Children brought here illegally are already citizens

In the comment thread to a talk show on children brought here illegally, one commentor said:

"An adult should not be punished for a crime his parents committed while he was a minor. We need amnesty and a path to citizenship for people who were brought into this country illegally as children and raised as Americans."

 My response:

How is returning someone to the nation they're a citizen of "punishment" ? It seems remarkably jingoistic to assume that living in any nation on Earth other than America is an awful fate.

And while a child is not responsible for crimes his parents committed, neither is a nation of which the child is not a citizen. If a child is, say, a citizen of Jamaica, then Jamaica is responsible for that child--just as Jamaica is not responsible for you and me.

There is much injustice in this world. The plight of illegal aliens brought here as children is one of them, but it's minor compared to the injustices inflicted on a billion humans every day by their own nations.

Today there are many thousands of children and teens being held as slaves in America, right under our middle class noses. Juveniles being trafficked sexually, who can't even go to the police, who generally arrest them instead of their captors.

That's the kind of injustice we should be focusing on. Citizens of other countries brought here illegally as children can do very well in the tourist trade of their home country, since they speak English idiomatically and understand our culture.

I've seen this personally in many 3rd world nations I've traveled in, from Indonesia to Mexico. Repatriating such people is not throwing them under the bus--and like the other 6.8 billion people on Earth who are also not American citizens, they are not our direct responsibility, though we should of course hope for the best for them.

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.

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 Morality of Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis used to be dangerous but now we can cure it...right?

Not any more. Now there's a strain that's resistant to most drugs--and a second strain that's currently incurable and kills within weeks.

Where'd these monster TB breeds come from?

The Third World. [The map shows incidence of TB per 100 people, the worst in red, the best gray.]

You see, TB requires taking pills daily for 6-12 months. You feel lots better pretty quickly though. So people stop taking the pills. And within their bodies, where all but a few resistant bacilli have been killed off, a monster is growing that imperils us all.

The people know the doctors told them to keep taking the pills. But they feel better. And remember, these are people who often put more faith in folk medicine than in Western medicine. They might have even gotten a treatment from the witch doctor/curare/etc. at the same time and been pronounced cured by him/her.

The numbers of people dying from--and spreading--hard to cure or incurable strains of TB are proliferating--particularly in areas with an AIDS epimec as well, since AIDS makes people far more prone to get TB in the first place.

Mostly these people stay put in the third world. But some are entering America and other advanced nations that have porous borders, as illegal immigrants. Others are sometimes getting on airplanes and endangering dozens or even hundreds of fellow passengers.

And a recent news item on PBS about this issue said that in South Africa around a quarter of poor people fail to complete their TB treatments. It didn't say whether this cohort was different in any quantifiable way from those who did complete their treatments.

So--this raises both moral and practical issues. On a purely practical basis there's an argument for denying medical treatments to poorly-educated people when the treatments are protracted and those who quit treatment early endanger others--unless those offering the treatment can hospitalize such patients for the duration of their treatment.

But they don't, and as a consequence a group of people trying to bring first world medicine to the third world are completely responsible for developing drug-resistant strains of TB that endanger the rest of the world. They have helped many deserving people. But I doubt that they've considered the price: these human TB time bombs.

Just another example of how much evil in the world is caused by saintly people who only wish to do good. Many do-gooders need to work harder at pondering the long-term consequences of their actions.