Arizona, illegal immigrants, and welcoming the stranger
Arizona has just passed a tough anti-illegal immigration law, requiring:
…state and local police to determine the status of people if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are illegal immigrants and to arrest people who are unable to provide documentation proving they are in the country legally.
It also makes it a crime to transport someone who is an illegal immigrant and to hire day laborers off the street.
This country is going to have to decide whether it wants to wink at illegal immigration or whether it wants to crack down on it. To crack down, it would take the will to do so, plus a two-pronged program: one to deal with illegals who are already here, and one to prevent more from coming.
Neither will be perfect, of course, and neither is the least bit simple. But the first would have to involve something resembling this bill, and the second would have to involve some sort of fence or at least better policing of the southern border.
Critics of this law cry “racial profiling.” But how on earth could anyone crack down on illegal immigration from Mexico (overwhelmingly the largest group) without profiling people? Profiling has gotten a bad name from the PC police. But a ban on any profiling that uses ethnic origin would make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws effectively, and would make them a joke. In a sense, they already are, because they are barely enforced at all.
And that’s what the people who cry “foul” about racial profiling want; they much prefer that illegal immigrants be allowed to stay here and that more be encouraged to come—which has been the effect so far of of our lack of enforcement coupled with our good educational and health care systems. The demographics of illegal immigration tend to favor the Democratic Party, which ultimately gain voters through it.
Then there’s the religious angle voiced by Los Angeles Cardinal (and blogger!) Roger Mahoney:
The law is wrongly assuming that Arizona residents, including local law enforcement personnel, will now shift their total attention to guessing which Latino-looking or foreign-looking person may or may not have proper documents…I can’t imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation…
We are a nation of immigrants, and their commitment and skills have created the finest country in the world. Let’s put a human face on our immigrant friends, and let’s listen to their stories and their desires to improve their own lives and the good of the nation.
A series of quite extraordinary statements by the Cardinal: first the likening to Nazi Germany, then the usual and misleading conflation of illegal immigrants with immigrants in general. But ever since this country became fairly well settled around the time of the early 20th century, we limited immigration in various ways (some of them, admittedly, by country of origin, although those differential restrictions were eliminated in 1965) because otherwise we would have been overwhelmed. In addition, virtually all countries have rules on who can enter legally and who cannot. To pretend otherwise is to be hopelessly disconnected from reality.
Cardinal Mahoney does not completely ignore the legal vs. illegal question. However, he discounts it in the following misleading manner:
Almost all of our immigrant families are “mixed,” that is, some members have legal documents to be here and some members do not.
That may be true in some areas of Cardinal Mahoney’s Los Angeles, but I see no evidence that it’s true for the American population as a whole. Mahoney also mischaracterizes the Arizona law itself. It does not require the sort of reporting and informing by relatives and friends or even state agences that he describes. Rather, it “mandate[s] such action only from law enforcement officers ‘when practicable.'”
Mahoney is not alone in his opinions:
Tucson Diocese Bishop Gerald Kicanas, who helped spearhead the letter, said parishes in his diocese have participated in “immigration academies” to learn about the issue and how Scripture and church teachings apply to it. In Leviticus, for instance, God instructs Moses not to mistreat aliens and to welcome them as if they were native-born.
“It’s pretty clear that all of our religious traditions speak of welcoming the stranger and assisting people in need,” Kicanas said. “I believe this is a drastic, punitive measure that will not benefit the states.”
These statements by Mahoney and Kicanas are an indication of just how far left some officials of the church have become, and how dedicated they are to eliminating the idea of immigration laws at all. But Leviticus instructs us in a lot of things that we don’t do today, although I suppose one can pick and choose to make a political point. And one could also argue (I think quite correctly) that by allowing and even welcoming legal immigration to an extent greater than most countries on earth over the years, the US has fulfilled any Levitican instruction to welcome the stranger—many times over.
The whole “racial profiling” kerfuffle is a bete noire (pardon the pun) of the Left.
Racial profiling, like age and gender profiling, is simply sensible police work. Liberals would have the police take the same view of a car full of black gangbangers at 3 am as of a car full of blue-haired grannies returning from an afternoon tea. It’s ridiculous. Liberals decry the higher rates of black incarceration as proof of differential law enforcement, but there’s a reason why the major cause of death among black males 15-25 is …homicide. By other black males 15-25. Nothing to do with the police.
Police focus (or should focus) their attention where it’s most needed, where most of their business comes from. It’s the same reason the Super Bowl has commercials for trucks and beer, and the Lifetime channel doesn’t. Common sense, really.
In my darker moments I wonder if the Left’s campaign is intended to hamper effective law enforcement. Is it a bug, or a feature?
The whole immigration debate reminds me of nothing so much as the death penalty debate in the 70s and 80s, where many states had the death penalty but lacked the will to actually put anybody sitting on Death Row to death. We have immigration laws but we don’t enforce them. Regardless of whether you think the laws are wise or imprudent, first of all enforce the laws you have; otherwise, you lose the respect of everyone, honest people as well as the criminally-minded.
True, and having unenforced laws on the books invites selective enforcement to “get” people whom those in power want to “get.”
My forehead aches from hitting the wall that is: illegal aliens (not illegal immigrants!) by definition commit a crime when they enter this country. How is it then that they, as criminals, are looked on as an elite class to be coddled, succorred, and catered to beyond what the “average” citizen is entitled?
Profiling? C’mon…I’m a caucasian, moderately successful, conservative. I’m guilty for the ills of the world.
I suspect the ACLU is already preparing its case to sue Arizona when the first legal hispanic is asked to provide his documentation. And probably rightfully so.
If a person is engaging in lawful conduct, how does a law enforcement officer come to a “reasonable suspicion” the person may be undocumented? I understand why people want this law, but there’s always a tradeoff between security and liberty. I think this law can lead to an abuse of power that restricts our liberty, and we’re losing too much liberty the way it is.
I would oppose this law in my state.
In his latest column Victor Hanson notes:
“Anti-immigrant”” is also a lie peddled in service to open borders — lie by virtue that it deliberately blends “immigrants” with “illegal immigrants” to suggest opposition to all legal immigration (In fact, Americans quite clearly support legal immigration); a lie by virtue that it personalizes opposition to particular “immigrants” rather than the concept of “illegal immigration”; and a lie by its emphasis on “anti” since opponents of open borders are not “anti” anything; they are pro-law and pro-enforcement of existing statutes. Those who break the law or advocate undermining existing legislation are clearly “anti”a lot. “
Perhaps it’s a problem with the guys doing the profiling?
Ya know, like the educated types that assured us the DC sniper was most likely a middle aged white guy with right leaning politics….
OK, sorry about the sarcasm – but this is not a problem that cannot be dealt with even if you discount the need for a fence (which I think IS needed).
You enforce mandatory sentencing for anyone caught knowingly employing an illegal alien.
You don’t accept some CEO claiming a middle management type mistake – especially if half or more of their work force are illegal aliens – and most especially if you have some swarthy, non-english speaking male with tattoos over most of his exposed body going by the name “Susie Andrews” or similar circumstances.
You crack down on the employers, and you crack down on them like a ton of bricks!
You step up enforcement efforts in areas known to be havens for illegal aliens.
If ICE shows up and the work force starts scrambling over the back fence at the construction site, make sure you keep going back and going back day after day, rounding up the slower ones who do show up thinking they’re in the clear, until it becomes impossible for them to maintain their illegal employment.
Of course, if step one is followed strictly enough, you won’t need as much of step two.
On top of both of those steps, secure the border. A mixture of a fence, drone aircraft, military patrols with law enforcement powers in designated border zone areas, and electronic detection with a kind of rapid deployment force that can be sent out to apprehend, arrest, and repatriate illegal aliens when the cross the border will pick up the rest that try to get here.
As for the whole argument regarding *welcoming* these illegal aliens based upon religious reasons – exactly how many of the 111 Million Mexicans (not to mention the impoverished populations of other Central and South American nations!) do these ultra-kind hearted leftists think the US can take in without collapsing from the weight?!?!?
Advocates of amnesty claim you can not deport 20 million people. As Jay Leno pointed out one night, Mexico did. If the jobs dry up, people will self deport. Coupled with a real border, attrition will sort it out.
I’m a little surprised that the high national unemployment rate has not ratcheted up pressure to remove illegal aliens from the work force. Do Democrats really care about working people legal minority groups? I’ve read that FDR pushed to deport non citizens during the Depression.
Mr. Frank, my suspicion is that it IS an issue – it’s just not being reported in the MSM in anything other than a positive or sympathetic light…..if reported at all.
I mean, there have been incidents where drugs were being smuggled across the border into Texas using Mexican military humvees equipped with heavy machine guns and protected by uniformed soldiers armed with select fire weapons that local law enforcement had no hope of being able to do anything about – and it was never reported on the evening news.
Are these anti profilers the same people that spent last week profiling the hell out of every last person at a tea party? Hmmmm
I’m the the American born son of Cuban immigrants to this country…… and I agree that we need to secure our border.
As the son of immigrants, I am very sympathetic to people who come here to find a better life, whether due to political oppression in their countries, or economic resaons, or instability.
But we simply cannot keep importing such large waves of “immigrants” without providing an organized manner whereby they are processed, where entry is limited, and where those given entry are made to go through the “melting pot” process.
Too many people coming over without going through the “melting pot” causes the creation of enclaves of unassimilated culture, and ultimately, the creation of a permanent underclass of people unassimilated from, and alienated from, the larger culture.
This is not good for either the “immigrants” themselves, or for their host culture. Its a cause of instability.
And besides all that: its also deadly dangerous to have such an open border in the midst of a war on terror.
Unfortunately, illegal immigration will be a problem for a long time as long as Mexico is a war zone. Mexico will be a war zone as long its a socialist country and as long as we have a drug war.
FIghting drugs raises their price. A high price encourages illegal profits – which makes illegal cartels rich. If the cartels have more money than the poor government – which they will as long as Mexico remains socialist – then they will fight a war with the government. Refugees from the war will come here.
I don’t see an easy answer to this, even though I tend to be in the enforcement camp on the illegals. Sending back the illegals is a death sentence as long as drugs are illegal and the Mexican government doesn’t change. Sending people back to their deaths isn’t pleasant, no matter the necessity.
James
Scottie and Mr Frank have it right. You start with the employers because they’re not going anywhere.
Mandatory 5 yr. jail sentences for the Owner of a private firm and CEO of a public firm who is found to have more than one illegal working for them in a one year period. Just like the captain of a ship, it’s their responsibility to ensure that their company is complaint with the law.
Create a guest worker program to allow regulated admittance of the number of low wage workers the economy needs. Anybody illegal is fingerprinted and deported. If they return, they go to jail for 5 yrs.
Make the employer responsible for ascertaining citizenship. Employer can photo copy the prospective employees drivers license, birth certificate, passport, green card, guest worker card, etc. Require they keep the copy on file and if the employee’s illegal and caught & they faked the ID, the employer’s off the hook.
Of course people will cheat. We just need to make it hard enough to cheat that most will be unable to cheat and, if caught cheating, costly enough that most employers won’t think of it.
We don’t need a perfect system.
We need one good enough to make the problem manageable, so that the country can assimilate the legal immigrants.
And most of all, we need to enforce it, otherwise it’s a waste of time and money.
“These statements by Mahoney and Kicanas are an indication of just how far left some officials of the church have become…”
===============
Well, you’ve got to remember most Mexicans are CATHOLIC; and the Holy Mother Church needs those little money envelopes coming in each Sunday.
I still think democrats are in for a rude awakening if and when Mexicans here illegally do get to vote. They come from a socialist hell hole and are not fans of moral relativity liberals.
Enter the country illegally; hide long enough for your wife or girlfriend to have a baby born in this country and the baby is a citizen of the U.S. They are not going to deport natural born U.S. citizens even if their parents were here illegally.
How do you deal with that? How would that law be changed? Should it?
John: yes. The law should be changed so that children of illegal immigrants born here after passage of the new law should not be citizens and the entire family would be subject to deportation. Either you want to discourage illegal immigration or you do not. If you want to discourage it, that’s the way the law should go.
I agree Neo and have argued that with libs/dems several times. But until the law is changed, they can stay and will use the law to their advantage.
To A_Nonny_Mouse:
“Well, you’ve got to remember most Mexicans are CATHOLIC; and the Holy Mother Church needs those little money envelopes coming in each Sunday.”
Sorry to disagree, but I would say that Mahoney and Kicanas are led by their liberal ideas more than official Church Policy.
If the Illegals were all Baptists, these two “hired hands” would fall in line with their Liberal “gods”.
Being a Good Steward and Shepherd is something these liberal religious folk will never understand.
They are willing to do good deeds to the last $ in your wallet.
I am very much of two minds on Mexican illegal immigration. We have Mexican neighbors, and I am nearly certain that at least some of them are illegals. I like them. They’re friendly, family-oriented people. They will be sullen and insulated–until you speak to them, until you say, “Hola!” that first time. Then they open up, they are friendly and cheerful, helpful if you get in trouble–say, your car won’t start or the like, and they will jump to your aid. They are courteous to a fault. They work hard, and then come home to their families in the evenings. My husband is an over-the-road truck driver, and I’m home alone much of the time. I feel safe with these people around–in ways I would emphatically NOT feel safe if they were, instead, groups of young Chapter 8 men imported from the ‘hood.
I also have a certain sentimental soft spot for birth-right citizenship, although I recognize that it’s probably not the wisest or most rational of practices in these times.
With all that being said, I still agree that we must get control of our border. I might favor a guest worker program, as some have suggested, except that it has gotten to the point where such a thing might be in fact impossible to administer. The drug wars in Mexico that are even now spilling over the border do not look like they’re going to get better any time soon, and the Mexican government is clearly impotent against the gangs. I actually favor legalizing most currently illegal drugs–certainly marijuana–in true libertarian fashion. If I may paraphrase the firearms motto: “Because drugs are criminalized, only criminals control drugs.” If you want to take the drug trade out of the hands of criminal gangs, I think the only way to do it is to remove the law-enforcement angle. And again, I agree that we must get control of the border–in what sense can we be said to be a sovereign nation if we can’t even perform that most basic of functions? successfully?
In this regard, I tend to think that the best solution is to let the border states take care of it. They certainly seem to have the most will–see, for example, Arizona–and arguably have the most at stake, at least in the immediate short term. It is Arizonans, for example, whose farms and and ranches are being vandalized and violated, and who are being killed because they try to defend their property against the inevitable invasions.
Regarding the offspring of illegal aliens, I gotta say I’m a bit more cold blooded than most.
If we make it extremely expensive on a personal level for people to employ illegal aliens, and if we secure the border against additional illegal aliens, and if we send them home every time we catch one regardless of their family situation (basically Pablo just doesn’t come home one day because ICE found him and incarcerated him immediately) – I have to say I think a lot of the anchor baby problem would fix itself.
Think of it this way, if you have one or two parents who are here illegally, and they have an anchor baby in the belief they will not be deported because of that anchor baby- basically you are rewarding that behavior and turning one of our own strengths – a sense of charity towards others – into a fatal weakness as there isn’t but so much charity we can support.
Look at what such an approach has done to California? Can you imagine what it would/will be when such an approach spreads across the entire country?
That weakness has to be addressed, and addressed in an unsympathetic manner.
Those parents created the problem for those children – not we the people – and the blame for how that problem is addressed is on their heads, not ours.
That being said, I’d have no problem with either or both of the parents, as illegal aliens, being deported back to their country of origin.
The anchor baby can be addressed in one of two ways.
Either the parents can declare the child to be a US citizen and turn that child over to Social Services for adoption placement with a US citizen – or they can declare the child is a citizen of their country of origin and take the kid with them.
It’s a harsh choice, and I realize that, but like I said – we didn’t create the problem, and such a harsh solution may be just enough incentive that any illegal alien would decide not to put themselves through that ordeal.
If they find out they are pregnant, and that an anchor baby won’t keep them here, and if caught they will have to either take the child back to the third world or give it up – that alone may be enough incentive for that parent to go home before the child is born.
As a father, I think most normal parents would have a problem giving up their kids – which is why I think such an approach would be effective as you use that very human nature to guide the resolution in the direction you want it to go.
While as previously noted I’m sympathetic to Mexicans, I understand Scottie’s sentiment; our better nature is being used against us.
In this context, whenever someone talks about “the poor” I’m increasingly tempted to say, “Eff the poor,” just to break down the taboo (much as homosexuals did), shock those listening, and break the shackles of domestic discourse.
Should every policy have as its goal advancement of “the poor,” when in fact by any rational standard of poverty (inability to afford food, clothes, and shelter) no one in this country is truly poor? (Inability to afford designer jeans doesn’t count as poor, btw.)
The answer to that question is not the given “of course” that liberals would reflexively choose. It’s a serious question, deserving serious consideration, and a serious answer.
John McCain has come out in favor of the bill in Arizona.
Obama Calls Sen. Scott Brown About Immigration
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/04/20/next-up-obama-calls-sen-scott-brown-about-immigration/
The White House is now touting a bipartisan framework put forward by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y).
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36112.html
Scottie,
I think your idea is harsh. That doesn’t mean I think it’s wrong, though. These are not easy questions, and they will not have easy answers.
I will say this for those of us who call ourselves conservative: We do wrestle with all implications.
Let’s consider this: Suppose a Jewish family, wife pregnant, had managed to reach these shores from Germany in, say, 1939. Maybe they had sailed here on, say, the St. Louis.
But wait, the sainted FDR refused the St. Louis passengers admittance to the USA. They were next turned away from Cuba as well, and were ultimately returned to Germany. Most died in the camps. Well.
I don’t know. Maybe they should have sneaked off the St. Louis in Florida, waited for the child to be born, and claimed a right to stay based on birth-right citizenship. Who knew what would happen to them otherwise?
But the analogy is imperfect, as analogies always are.
I think we have to control the borders–in the event, the southern border. It shouldn’t come to the final event.
This is a bit disjointed, I realize that. Forgive me.
Google/Bing “banks money to mexico” and look at a possibly more humane way to reduce (not eliminate) the problem. Take their money. Plug up the cash river that flows through the banks, impound (have to apply due process) whatever they have on them if they are arrested. The fear of losing their money may be more potent than that of deportation.
A few months ago, I rented the film The Visitor from Netflix. The film is intended to be a parable about illegal immigration. A college professor from Connecticut, goes to his apartment in New York to find an illegal immigrant couple squatting there without his knowledge. At first he asks them to leave, but then when he realizes they have nowhere to go, he invites them to stay. As time goes on, he develops a friendship with the man (who is from Syria) and he teaches the professor to drum, then one day the man runs afoul of the authorities and is incarcerated as his immigration status is investigated. When this happens, the Syrian man starts saying, “this is so unfair, I didn’t do anything wrong.” The filmmakers want us to identify with the professor whose lonely life is enriched by meeting this couple, and they want us to empathize with the man who protests the unfairness of the system. They want us to believe that if we could just accept what (illegal) immigrants have to offer, we’d all be happier and better off.
But I had a different reaction. I was not particularly sympathetic to the plight of illegal immigrants before watching the movie. In fact, the techniques employed by the movie to make its emotional argument about illegal immigration inspired me to formulate a different metaphor about the nature of illegal immigration that made me understand the nature of the problem more clearly. People who come to this country illegally are taking a giant gamble with their lives. As long as things are set up so they can be mostly successful, they begin to feel comfortable, they begin to feel like they are entitled to that success. But every so often one looses and is deported; when that happens, they might complain about how “unfair” it is, but the fact is, that is simply one of the risks of the game they have chosen to play. Few of us when big in Las Vegas, and most of us lose money there. Likewise, if the odds were stacked against illegal immigrants more than they are now, fewer would be willing to gamble in that way. On the other hand, as long as the odds are set up so that they win more than they lose, the “house” is going to go bankrupt.
Sigh… typo alert. I typed “looses” when I meant “loses.”
> In my darker moments I wonder if the Left’s campaign is intended to hamper effective law enforcement.
Occam, I contend, as I have made the case for here and numerous other places — The essential difference between Classical liberals and Postmodern liberals is that the latter has as its primary goal the destruction of western civilization and its ideals. “Cloward Piven” isn’t just a strategy as a basic and inherent game plan.
I believe the reasons for this can be traced back to WWI.
Prior to WWI, the liberals believed, rather arrogantly, that humanity was perfectible, and that they, and Western Civ derived from Greek culture, were the pinnacle of human development — it could only go “up” from there.
The WWI happened — millions dead in relentlessly stupid efforts to capture a few hundred yards of ground, as the tools the greeks provided to improve humanity also turned to the art of war. In the hands of really stupid generals (every one of whom should have been shot for criminal incompetence after the third time they ordered a charge into an entrenched position held by machine guns) such weaponry served to show that people could misuse those tools just as much as they could use them.
Liberals turned on western civ with a vengeance — they decided that it clearly failed the test, and that anything was better than what the Greeks hath wrought.
The result has been a whole host of ideas fully aimed at repudiating all that the west had done which made it so successful — marxism became the centerpiece, as did the notions of moral relativism and deconstruction.
Once you grasp this notion, an attempt to apply it makes an amazing number of liberal actions become completely comprehensible. It is the only context in which they all make sense, from the mindless anti-American hatred to drooling, sycophantic support for The West’s enemies, be they Soviet communists or Islamic fundamentalists.
Postmodern liberalism is a culturally suicidal meme, and, in essence, a cancer eating away at the foundations of modern civilization.
Scott: I think Arizona occupies a unique position. Perhaps if the state you live in bordered Mexico, you may draw a different conclusion.
Most of us have Google Earth on our home computers. I flew down to the Mexican – U.S. border and followed it from Arizona to California. In particular areas, it is amazing to see the well worn foot paths coming out of Mexice and into the states. The majority of them come in due north, slowly meander and eventually head almost due west. And yes, I do mean easy to distinguish WELL WORN foot paths. Oddly enough, I couldn’t find any eveidence of well worn foot paths anywhere along the U.S. – Canadian border.
In my part of the country, it’s just ridiculous. The numbers increase everday. Huge groups hang out at corners looking for work. Vagrancy laws seemingly have been abolished, driving without a U.S. license, not a problem. The police are reticent to do anything about any of it. Start enforcing the damn laws, DHS, get after the employers who are responsible for the problem. Send these folks back so that they can work for “hope and change” in their own country. And start looking into La Raza’s books the same way they did ACORN.
Do check out borderinvasionpics.com
Occam’s Beard Says:
Occam’s Beard- I perked up when I read this comment. And I agree, not just with regard to this issue, but to many others.
I have come to see that there are too many taboo subjects that just cannot be touched upon because its considered un-PC or impolite to talk about. Its like the “third rail,” you can’t touch it.
This has lead to many viewpoints (which are after all, just viewpoints… subjective opinion) which have been taken to be unspoken “givens”…. they “go without saying.” In particular, a particular viewpoint (usually the left of center one) on a lot of ethnic, racial, or class issues are now considered to be “givens,” …. they “go without saying.”
One of my favorites is the statement often injected into many a discussion by many a liberal that “you know, this is a racist country. . .”, as if all the misfortunes that befall any particular ethnic group are all the result of white racism.
I have found that one way to break the notion that some idea is a given is to brashly break it with a blunt statement… such as you said: “F–k the poor.” Once you break that taboo, then one can deal with the subtle points in the discussion.
will Says:
A perfect example of what i mentioned in my post, above, about “enclaves of unassimilated culture,” and “the creation of a permanent underclass of people unassimilated from, and alienated from, the larger culture.”
The growing influence of La Raza is another example.
Don’t misunderstand me: I sympathize with those coming to this country looking for a better life. My parents did that. But these examples show what happens when immigration is not done in an organized manner, with limits to entry, and with assimilation as the ultimate goal.
Allowing the disfunction created by large numbers of unassimilated, alienated groups will not help either the prospective immigrants themselves, nor those of any ethnicity already here. It will destroy the very things that have made this country such a desirable place to live. Our good will should not become a “suicide pact.”
Several points. These particular Catholics are obscuring distinctions. I cannot imagine that no one has ever attempted to make these distinctions for them, so I conclude that they either lack the precision of thought to understand them or are willfully ignoring them. This allows them to pretend that these are simple moral issues in order to demonise their opponents.
As to solutions, JTR hits the general mark when referring to “reduce, not eliminate.” (I don’t know about the specific impounding solution.) Resist the temptation to try and find encompassing big-idea interventions. Things that reduce the problem, such as fences, employer sanctions, or intervention against drug cartels are all good. Don’t ask of any set of solutions that they solve everything. Accept that with a poor country on a long southern border, we will always have something of a problem. Think reduction.
betsybounds,
“But wait, the sainted FDR refused the St. Louis passengers admittance to the USA. They were next turned away from Cuba as well, and were ultimately returned to Germany. Most died in the camps. Well.”
I’d say a distinction could be made between a specific identifiable group being targeted for extermination being extended a bit of humanitarian asylum, and 10%, 20%, 30%, or more of Mexico’s population illegally entering the US and staying.
There’s the matter of scale, and it’s not an automatic death sentence if they are sent back to Mexico.
These people are not refugees of a horrible regime trying to exterminate them, they are economic opportunists.
They are leaving a nation rich both in resources as well as opportunities that their own government and society has completely screwed up – and one of my concerns is they will simply replicate that same situation here in the US that they left in Mexico.
JTR brought up another good point.
If the billions of $$$ were stopped – say with a hefty tax on all money transfers between non-US citizens that involves money leaving the country – that may also reduce the incentive for illegal aliens to come here so they can ship money back to Mexico.
They are sucking huge amounts of cash out of our local economies at a time we need every penny we can scrounge to get our own economic house in order.
A. V. I. (8:59AM) and Scottie (9:24AM):
I was expressing my inner Archie Bunker. in the cold light of day, both my ideas stink. I quibbled about “impounding” because of the obvious corruption that would result. The banking lobby would savagely resist any such idea. Nothing would come of it.
No, the reasoning that brought you to that creative solution was quite good up until the very end, when you were, admittedly, grasping. Following the money, and seeing what might be done about that, is always a fruitful exercise. In this case, we would be targeting those illegals who at least work and retain ties to Mexico, so it’s misplaced. But other clever ideas in that realm may yet occur to you.
General comment on the false kindness of the bishops: The US economy can indeed absorb many immigrants every year. If we didn’t have so many illegals, we could then accept more legally from around the globe. So each illegal Mexican is taking the spot here that could have been had legally by a Croatian man or a nice lady from the Philippines. They also have families and want a better life. To be kind to one undeserving is often(not always) to be cruel to one deserving.
Also, it’s not very global or multicultural to take mostly Mexicans, is it? I’m partial to Eastern Europeans, myself.
Profiling is an integral part of any police work. It is actually the heart of it, because you could not check everything and must prioritize. It may be not convenient to expect document check at the street, but at near-border zone such checks are routine in any country that takes securing her boundaries seriously. This all depends on seriousness of security situation, and with drug cartels killing dozen people a day in near-border towns, such checks become necessary. I would much prefer if militia check documents of every Muslim-looking girl in Moscow metro than guessing if the girl across me in underground car is going to self-detonate every second.
send all captured illegals to washington dc with a 1 way airline ticket, after a while,as the numbers add up policies will change
While reading Sergey’s comment it occurred to me that the issue re profiling of criminals is the basis to employ. Liberals take the basis to be incidence in the general population, and so are incensed when people are eyeballed out of proportion to that basis.
Contra liberals, the right half of the IQ bell curve takes the basis to be incidence in the criminal population, rather than the population as a whole. Granted, this is a somewhat recursive definition, and in principle police could manipulate it by intentionally busting those of a given demographic out of proportion to their population.
This objection could be met by making the basis reported crimes, the logic being that gaming the statistic would then necessitate coordinated action by vast numbers of people who have no contact with each other. In any case, as a practical matter, the police clearly do nothing of the kind. Blacks are disproportionately involved in crime (hence the dangerous nature of black neighborhoods), Muslims are disproportionately involved in terrorism, males are disproportionately involved in both cases, as are the young.