Obama's new immigrant initiative wrong, but Romney not right

Today President Obama announced that he'd quit automatically deporting illegal aliens who'd entered the country before they were 16, had no criminal record, had graduated high school, and who weren't 30 yet. Stuff like that. And he'd give such aliens a 2 year residence permit, renewable indefinitely every two years.

This is a perfect example of just what the American President can and cannot do. He can't grant amnesty with citizenship. He can't just flout Congressional legislation (though Bush II did pretty much do that with his strange "signing statements" time after time after time). And the next President who isn't him can rescind this dictum on his first day in office.

I've no doubt that the President had a political motive in this announcement (you think?), just as Citizen Romney had a muted doublespeak response to the announcement: namely trolling for the Mexivote.

But let's take everyone at face value. What's wrong with Obamnesty has nothing to do with whether the 800,000-odd people involved wouldn't make good immigrants for America. I'm sure a lot would. For one thing, nearly all of them speak/write good English. And by definition at least graduated from high school. There are a lot of native-born high school dropouts I'd happily trade in for this lot.

What's wrong with Obamnesty is that it dangles a big fat carrot in front of the nose of every alien who loves his kid(s), but doesn't think he or she could get a permanent visa (or doesn't want to wait). Now again I like the idea of LEGAL immigrants who love their kids and want the best of them. But I don't love the idea of the message President Obama just broadcast to the world: "Come on down! We'll let your kids jump the queue--no problemo."

Also, as with all such policies and proposals, it includes a soft jingoism: the assumption that no other country on Earth is worth being a citizen of.

I recall the last time I was in the Philippines, in the Puerto Galera area of Mindoro. I ran into a young lady from Los Angeles, CA, of pure Philippino extraction. She'd grown up in California and didn't even speak Tagalog when she visited relatives in Manila. A few years later, she'd become the manager of a scuba diving shop in Puerto Galera. She know how to deal with foreign divers--95% of the clientele--was attractive, knew the Philippino culture too because that was her family.

That's a life course many of these illegal immigrants to America, brought here as kids, could follow. I've been in 17 countries as a tourist, and I've seen how much demand there is for people with a foot in the home country culture and the cultures of the tourists.

And Puerto Galera isn't some crime-ridden slum. It's a lovely place. Google it--you'll see.

So deporting the illegal aliens who President Obama expresses so much empathy for hardly consigns them to a garbage heap in Bombay. Not when they have an American education. I bet a lot of them would wind up staying happily in their home country when they discover what their opportunities are there.

I'd give them a one year delay in deportation in order to learn their home culture/language, and once they're there, allow them to apply for a visa to come here, along with everyone else who wants to come here, and give them points for their mastery of American culture/language in considering their petition. Unless they stayed here beyond the time limit--and then all bets are off.

But I'm not running for office in a country that's now 14% Hispanic, most of which is the result of previous amnesties for illegals.

And that's why even someone as overtly hardline on immigration as Romney gave such a low-key answer.

Linda Greenhouise says we're a nation of anti-immigrants

In a recent New York Times op-ed piece, Pulitzer Prize-winning Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse took recent SCOTUS decisions as meaning that America is anti-immigrant. The decisions involved immigrants and drugs.

My answer (which the NYT highlighted):

One could draw very different conclusions from the facts you lay out.

In my book you're blaming the Supreme Court for the sins of Congress. Many would agree that both Congress and many state legislatures take a draconian approach towards mind-altering substances (well, substances other than the ones the legislators themselves use regularly (i.e. alcohol, nicotine, and an ever-widening array of pills that legislators use via prescription)).

Some of the instances you cite--the poor shmoe with a tab of Xanax and a joint--are indeed ridiculous, but the laws about drug possession are also ridiculously harsh for native-born citizens.

OK, I agree. But the Supreme Court can't (or shouldn't) overturn laws just because they're stupid, too harsh, etc.; it gets to overturn them if they're unconstitutional. And you didn't make a clear case for that being the case. So it seems to me that your beef should be with our legislatures and their obsessions with sumptuary laws.

I use neither drugs nor alcohol nor tobacco--heck, I don't even drink coffee or cola drinks. So I have no ax to grind personally, except for being appalled at seeing our government spend billions to little effect on the hyperbolically misnamed "war on drugs"--and in the course of doing so, inadvertently financing criminal organizations including the Taliban.

But that "war on drugs" seems to be the culprit here, with the harsh treatment of immigrant drug offenders having more to do with the drug part than the immigrant part.

After all, it's a matter of record that this country welcomes more legal immigrants than any other nation on Earth. I've attended naturalization ceremonies for friends that included people from over 60 countries.

Personally I think we should make it a lot easier for skilled and/or rich people to immigrate and a lot harder for those without needed skills to come here--along with felons. And transporting half a ton of marijuana under our current laws sure qualifies someone as a felon. If it were up to me that would be legal, but at this time it isn't, and the guy knew it. So out he goes, and if you think the lawyer who advised him incorrectly messed up (and I agree he did), then sanction the lawyer. The felon didn't realize it would get him deported, but he obviously knew he was committing a felony.

Every infraction you listed concerned drugs. If you wanted me to think it was all about immigration you should have cited something besides drug offenses.

So yes, I do think you're indulging in hyperbole when you breathlessly intone that we're in danger of
"losing our moral center" for being anti-immigrant.

Anti-immigrant? Have looked at a ballot lately--available in how many dozens of languages? Have you looks at our immigration laws, that let one productive guy bring in a dozen freeloading family members in the name of "family reunification?" Have you looked at the sheer numbers of legal immigrants we choose to admit to this country? Have you looked at the amnesties we periodically grant to those who came illegally? Have you looked at the fact that a pregnant Panamanian can fly to Miami and have her child in an American hospital free of charge, and that baby is automatically an American citizen with full welfare rights? Have you looked at our hate crime laws that mandate bending over backwards to be courteous to every kind of immigrant, legal or not?

There are a variety of ways in which our country is less welcoming, and you've discussed some of them here. But to conclude that America is anti-immigrant by cherrypicking our laws fo the ones that support your generalization is laughable, given all the ways in which we do welcome immigrants. And even illegals. Illegal immigration is a felony in many countrie--such as Mexico, until recently. It's only a misdemeanor here.

All of which means I think you took the truth and lied with it, using selective citations and extreme examples that are emotionally appealing. I expect better from a Pulitzer winner.

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?

silver card visa

Some real estate groups have proposed something called a silver card visa--this would be like a permanent tourist card visa. It would go to people who want to retire here on money they bring here. I think that's a great idea, and I'd give them a path to citizenship as well.

Educated, well-off retirees--sure beats day laborers with less than a high school education.

Response to yet another NYTmes diatribe about immigration

For the editorial board of the New York Times, illegal immigration is an ideological issue. For those of us who live in the border states it's an everyday in-your-face reality. My state--California--now ranks 48th among states educationally, as a direct result of our schools being flooded with the children of Mexican peasants, a majority of whom drop out before graduation. Our ERs are stuffed with same. Transnational criminal gangs have turned California's prisons into a battleground, while their compadres out on the streets are racially cleansing mixed neighborhoods of blacks.

You call us nativist and restrictionist. I call you isolated, arrogant, full of condescending advice about a reality you've never dealt with. Manhattan is a melting pot where "immigration" means great restaurants with cuisines from all over the world. In the border states it means the formation of a monolithic ethnic enclave comparable to Canada's thorn-in-its side Quebec. Today the most-watched TV station in LA broadcasts only in Spanish, and the Mexican flag decorates innumerable bumpers and back windows.

Nowhere in your hyperbolic editorial did you address the fact that business interests have exploited illegal aliens' labor to drive down blue-collar wages for everyone 15-25%. But I suppose poor whites and blacks--and Hispanic citizens, for that matter--are yesterday's news.

Worst of all, your editorial radiates a smug moral certainty also characteristic of the pronouncements of, say, fundamentalist Christians here or Wahhabist Muslims in the Middle East.

You treat our defense of our society, our culture, our very safety as so contemptible you need to do little more than label us "nativist" and get back to your morning latte.

There are positions that don't deserve respectful disagreement, to be sure. Creationism, for example. All the Creationists' anti-evolution arguments are complete nonsense, and the more scientific terms they use the more nonsensical they get.

So I'm not saying you should treat the two-thirds of Americans who oppose illegal immigration with respect just because. But your arguments and refutations demonstrate the shallowness of your approach. In this you exemplify Saul Steinberg's famous cartoon of the USA as seen though New Yorkers' eyes. You are parochials pretending to be sophisticates.

And the Democrats' candidates all say exactly the same thing as you do. Didn't you notice Barack Obama's extended refutation of the "deport them all" stance that no one has taken (that's called a Straw Man argument)? Didn't you notice Senator Clinton stating "No woman is illegal," then adding that no man is either? Is that what you'd say about the Saudi airplane bombers who were here illegally?

What you dismiss as "restrictionist" works just fine. If I have ants in my kitchen, I have to not leave food out. Then they go away. A majority of illegal aliens will self-deport if we make it impossible for them to earn money here--and to send money back to Mexico.

In your exegesis you failed to mention that you want America to pay for the Mexican government's exploitation of its people and the Catholic Church's domination of social policy there, resulting in Mexico's population exploding from 20 million in 1940 to over 100 million today--vastly more people than its economy can absorb.

How is America at fault for this? It's Mexico's kleptocracy and the 14th century attitude of its dominant religion that produced the population bomb Mexico desperately wants to deposit on our doorstep.

Meanwhile we erect a near-endless wait for the grad students and skilled professionals who want to live and work here, and the million Iraqi Christians our policies have deprived of home and country. Them we could use. More peasants we don't need. All they help is big business in its endless war on the working class--abetted by Volvo liberals like yourselves.

"We" didn't invite these illegal aliens here. Wealthy corporatists did, then outsourced their massive social burden to the taxpayer, while insourcing the profits of their cheap, uncomplaining labor to themselves.

How can you shill for the greedy plutocrats you oppose in every other editorial? How can you urge the Democratic Party to further alienate itself from its traditional base of working-class Americans of every race and ethnicity in your passion for Mexico's citizenry?

I could be like you. Heck, I speak Spanish. I've lived in Mexico. I'm comfortable in that culture. And I live in an affluent college town that isn't being inundated by illegals. What's happening affects me very little--just like you. But unlike you I care about Americans who don't have my advantages.

The New York Times publishing a science section article showing how partisans of the left and right don't process political information with the reasoning part of their brains. You should look up that article, then do some serious introspection.

Some interesting discussion topics

* Universal ID --I don't see how we can get a grip on who's in this country without this. We also need it to prevent ID theft. There are many technical issues, but new technologies offer hope. I notice that the far left and the far right are unanimous in loathing this idea. That's a recommendation in my book.

* Finding neutral debate terms. Every emotionally charged debate going on in this country is flooded with emotionally charged language in which one side or another--or both--try to tilt the playing field in their direction. I'd like to see a discussion in which people tried to find neutral terms for the debates. I find the media to be almost criminally negligent in this area. They just use whatever term has the most vigorous promotion behind it.

Terms that should be replaced:
>"Pro life," "pro choice," "unborn baby"
>"people of color," "African American"
>"atheist," "people of faith"
>"undocumented worker," "illegal alien."
--I think "illegal alien" is actually denotatively accurate, but I'm open to another term. "undocumented worker" implies that the person has no documents, but they may well have documents from their home country; "worker" doesn't imply that all illegals are worker--it states it; likewise "immigrant." But a person isn't a worker if they're a criminal or a dependent or plan to live off welfare/food stamps/begging etc. A person is only an immigrant if they plan to stay permanently. Some do, some don't. Many plan to return after earning some money. Those aren't immigrants.
>"war on terror" --it's not a war in the conventional sense of country-on-country armed conflict; it's not terror--that's a tactic, and we're not pursuing the Tamil Tigers, ETA in Spain, or any other terrorist group except for the Islamofascists who are trying to kill us. It's a multidimensional conflict with the Islamofascist movement and certain elements in certain countries that support this movement. Now--how about a pithy term from that that isn't actively misleading, as "war on terror" is?

Neutral terms might make dialog actually possible instead of the shouting matches we normally see in forums and on the air.
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* underlying assumptions. Conservative people focus on the individual's responsibilities towards the group; liberal people focus on the group's responsibilities towards the individual. So when either makes a point he thinks is quite telling and the other dismisses it, the point-maker sees the other as a traitor to all that's good & holy. They talk past each other. I'd like to see a discussion about this fundamental issue, using actual conflict issues to tie it to reality--illegal immigration, universal ID, the draft, the conflict with Islamofascists, abortion--all provide numerous examples of this talking past-ing.

For example, in the abortion debate, anti-abortion people invariable say at some point that "life beings at the moment of conception," and this is rarely challenged. But that's not a definition of "life" any biologist worth his salt would accept--unless you agreed that your nose is also alive but your hair is dead (outside the follicle).

I think the anti-abortion people are actually proposing that we're ensouled at the moment of conception, but they've learned not to make this explicit. Biologists start raising uncomfortable points otherwise, such as the fact that identical twins and chimeras are not formed at the moment of conception. And real theologists will add that there's nothing biblical in the assertion either.

Cops don't want to bust illegals

Monday's Washington Post published this editorial:

Police on the Spot
In the absence of a workable immigration system, state and local officers are forced into a quandary.

Monday, June 25, 2007; A18

DESPITE THE objections of police chiefs all over the country, officers at the state, city and county levels are increasingly being drawn into what should be the federal government's responsibility to deal with illegal immigrants. In some instances officers are compelled to arrest undocumented immigrants a fter routine traffic infractions if a computer shows that they are facing outstanding federal warrants. In this way local police are being made complicit in federal deportations, which subverts their attempts to establish ties and cooperative relations with immigrant communities. Hence the police chiefs' objections.

This is a potentially serious problem. Violent gangs have gained a dangerous foothold in many immigrant communities, including some in the Washington area. To contain them, police need informers and other kinds of help in those neighborhoods. But what immigrant informer will come forward if he knows that as soon as police enter his name into a database, they will be compelled to arrest him because he failed to appear at a hearing on his immigration status or a deportation proceeding some years ago?

A handful of police departments have refused to enforce the federal warrants, which include about 250,000 from the Immigration and Custo ms Enforcement agency. Most departments, including those in this region, are enforcing them, albeit unenthusiastically in some cases. Lawsuits have been brought challenging the inclusion of the warrants, which are for civil violations, in a national criminal database.

All of this is symptomatic of the underlying sickness, which is the nation's failure to devise a workable immigration policy and the resulting problem of 12 million illegal immigrants. The tensions between federal and local law enforcement will only worsen until lawmakers in Washington figure a way out of the impasse -- one that recognizes the reality that most of those immigrants are an integral part of the U.S. economy and are here to stay. As the Senate prepares to take up its immigration bill for the second time in a month, it should be mindful of how tenuous the status quo has become.

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I posted the following response:

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ehkzu wrote:

Once more, Beltway insiders—and that includes the Washington Post editorial board, Congress, and King George—are touting a clever plan to outsource your generosity to the border states. You won’t pay the price for this generosity. We Californians and Arizonans and New Mexicans and Texans will. How convenient. All the self-satisfaction of good-heartedness, with none of the messy consequences. Woo hoo.

Well, here’s a little reality check. You all proposed the same thing in 1986—“comprehensive immigration reform” combining amnesty for those already here and enforcement to make sure there’d be no repeats. Only it turned out to be real amnesty and fake enforcement. So instead of 3 million and no more, now there are 12 million “and no more.” That extrapolates to next time facing 48 million “and no more.” Do you really think we’re that stupid? Do you have any idea of the impact of dozens of millions of non-English-speaking unskilled workers on the economy of the border states? The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that on balance these workers will put more into the economy than they take out of it…300 years from now.

And the so-called “reform” of 1986 turned out to be yet another unfunded mandate. We border state taxpayers got to foot the bill for their huge social costs, while their productivity swelled corporate coffers and went to their home villages south of the border. And the bosses have used their presence to bust unions and drive down wages for the working poor.

But not only are none of you Beltway insiders here—few of you have any first-hand experience of the world of the warehouse worker, the Walmart clerk, the American field hand. Their real wages have gone down substantially since 1986, and much of that is due to your generosity towards foreigners. And why not? Those unskilled Americans have dirt under their fingernails, for goodness’ sake. They wouldn’t know Bach from a box cutter. They watch American Idol non-ironically. Who wouldn’t disdain their misery in their trailer park homes?

You say how unfair it is that cops are being forced to do the Feds’ dirty work. Certainly it interferes with community relations. But your alternative—“Come on down!” is even worse. The choice is between bad and horrible.

And you say we have to recognize “the reality that most of those immigrants are an integral part of the U.S. economy and are here to stay.” Oh really? You act as if we sent busses down to Mexico, Guatemala etc. and kidnapped families off the street and brought them here. In fact they left home because they thought opportunities were better here than under the kleptocracies that pretend to be governments in Latin America. They will return if they come to think the reverse. And we have a way to make them think that.

We can now implement a universal biometric ID database—which one presidential candidate has endorsed, BTW. It could erect a virtual border throughout America. New biometric technologies include a palm vein reader, for example. Hold your hand over a pad for a moment and it reads your palm. You can fool it only if you can rearrange the veins inside your hand. It doesn’t cost a lot. We could put one in every outlet for social services and every corporate HR office. If employers can’t get away with employing illegals, many will go back—and, hopefully, start long-overdue revolutions in their home countries.

While we’re at it, why do you act as if they dropped out of the sky? Every one of them is a citizen of a country. Why don’t you ever talk about that? Mexico is only number 53 on the UN’s poverty index. It’s not a poor country. It just has a poor government. Agitate for reform there for once.

As for the current bill in Congress….tell you what. We’ll be glad to talk about amnesty for the 12 million here the moment the feds turn the flood of illegals into a trickle. You can use universal bio ID, fences, UAVs, National Guard on the border, vigorous prosecution of large employers of illegals, you name it. We’re not fussy.

We agree that “comprehensive immigration reform” seems better than “enforcement first.” But, see, you’ve taught us to not believe you. Last time you broke your word. Why do you expect us to think you won’t do it again? Especially since you all act as if the 1986 amnesty sans enforcement never happened. As if this is the only time we’ve faced a horde of illegals across the border states.

And another BTW: “we” aren’t just the cranky old white guys who listen to right-wing radio, like you think we are. If you analyze California voting records for several anti-illegal immigrant initiatives over the last decade, you’ll find that “we” includes a quarter of all citizens of Latino ancestry and as much as 40% of registered Democrats.

What we aren’t is Charley Brown--though you are Lucy. We aren’t holding the ball for you this time. To quote The Who: “We don’t get fooled again.”

Richard A. Clarke says biometric ID a necessity

"In the absence of a secure border and verifiable biometric identification systems, preventing terrorists from getting in to this country and setting up sleeper cells here is almost impossible. Maybe we will get serious after the next attack. "

--from a New York Times op-ed piece by Richard A. Clarke, former head of counterterrorism at the National Security Council, & author of “Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror.”

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.