This doesn’t come as any surprise to me.
In a recent Associated Press-Pew Research Center poll, 17 percent of likely Republican voters in the New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary named illegal immigration as the one issue they want to hear candidates talk about, making it second only to Iraq. In Iowa, where caucuses kick of the presidential nominating season, immigration was the leading issue for 18 percent of Republicans, ahead of Iraq.
The figures are somewhat surprising in New Hampshire, a state of 1.3 million people with a small immigrant population and even smaller illegal one. There were 14,000 more foreign-born residents in the state last year than in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A report last year by the Pew Hispanic Center estimated the state is home to somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 illegal immigrants.
Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, said he has believed for a year or so that illegal immigration would be important in the GOP primary because it strikes so many chords. There’s the economic argument: Illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans. There’s the legal one: They’re breaking the law. There’s the cultural argument: They’re not assimilating into American culture.”
The surprise is that most INDEPENDENT primary voters are also expressing support for a more security-conscious immigration policy… and opposition to blanket amnesty of law-breakers.
A sizable majority — an average of 65 percent of voters in those three states [Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania] — said that they would vote for the candidate they agreed with on other issues but not on immigration. But an average of 22 percent said that illegal immigration could be a deal-breaker for them when it comes to voting for a candidate.
That would be a significant number in a close election. Most interesting is that 27 percent of independents — the key swing voters who decide elections — say immigration could turn them away from a candidate, more than either Democrats or Republicans.
Democrat voters, on the other hand, are content to live in their made-up land of Bush Derangement Syndromeville and cast their votes from that warped perspective.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
Well, call me a racist and a nazi (and I’m sure someone will), but I just don’t see how uncontrolled levels of illegal immigration are good for the country, nor do I think American citizenship is something that should passed out like a library card. Guess I’m just a bigoted, nativist hatemonger. Yep.
The problem with both conservative, as well as liberal, debate on immigration is that it is devoid of any context as to why people, especially the surge in Mexican immigrant, are forced to leave their own country. There is no doubt that many people come to the United States in hopes of bettering their economic situation and this has been true for quite some time. However, the surge in immigration in recent years is closely related to U.S. economic policy, especially NAFTA. Whether you support NAFTA or not, it has without question destroyed the traditional agricultural economy in Mexico leading to wide spread displacement of agricultural workers as well as rural economies on the whole. What are people expected to do other than look for work to support themselves and their families. What I don’t understand about the anti-immigrant sentiment among those who support complete free trade is why is it okay for capital to have no boundaries regardless of the consequences and yet the movement of labor should be restricted.
Whoa! NAFTA? That is an interesting bug-a-bear to choose.
Mexico was never a happy agricultural society of peasants tending their tacos and burritos and watering their chalupas. Mexican poverty and rural hand to mouth survival is well documented.
Mexicans come here because our worst conditions are the Hilton compared to their poverty pits. They are the tip of the ice berg. Chile fends off the Peruvians. Venezuela fights off the Ecuadorians. The Dominican Republic keeps the Haitians away. Mexico seals off the El Salvadorians and Guatemalans. All of Central and South America’s poor would be in the US if they could get here.
Mexico is a corrupt state in which the rich get richer and the poor get children and the money sent home by their citizens working in the United States is a huge part of their national economy.
If anything, NAFTA made it possible for companies to open in Mexico and provide much needed wages for the people while lowering labor costs to the US consumer. Tough luck for the Mexicans came in the form of smarter, more motivated and more desperate Chinese.
Because capital has no boundaries. Period. That is why Mexicans come here. The capital…..which has no boundaries.
Would you like to consider offering Mexico the option of being our 51st state? Why Mexico and not Haiti or Somalia or Bangladesh?
What I find dissonant about Brendan’s comment is that U.S. Agribusiness kvetches that without illegal immigrant labor (and massive taxpayer subsidies), it would go out of business and we would have to buy all our produce from Mexico.
If the rich asked Congress if they could arrange for the middle-class to be taxed in order to subsidize their nannies, gardeners, and kitchen help, there would be outrage. And yet our illegal immigration policy achieves precisely that effect.
Forced? By whom?
Why should I care what forces in their native lands compell them to come here… to know about it implies I should be doing something about it.. and why should i do anything about the conditions in Mexico? Don’t we already fund enough of the world and Mexico as it is?
Which makes no sense.. if the immigrants are coming in ILLEGALLLY, then it isn’t legal frameworks that are promoting their entry.
Seems like common sense.
It’s complicated. That is, until you have the Super Decoder ring. Which is this: Many of “The Rich” are no-good lefties. People who inherited trust funds and therefore, haven’t the slightest clue what wealth creation is about. People whose top 2 motivations are:
(1) To keep themselves on top through government intervention in the business world; and
(2) To assuage their deep-seated and rightful guilt over (1), and over the possession of their trust funds.
The secret of Left-liberalism (or Big Government or Socialism) is that it addresses both points together. Through left-liberalism, the trust-fund leftie elitist – the Kennedy/Pelosi limousine ‘progressive’ – can simultaneously posture about their progressivism (point 2) and knife the Nouveau Riche and the middle class (point 1).
Being pro-illegal immigration is the ultimate. They can appear to be “progressively” pro-brown-people – while in reality, merely obtaining more cheap servants and farm workers for themselves, and again knifing the middle class.
Left-liberalism requires rational thought and debate to be silenced, and shrieking “racist” at opponents accomplishes that.
Our own Priistas.
Blame America First!
(hint… could the steady emigration from Mexico in recent years possibly be related to **Mexican** policy? Specifically, the relative lack of economic and political freedoms, making the country something of a hellhole? Ya think?)
I live in a city where an estimated 75,000 illegal aliens reside. As long as there are jobs that no USA born citizens will take at the bottom of the wage scale, we will have illegal immigration from Mexico. These aliens, mostly young men, live in conditions that most would find incredible. 7 or 8 in an apartment, sending that money back to Mexico to thier family. Most of these jobs are paid off the books by employers doing business for residential labor off the books.
The secret of stopping illegal immigration is stopping this pipeline of undocumented cash to undocumented aliens. It is ridiculous to think that Dallas or any city will willingly give up this most basic of economic realities. Cheap labor!!!!!! The last thing any of the current illegals want is exposure to the US government, they do not abuse welfare or our medical system. The doc in the boxes in Hispanic neighborhoods get most of the medical business, as they do not want to be exposed to County Government agencies at our public hospitals. It is a security issue and that is all. Let us enforce existing laws., and be ready to start paying higher prices for every service we receive.
#9 Tom: Good points. I was a citrus grower in Florida before and after Jimmuh Cahtuh decided to put the clamp on off-shore labor and the whole “green card” labor force. I know what it is to lose a legal immigrant labor pool and have to resort to begging our welfare class to consider a job.
That said, the illegal immigrant labor pool is not accidental. If Dallas has 75,000 illegals, it also has a willing and complacent government that has no particular interest in the situation.
Our Northern Virginia illegal labor pool is feeling the stress of a building boom that has gone soft. Many of them are on the move to other places in the US and even back home. Their departure has caused business problems among the rip-off used car and rent-to-own predators.
We are an (over?) organized society of minimum wages, labor taxes, pollution costs, unions, contract liabilities, workman’s compensation, medical relief, rent subsidies, etc. Employers pay these taxes as a cost of doing business and a way to stay out of jail. The “contract laborer” and the illegal immigrant day laborer are one in the same. If the government treats illegal immigrant day labor with a wink and a nod, the whole regulated work ethos becomes polluted.
Suppose Dallas were to offer the 75,000 illegals a system of work permits vs. immediate incarceration and deportation. It would give the illegals a needed sense of security and it would give the city a way to organize its problem.
There is no conspiracy behind all of this. We are more and more a service economy and illegals are providing the grunt work. This issue is clear. There are people who will do the work, we just need to make sure they are here legally and are woven into our basic business standards. That is the work of local government, pure and simple.
Try putting up a sign that does not conform. The government will be all over you. But if the sign was put up by illegal immigrants……who cares?
Just to be clear: Bring on the legal immigrants. We need them. But FIRST stop the flow of illegal immigrants. We have already got them up to our ears.
I wish everybody would read Pat Buchanan´s book, State of Emergecy.
He dedicates a good portion of it to Mexico. I used to think it was hypocritical of Mexico to seal its southern border and deport central and south american illegals while permitting their own to cross our border. It is deeper than that. There is a mind set in Mexico that the southwest was stolen from them and that they have a legal right to be here. This is not from los peones but the elites. I was happy when Vicente Fox was elected. PAN (Partido Accion Nacional) is supposedly the equivalent of our Republican Party. Yet Fox told Bush ¨we´re going to continue to send our poor.¨ What a helluva solution for somebody (Fox) who professes the free market system yet he couldn´t privatize Pemex, continued the tortilla subsidy and various other social programs. I watched Vicente Fox being interviewed by Bill O´Reilly and all he did was defend the right of Mxicans to enter the country illegally. Never once did he suggest that the U.S. provide counsel on improving the economy of Mexico to give them an economic reason to remain.
Then there is the idea of Reconquista. The idea of flooding the southwest with Mexican immigrants it will be a de facto part of Mexico.
On the U.S. side of the border there are Mexican Americans who are also working towards that end. MEChA is a Chicano student group to which Antonio Villaraigoza is a member. The MSM never revealed this to the public. If an Anglo candidate for office were a member of a white
supremiste organization the MSM would denounce him on the front pages and suggest that he withdraw as a candidate or publicly renounce his membership and apologize the the citizens.
I thought that NAFTA was a good idea. It has done some good in El Salvador. When Pat demonstrated that this is part of the left towards a one world government, I now have reservations. These countrires need to learn how to improve their einternal economy. If not NAFTA, possibly some sort of economic counsel in a program like an Alliance for Progress.
There is a lot more to the immigration problem and it is not all economic; it´s attitude.
Good, golly. Mexicans had best get busy infiltrating the seats of power in industry, taking leadership in academia, making a strong presence in local, state and national politics and getting their grievance agenda clearly stated and easily understood.
Right now US citizens think of day labor centers, illegal immigrants, rough gangs and “press one for English” when the Mexican “problem” is mentioned.
I don’t live in the Southwest, so I do not encounter the borderland culture that so many US citizens who do live in the Southwest have come to accept as common place.
The point is, Mexicans do not have a “grudge foothold” in most of the United States and they will not go very far by resisting the assimilation process.
I do not think the average US citizen is looking for another group of entitlement and grievance mongers.
you want to stem the tide of illegal immigration? Here’s a good way to start: Simply change US law that recognizes that anyone born on US soil is automatically a citizen. It wouldn’t be a huge change, but at least it would be a start and probably one of the least controversial thing to be done about illegal immigration.
Heliotrope, read the book and then talk about the mexican´s grudge. Many Chicanos and pochos belong to MENChA, which has as its goal the restoration of the the southwest to Mexico. Seats of power? Mayor Anotonio Villaraigoza in Los Angeles, the Sanchez sisters n Copngress; Laura Sanchez defeated Congressman B-1 Bob Dornan in Orange County-with dubious votes which might have been cast by illegals. The county had always been predictably Republican. Like I said read the book then maybe you´ll feel less compassionate for the illegals and support securing our borders.
Here in the Northeast I suspect that the Economy, rather than illegal migration, will be the paramount concern. That said, I want a workable solution, not a principled solution. An open border is unworkable, and a closed-border with mass deportations just isn’t going to fly in the absence of a rigorous Police State volkgeist. I want the illegal immigrants “regularized”; identified, licensed and taxed.
As for “jobs that Americans won’t take”; less than five miles from where I write are ethnic neighborhoods full of born-Americans who can’t be bothered to take those “jobs” and would rather lounge-about on street-corners and do and deal drugs…while their mothers and uncles complain that they are “owed something by society”.
I’m supposed to shed tears for someone who will not walk three miles to work is unemployed “because” someone-else crossed 50-miles of inhospitable desert on-foot with their 5-year old hand-in-hand took it? There’s a newspaper-clipping photo on my wall of a 5-year-old girl being lead by her 8-year-old brother across the desert clutching her doll as they travel on-foot with a group towards the Arizona border to join their mother already in America. They walked a week along with their aunt to reach safety; is their “crossing” less-valued than the children in steerage 100-years ago?
That children should have to enter America in this fashion is un-American; there must be regularized, orderly, legal and effectively-enforceable immigration…not all this furtive scurrying-about in dark and wild places. Amnesty…no. Automatic or accelerated citizenship…no. Back-taxes and penalities…reasonable. Extra hoops and hurdles to get citizenship…reasonable. Above all it must be workable in the real-world as it is…not a high principled promise doomed to failure.
I don’t think that will make much of an impact. There are a lot who are born here, but are raised in Mexico. My partner is an example. He and his siblings were born in Laredo, TX and raised in Nuevo Laredo de Tamaulipas. You’d be surprised how many families actually do that.
The only thing I could see that curing is the deportation issue where the parents are not citizens and the children are. I don’t see changing that law slowing too many people down.
It’s not a “simple change” of US Federal law, it would require a constitutional amendment. Birthright citizenship derives from English Common Law and is guarenteed by the 14th Amendment;
…”Section 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; 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.”
#14 Roberto: I have read Buchanan’s book. I am aware of the “Reconquista” compulsion. I have been introduced to the tejano middle land and the sociological musings on Chicano culture.
There is an elastic territory along the border that is neither US nor Mexico for many. But even a barrio mentality that is as long as the Mexican border does not rise to the isolationist, anti-immigration demands of Buchanan.
We must seal the Mexican border from illegal entry. Then we must work out a series of border accommodations: way for locals to pass back and forth; sensible tourist traffic, international shipping, etc. Most of these accommodations are in place and only need tweaking.
There are a possible 15 to 20 million illegals in the US today. We must regain control of who enters and how long they may stay. An obvious solution is a series of national identity cards. We don’t squawk about having a driver’s license, why should an identity card that is used for purposes of identification be any different? Even the most confused tourist knows how to hang onto a passport and a credit card.
If we had a flood of counterfeit money, the government would be ready, willing and able to act to replace it. We have counterfeit immigrants. What we need is the will to help them get straight with the law, or self-deport or get caught without proper documentation. It doesn’t have to be a big show of national force. Even “sanctuary” cities will give under the weight of an influx of illegals rushing in from places where the laws are enforced.
The stats on crime committed by illegals in L.A. are appalling. But they reflect the fact that L.A. has adapted to permitting the situation to exist, grow and reach a state of stasis where the cops stay away and the bad guys rule in certain areas.
These illegals are here to work or study. Some are here to commit crimes. Some have tucked themselves into the welfare system. It should not be too hard to figure out who is who.
Being here illegally for many years should not be a path to citizenship. If an illegal owes taxes, he should get the same treatment a citizen would get. If he self-deports to avoid the tax bill, I think we could probably afford to note it on his record and close the file. But under no circumstances does he deserve amnesty or preferential treatment over the schlub sitting in Mexico applying for legal entry.
On a final, sour note, I have no qualms about a special prison system for non-citizens who will not cooperate with the rule of law and whose home country will not claim or accept him.
What if the US were to accommodate illegal Mexicans in the exact manner that Mexico treats foreigners who come in conflict with their laws? (It is called reciprocity.) Amnesty International would go ballistic. But that should be the starting position for working out our problems with Mexico.
Felipe Calderon is sending federal troops into some border towns to replace corrupt police who have at least accommodated the drug traffickers and coyotes. He gives the impression that he hears the conservatives in the United States.
I’ve read that
“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.”
the part that says “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” meant to say that only lawful citizens of the US. That someone who was in the country illegal was subject to the laws of his homeland not here.
Phrased very poorly, and its meaning dillluted and forgotten over time.
Then again, the 14h Ammendment was never constitutionally ratified. That would make it, well, unconstitutional.
As far as the “reconquista” groups, yeah they’re out there. They’re goal is to fcuk things up and what not, but I have my doubts that they’re as big a deal was they and others would like us to think they are.
I’m more concerned about groups like LULAC which pushes to fire/punish law enforcement officers, especially Hispanic officers, for enforcing the law with Hispanic citizens. My partner’s brother is an officer with Houston Police Department and they have to keep on their toes. It seems that the best policy for them to save their jobs is to ignore infractions by Hispanics. Sort of a reversed or bastardized profiling.
If a Hispanic officer arrests another Hispanic, they get the “how could you do that to your own people” guilt trip from LULAC. Thing is, the guilt trip is the least of their worries. LULAC actively pushes for those officers suspension or termination and the gutless, PC p*ssies, more often than they should, gladly capitulate.
Imagine this scene.
It’s the 2008 Republican convention. Bush is going up to give his speech. Suddenly, a number of delegates begin chanting, “Free Ramos and Compean!” Security tries to hoist them out, but before long, hundreds and hundreds of delegates have taken up the chant, drowning out Bush’s speech until he can no longer continue. In well-deserved humiliation, he the stage.
A guy can dream, can’t he?
Here is a fair and balanced look at the Illegal Immigrant in Texas. As Mencia says on Comedy Central, what does he send his relatives in Mexico for Christmas, MAPS!!!
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/texanofyear/stories/123007dnedianonymous.278c46.html
Hillary Clinton does not know wtf she’s talking about regarding Pakistan
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/01/01/video-smartest-woman-in-the-world-doesnt-know-the-first-thing-about-pakistan/
TGC, I´m united with you in your concern about LULAC. It all fits in with the ¨reconquista¨attitude. Within some ethnic communities the militants show their ignorance. I wonder how many coconuts your other half received. I thought it was appalling that a few years ago a militant group put a coconut on the podium, I believe at the or a university in Indiana before Linda Chavez, Bush´s nominee for Labor Secretary, came out to speak. This is the equivalent of the blacks who refer to those who embrace prevalent norms as ¨oreos.¨ When politicans belong to racist groups such as MENChA, (e.g. Mayor Anotonio Villaraigoza) and Obama´s affiliation with the racist Trinity UCC, they get a pass by MSM. I repeat if an Anglo belonged to a white supremist group it would be front page news urging that person to renounce membership or withdraw his/her candidacy.
And to those who keep harping on the fact that illegals are here to work I still ask why aren´t we urging their presidents to work to improve their economy to give their constituents a reason not to emigrate north.
There was a time when I thought open borders was a good idea. After all many gorgeous guys came to work and some to find a lover. I had one whom I helped through Ronald Reagan´s amnesty. I thought the Party would be rewarded with a greater latino presence in gratitude once citizenship was obtained. It didn´t happen. That and 9/11 changed my mind on the situation.
Roberto, you’re crazy. “Reconquista” is a nonissue. Such nonsense is coming from very tiny groups in college campuses. Even in college, only a small number of Hispanics call themselves Mechistas. And like it’s generally true with leftist politics, Mechistas themselves drop their nonsense after graduating and joining the real world. Notice that in discussions of this sort you never hear from Mechistas, you only hear about them. They’re so insignificant it’s funny you guys talk about them so much. It’s more relevant that you guys talk about them so much. Illegal immigrants don’t know or care who or what Mecha is.
Mechistas are idiots, and they are hardly racist. You and Pat Buchanan are idiots and I would like to think you aren’t racists either, that your nonsense is bitterness expressing itself in politics, like Mechistas.
Roberto:
how DARE you pay attention to what those people are saying. You should take Arturo’s advice.. just ignore the stupid Mexicans.. nothing they say matters.. they are bafoons to be dismissed … they dont mean what they say… they just spout a gibberish for their own amusement.
Don’t you kow you are an idiot for taking Mexicans seriously? You are a racist for thinking that Mexicans have any thoughts of their own and the will to achive an agenda.
[heavy sarcasm off]
Mexicans? They’re not Mexicans. Mechistas are Americans, almost without exception. Is it because you want to call them stupid that you say they’re Mexican? Roberto and Buchanan are not stupid because they’re American. They’re stupid because they think Mechistas is something to worry about.
Arturo, ¿has asistido a una reunion de MENChA? Ellos creen que son mejicanos primero y americanos segundo. Tambien, Vicente Fox expreso´ la misma opinion. Estupido!! no estoy. ¿Mal informado? Quizas. Ni estoy como avestruz, como vos, con su cabeza en la arena.
Alvaro Vargas Llosa, interviewed for the Independent Institutes, newsletter Lighthouse that the grandson of Emiliano Zapata, faults the Mexican Government for the increased muigration north. When ¨los peones¨ sold their land and migrated to el D.F. the central goernment was incapable of integrating them into the work force. So further north they went. Vargas Llosa, also interviewed Fox, who claims the failure of immigration reform in the U.S. was due to 9/11 (reasonable) and the xenophobia of Bill O´Reilly and Lou Dobbs. I´ve watch those interviews and never once did he take responsibilty for the lack of vision to improve the economy of Mexico to keep them there. He has the subconscious ´reconquista´mindset because he stated that Mexican Americans are Mexicans first and should be counted in the total populñation of Mexico. Hypocritically, he has beef up protection of his southern border against central and south americans. O´Reilly and Dobbs are not xenophobic or antiimmigration. They are for LEGAL immigration.
On a personal note, before I obtained my permanent residency here in El Salvador, upon returning with the corrected required documents, a discussion ensued with the immigration officer in the airport who said,
¨Ï can reject your entry into the country, El Salvador is a nation of laws and if you plan to reside here you must respect our laws.¨ If my family were not outside waiting and my luggage was already baggage claim I would have taken the chance and told him, ¨How novel.¨I´d like to take you to the tv studia and record two commercials. one to be aired in the U.S telling your illegal compatriots that the U:S is a nation of laws just like El Salvador. Come home and apply for legal entry. and the second to air national tv, telling those who are planning to go to the US without documents that the U.S. is a nation of laws just like El Salvador and if they enter they will be breaking the law, subject to deportation and better they apply for a visa and save the $6,000 that they would have to give el coyote. I have his name and now that he can´t do anything I will make that proposition.
Thanks for the advice, Vince.