims:

1. The nation is inundated with hate crimes against illegals. (False—the FBI reported 7,622 hate crimes last year, meaning that 0.003% of the population is committing such crimes; and that number is down from 2006.)

2. Illegals are afraid to talk to police for fear of being deported, so crimes against them going unpunished. (Plausible, but also due to illegals coming from countries where police prey on you instead of helping you, and from countries that don't speak English; moreover, the offsetting value of local law enforcement helping rid America of illegals isn't even considered.)

3. Illegals are here to stay; we're powerless to expel them; therefore we must give them citizenship to avoid creating a permanent underclass. (The Left hopes that people will come to believe this trope through sheer repetition; but in fact, adopting E-Verify universally would make it impossible for illegals to work here other than as pick-up labor in front of Home Depots; and adopting a universal biometric ID system would force most illegals to go home the same way they got here.)

4. It's immoral to "tear families apart." (By this logic we mustn't arrest thieves with families; and of course illegals' families are welcome to leave with them. Moreover, those families are the product of the decisions of the illegals themselves, not us. It's called "responsibility." Look it up.)

5. Illegals have rights, just like the rest of us. (They have basic human rights, but they don't have the right to be here, nor to be paid for their labor, because it was illegal for them to do that labor for money in the first place. Nor do they have the right to "congregate in public places without fear" because, again, they don't have the right to be here, because they're trespassing.)

7. Local law enforcement should concentrate on keeping "off the books businesses from eroding pay and conditions for all workers." (You bet—but the easiest way to do that is through E-Verify and a universal biometric ID system, neither of which you mention or advocate, and without which local law enforcement is denied its best means of accomplishing this.)

This editorial's emotional appeal betrays total callousness towards the main victims of illegals: working-class Americans of all races and ethnicities, whose already low wages have been driven below the poverty line by competition from illegals.

For shame.

You can't hear the loudest voice in the immigration debate

The illegal immigration debate has three sides: one for amnesty for illegals, one for denying illegals entry, employment, and social services, and one for the status quo. The first two don't matter, even though they're the only ones you hear about in the news--both the mainstream media and alternative news sources.

The third only speaks in private, and only to lawmakers and elected officials, and it represents only a few thousand Americans. But they're also the richest Americans, and the largest contributors to campaign coffers. This group wants a steady flow of illegals so they can drive down wages for blue-collar work and bust the unions. They don't want them legalized; nor do they want them stopped.

You don't need access to those private conversations to figure out whether what I'm saying here is true. Just look at the news. You see lip service paid to public pressure groups for and against illegal immigration, but the people keep coming, in enormous numbers. It's ridiculous to say that we can't stop this. Just have the National Guard guard the nation--deploy them across the southern border, with rules of engagement appropriate to the fact that most illegal immigration is now managed by the drug cartels, using militias armed with automatic weapons. And have employment filtered through a national biometric ID--also well within our technical capabilities now. But everything gets slow-walked if it's even tried. Look at Bush's pathetic "efforts" to build a border fence mandated and budgeted by Congress. Look at the draconian federal prosecution and incarceration of border agents Ramos and Campeon--guaranteed to demoralize other Border Patrol officers. There are numerous other examples.

So don't let anyone tell you this is a two-way debate...well, except it is: the public debate, which provides the illusion of representative democracy, and the private non-debate, which is really just marching orders issued by the wealthiest Americans to their dedicated, hardworking servants, otherwise known as Congress and the Executive branch.

Immigration: different issue for left & right

When you study foreign languages, sometimes you run into words that sound like English words--only they mean something else. These are called false cognates. "Immigration" is a false cognate when it comes to discussions between left wingers and right wingers.

To left wingers, "immigration" is an aspect of the issue of government-supplied social services. So when they discuss "immigration" they mean "how can we provide these people with the social services they need?"

To right wingers, "immigration" is an aspect of security and rule of law. So when they discuss "immigration" they mean "How can we regain control of who's here, so we can obey the prime directive of any state--to protect its citizens?"

This also means that to left wingers, the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants is meaningless, since it has no bearing on whether someone needs social services or not. But to right wingers it's a crucial distinction, for rule of law/security purposes.

I came to this insight courtesy of Washington Post columnist A.J. Dionne, who got the Pew Research Center to re-analyze a recent national political survey in order to highlight differences between Democrats and Republicans. Later he validated his results against other reputable national policy polls and got similar results.

Some highlights:
.................Democrats Republicans
Iraq is #1 issue ......40%.........29%
--in deciding which presidential candidate to vote for
Healthcare is #1.......13%..........2%
Terrorism/Security......5%.........17%
Education..............12%..........5%
Abortion................1%..........8%
Immigration.............1%.........12%
Immigration or Abortion.2%.........20%
Domestic issues........42%.........20%
(economy, healthcare or education)

That is, overall, for Democrats Iraq is the #1 issue, with the economy #2.
For Republicans Iraq is the #1 issue, with terrorism #2 and the economy #2.

So when Republicans and Democrats try to discuss immigration, each is coming to the table with different assumptions. The Republican talks about controlling the borders, halting illegals' ID theft, catching terrorists entering the country along with the economic migrants. But what the Democrat hears is paranoid crazy talk (apparently 9/11 didn't happen) coupled to a despicable lack of concern for human rights and needs.

Then the Democrats talks about amnesty for illegals, along with giving them free medical and educational services, helping each one bring over his or her entire clan, make sure they can vote in their native language so they don't have to bear the burden of learning English, and that any children born in America continue to receive automatic citizenship. What the Republican hears is crazy talk (apparently all playing fields are already level), coupled to a despicable lack of concern for the most fundamental requirements of a nation: rule of law and the safety of its citizens.

No wonder we can't discuss immigration without it all devolving into a shouting match. Our premises differ, and we have to resolve those premises before we can really discuss immigration with each other.

One last item--many issues have become "Republican" or "Democrat" issues, with people pressured to hew to the party line across the board. This is why so many Americans consider themselves "Independent." Their priorities do not line up with the priorities of either party.