Redstate

While I am completely behind Tancerdo on cracking down on illegal immigration, I think we should INCREASE legal immigration.

This would allow for a larger pool of unskilled workers to fill the labor gap created by cracking down on the illegals.

I think we should leave immigration quotas exactly where they are, until we see the effects of actually enforcing them.

If, and only if, the labor market shows signs of being too tight, then we can open up the flood gates to let in fresh labor at the rate of our choosing.

I'm not inclined to believe the assertions of Bush and company, though, that we necessarily NEED a constant stream of wage-depressing laborers from Mexico.

The problem is, Tancredo is not interested in common-sense solutions.

If you look at his PAC on this issue, you'll note a bunch of the folks who have been involved with Pat Buchanan.  That should speak for itself...

Not because I want him to be president, but because it might force the real candidates to talk about the issue, rather than purposefully ignoring it because they depend on Latino support in swing states.

We should tighten up legal immigration, too, limiting it to skilled laborers (engineers, doctors, and the like) and their immediate families.  No more chain migration, by means of which entire towns end up here.  And by no means should we compensate for a crackdown on illegals by allowing still more legal immigrants to do unskilled labor.  We don't need more unskilled laborers in this country.  There are plenty of un- and undereducated Americans who could do jobs like landscaping, washing dishes, or bagging groceries, but not for the under-the-table wages earned by illegals.  To those who say "Americans won't do the work," I say, pay more.  The upfront costs of paying higher, decent wages to unskilled and low-skilled laborers are a pittance compared to the hidden costs of overcrowding, crime, and increased unfunded demands on every type of public service imposed by uncontrolled immigration.  Finally, ask yourself, whether, to the extent that it is true that Americans no longer are willing to stoop to manual labor, this is a desirable trend, or whether it is turning middle-class and higher Americans into cosseted petty tyrants who expect that work will always be done by exploited brown people.  Unlimited immigration is bad for all of us.  Bad for the US and bad for Latin American countries that will never reform as long as they can keep shipping surplus population to El Norté and depend on remittances from same.  It is good for the corrupt, predatory élites of Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, etc., for US businessmen who pay low wages while externalizing the social costs of the low wage workers, and for the Democratic party, which gets an unending flow of new clients.  Though, if for some reason you really want US politics and class/race relations to more closely resemble those of say, Brazil or Bolivia, by all means, let's keep it up.

Especially this:

"Finally, ask yourself, whether, to the extent that it is true that Americans no longer are willing to stoop to manual labor, this is a desirable trend, or whether it is turning middle-class and higher Americans into cosseted petty tyrants who expect that work will always be done by exploited brown people."

I have never understood why ordinary middle-class people cannot cut their own grass these days. And if there's a reason you can't (like disability or a serious time crunch) and you don't have a child of your own old enough to be set to the chore, why not pay some neighbor kid to do it?

I mow our lawn, and while I am not a neighborhood child, I also mow my neighbors lawn (for her it isn't so much that she won't stoop to manual labor, she would just rather swallow nails than mow the lawn).

But when I was a kid, even the rich folk hired the neighborhood teenagers to mow the lawn, not real sure how we got tot he point where even a 14 year old won't stoop to do the job.

at least regarding legal immigration-I am a bit more "let them come legally if they want to, but have a zero tolerance for anyone coming here illegally" persuasion.

I think everyone who is willing to work hard and is willing to do it through legal channels should be given an opportunity.

One interesting article I read (I will try to google it if I can) said that illegal immigration depresses wages for unskilled/low skilled labor.  If illegal immigration is stopped, then people who are working in unskilled jobs would-legal immigrants and citizens-would see an increase in wages.

why not pay some neighbor kid to do it?

A landscaping company will carry worker's comp insurance, you probably don't.

homeowners insurance cover this sort of thing, just as it would a mishap to a guest or a casual passer-by on your proerty?

It is interesting to think about the consequences for society at large of unimpeded illegal immigration. For some reason (I don't know the statistics), Latino immigrants seem much less willing to integrate into society, and for that matter are finding it less costly not to do so. There's a reason you don't see "WASCHSALON" on laundromats in Philadelphia or "WIZA" at a fake visa dealer in New York but you do see "LAVANDERIA" and "CHEQUES" all over the country--the Germans and Poles and others integrated. A few from Latin America have, but it has become so easy to live in a separate, Spanish-speaking society that a lot of them are saying, why bother? Talk about "two Americas"...

being sued by one of your neighbors. If you're talking about them voluntarily paying, no. Anyone you have hired to do work is not considered to be a guest.

??

Isn't "cheques" the Canadian spelling? Are they not assimilating too?

More seriously though, there are plenty of places where you will see Arabic writing, Chinese ideograms, Korean Hangul, various Indian scripts, Thai, Vietnamese even Amharic if you know the neighborhood to look in. Jewish synagogues are often labeled in Hebrew, and there are Orthodox churches with plenty of Greek or Cyrillic writing.

I'm a hawk on the immigration issue, but language (along with religion) is an issue that doesn't concern me too much. After two cneturies and more there are still people speaking Cajun, Pennsylvania Dutch, and various native tongues, but this has not ruined the Republic.

you did see those signs.

Latinos, outside big city barrios, tend to be primary English speakers within three generations. Market research has shown that second generation Latinos prefer to get their news and other information (e.g. advertising) in English.

what differnce does it make. If some neighbor kid runs across your yard, trips on the sprinkler and breaks his leg aren't you still covered even though you didn't invite him there, may even (if you're the neighborhood grouch) have yelled at him to stay out numerous times?

We know there is presently a demand for affordable landscaping.  It's going to be filled one of two ways - legally or illegally.

Now, we can either accept that fact, and provide a legal means of entry for these folks (the President's guest-worker plan is a start), or we can continue to waste time chasing landscapers, nannies, maids, janitors, and honor students instead of focusing on terrorists.

homeowner's policy is a lot more lenient than mine.

Mine doesn't cover trespassers or employees unless they sue me.

but it is impossible to prove whether this wave of immigration will turn out exactly as that one did. If only because immigration from Eastern Europe eventually slowed to a trickle, whereas we have no indication of when or even if immigration from Latin America will slow down.

Believe me, I'm not trying to sound like someone who's scared of a flood of "Mexicans." I just know what I've seen in my own life--a lunchroom at a high school divided in equal parts 1/3 white, 1/3 Hispanic, and 1/3 everything else, with almost zero interaction between them. Bilingual education programs that keep poor English speakers sequestered from high achievement for their entire school career because of Latino activists who believe native culture will be purged along with native language. They're shunted into jobs at Target (which, by the way, they're still incapable of doing because their education doesn't even go THAT far), while I go to college.

And feel free to correct me if I'm wrong historically, but I very much doubt that during the mass immigration through Ellis Island etc., government officials went out of their way to provide visa documents, education, voter registration documents, etc. in immigrants' native language. I seem to remember a government culture more geared toward integration--perhaps a little too much so, with the anglicizing of names and so forth, but at least not running wholeheartedly in the other direction as we seem to be today.

Those are the differences I see. I'm no historian, but this time it doesn't look the same.

Being it is illegal to hire an illegal your insurance might not cover.

to prove anything will happen. But Latinos are assimilating and will continue to do so IF we let them.

my issue is with how they get here.

I think that people who want to come here and work, should be able to come here and work, they should just have to do so legally (I am not opposed to making the proccess easier and cheaper, because the legal way is often very slow and very costly), but I don't want an amnesty program.  I actually lean towards the plan (can't remember whose now) that makes them go home, and apply there and then come back.

All you have to do is use the word "amnesty" and the illegals come running for the border.

There should also be a zero tolerance policy for illegal immigration.  If you come here illegally, and are caught, back across the border for you, do not pass go do not collect 200 dollars.

But there also has to be a crackdown on company's that knowingly hire illegals.  The penalty has to be painful enough to discourage them from breaking the law.  A friend of mine who works for a construction company in California says that construction is over run with illegals and the contractors and construction company owners know it, but turn a blind eye to it, because of the bottom line.

How much of this same stuff about immigrants was said 75-100 years ago?

The folks against immigration were wrong then, and it's not unreasonable to judge their past track record in terms of the doom-and-gloom predictions that have not come to pass.

because it means I can practice my Chinese.

It's only in the Latino community that I see the culture of non-integration so strongly. I recognize, as pointed out below, that this is most true in first-generation immigrants (though I know even some first-generationers who have tried hard to integrate). But it seems to be a real, nationwide problem for which I don't see any precedent.

we haven't had a wave of similar immigration since pre-World War I.

There are almost 4 million square miles.  That comes to only 75 people per square mile.  There's a lot of room in Montana.  I think you're referring to urban centres, which attract a disproportionate share of immigrants (legal and illegal).

I would be for some sort of second-class citizenship for anyone who doesn't want to wait for the normal immigration process.  This would be open to all non-criminals.  There would be certain restrictions (no right to vote, can't live anywhere you want, lower minimum wage (but higher that what they're paid now, making the labour market more competitive), slower citizenship than someone who waits in line), but these people would at least be able to work legally, pay taxes and get civil services.  This would greatly reduce the number of illegals and allow arrest and deportation for those who don't register.

Second-class citizenship may go against a long history of constitutional principle.  But it may be the best way out of this mess.

Put some acceptable provisions in President Bush's Guest Worker Program  

Put some acceptable provisions in President Bush's Guest Worker program that conservatives could support.  Bear in mind that this is a "Guest Worker" plan and not an immigration agenda.  

NOTE --While discussing this plan, Mexican President Vicente Fox said the Mexican workers did not want to migrate.

1. Who would be eligible to apply?  

-- Only individuals residing outside of the United States of America and those who are in the USA in a legal status (Tourist, Student, etc.).  

-- If someone is currently here illegal they would need to exit and get in line.

-- This program would apply only to the worker, not the family of the worker.

2. Would the Guest Worker be eligible for Food Stamps, Low Income Housing, or other forms of welfare?  No. If the Guest Worker received benefits from these programs the government would in effect be subsidizing the employer by supplementing the Guest Worker's wages.  If the government subsidized the worker's pay the effect would reduce the Income and other payroll taxes.
   
3. Would the Guest Worker be eligible for Earned Income Credit, credit for elderly or disability, child care, or other such tax deductions?  No.  The worker would not be eligible to claim any deductions other than them selves.  
   
4. Would the Guest Worker pay into Social Security or Unemployment?  No, as they are not immigrating they could not receive these benefits.  They would pay into Worker's Compensation and therefore will be eligible to receive payments, rehabilitation, and care.  They would have to be medical care at a State approved medical treatment facility.
   
5. Would the Guest Worker be eligible for medical care?  Only emergency medical treatment due to fact it would be a wage subsidy as stated above where the government would be paying.  If the diagnosis was that the required medical treatment was not acute but routine the patient would be given written advice and or prescriptions and told to purchase the medication at their local pharmacy.  The cost of diagnosis and or emergency treatment would be recouped through payroll deduction by billing the employer.  The worker, their employer, or the two together would provide the medical coverage.
   
6. Would the Guest Worker be eligible for subsidized educational programs? No, the worker may receive monies from charitable organizations for education and training.  The monies would have to be paid directly to the accredited learning institution.  The employer may provide training to the employee.

Once again, though, we now face the specter of limited Homeland Security resources being used to chase landscapers and maids instead of al-Qaeda cells.  Given the recent events in London, I do not think that is a wise use of our Homeland Security resources.

Al-Qaeda is the primary threat, and diversion of resources from that threat is pretty foolish.  Or do you really think it is possible to deport every single illegal immigrant in this country?

but I don't see the evidence.

For another example...when I arrived for my freshman year at Duke, it felt very odd not to hear Spanish in the halls anymore. How many Latinos do you think enroll at our top schools every year? The difference between my high school and my college should tell you, not many. How many Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, even black African, South Asian, just about any other group of immigrant do you see enroll? Hundreds, all of them capable of contributing meaningfully to the dominant English-speaking, native American culture even while staying true to their own (or their parents') culture by putting on shows and debates, fostering learning of their language, etc.

It's a balance I don't see with any but a few Latinos. And the reason I'm singling them out is not ethnic or racial (besides, they are so diverse ethnically and racially it wouldn't make any sense). The two reasons I see are the sheer number of Latino immigrants and the unified culture that this mass of immigrants shares (Spanish language, devout Catholicism, soccer, etc.). Those two factors have put them in a position where they can act as a unified bloc and don't feel the need to integrate like other groups have done.

is that the plural of anecdote is not data.

Don't call it that.

Calling it "probation" in lieu of deportation would work (say ten years from registration).  They'd still get minimum wage, but some of it (say $1 an hour) would be garnished during that time (over and above taxes) to pay the fine over that period.

but would most likely require changing the constitution is the issue of any child born in the US no matter the citizenship status of the parent is automatically a citizen.  By having a child who is a US citizen, that child is automatically eligible for all welfare oriented services and all other things provided to citizens, and the parents can't be deported and when the kid hits 18 they can sponsor the parents for citizenship.

Some have proposed that as part the plan is that it be written into law that children of illegal immigrants and non permanent residence visas would not be given automatic citizenship, but would have to go through the application proccess as well.

Not sure how I feel about it regarding people holding visas, but I do think it wouldn't be a bad thing to apply to those who come here illegally.

It really isn't the legal people I care about-as long as they are coming here to work, and contribute to society and take advantage of opportunities here, I am fine with that, I just want them to do it through legal channels.

And it can and should lead to full citizenship after a while, so it's more accurate too.  I also think it's key that immigrants be forced, or at least incited, to settle in places like Kansas or Nebraska where there is rural depopulation, and keep out of the big cities.

I wonder why congress has yet to propose anything comprehensive like this.  Bush's "matching an employer with an employee" falls woefully short.

why don't you post it?

Politicians like Tancredo and pundits like Malkin, people who pursue a "no compromise" posture on this - and who have associated with people who seem to push for a reduction of legal immigration - are a big part of that problem.

They pretty much have set an impossible standard and anything less (including the President's plan) will be falsely labeled as an amnesty.

I'd like to know if this is going to level off or keep going up.

I think that this is one reason that Hillary will win in 2008 (and NO, that's not something I want).

Unless the GOP candidate is willing to follow some of her tough enforcement ideas, she will pick off independents who care about illegal immigration.

Even as a Kerry voter who cares a lot about illegal immigration, I don't think she'd pick me off. But I can't speak for everyone.

I live out here in southern California and we have seen first hand what has happened to our state with unchecked illegal immigration. It is a complete disaster. Someone needs to start taking leadership on this issue. Tom is the perfect guy to do this. We don't need any more illeagls right now. We need to seal the border and only let in legal immigrants. This is the Achilles heel issue for the republicans. You basically have an open border policy from the Whitehouse and Congress, yet the vast majority of people are against illegal immigration and want the border sealed.

Powder Blue Report

whether we can do any better than a second generation of Latinos of which more than a quarter cannot speak English "very well."

http://www.ppic.org/main/pressrelease.asp?i=554 (California only, scroll to bottom)

Indeed there is a demand for landscaping, and this demand will translate into higher wages if the labor supply is stabilized. That is simple economic principle, which most immigration enthusiasts, for all their subtleties, seem to have parted ways with.

As it stands now, we have a system were the American citizen and the legal immigrant can always be outbidded by the illegal immigrant, because the employer need not pay the latter a minimum wage, nor submit payroll taxes for him, nor offer him insurance, etc. The illegal will always be more profitable, and the citizen will have no recourse. None.

The notion that "realism" of some sort demands that we maintain a system favoring illegal immigrants at the expense of American citizens and legal immigrants is pernicious sophistry of the first order, and any American patriot who repeats it ought to be ashamed of himself.

is only partially correct.

From what I have seen, employers might pay illegals a higher wage because they aren't paying benefits and the higher wage discourages the illegal from ratting the employer out like the current suit against Wal-Mart.

Well said, Cryus.

Do you want Homeland Security chasing landscapers or terrorists?

Shoot I wish I could remember the study, but it compared areas with high concentrations of illegals to areas with low concentrations of illegals, and compared similar jobs, and wages for the jobs in the illegal areas were far lower than could be accounted for by cost of living alone.

I don't know of the flaws in the study, since it was a media story on the study, but it made sense.

But the point was that citizens and legal immigrants are harmed by illegals, because it keeps them from commanding higher wages.

then they wouldn't have to worry about landscapers and can focus on the terrorists.  The problem is that the same holes that permit the landscaper to enter the country, are the ones the terrorists are going to exploit.

We need to close down those holes.

that when people harken back to the older waves of immigration, they refuse to apply the whole parallel. For example, the previous waves of immigration (1) came under quotas for nationality and (2) ceased completely.

Let the immigrations enthusiasts recommend these policies and we might take their polemical parallels more seriously.

from migrating illegally and refusing to integrate. It's actively encouraging them to do so, by ignoring the issue almost completely for electoral reasons (we wouldn't want to repeat Pete Wilson's mistake by seeming hostile to people who break our laws!) or by assuming a bilingual society in normal government operations.

made a helluva lot more sense than the new system.

How you would shut down the entire U.S.-Mexican and U.S.-Canadian borders?  The experience from Operation Gatekeeper will prove it will be quite expensive.  Do not forget the coastlines, either... do you know how many miles that is?

The prospects for successful assimilation are much worse now than they were then.  The majority of immigrants 75-100 years ago didn't speak the same language or come from the same country, and they came to a country with less than half of its current population, with lots of, by the standards of the time, decent-paying semi-skilled industrial and agricultural jobs available.  It's simply not comparable to today, where the majority of immigrants are from a single country, Mexico, speak the same language, and are coming to a country so unsure of itself that the suggestion that they be required to learn English is seen as rank bigotry.

It was more immediately necesary for a Polish immigrant circa 1910 to learn English than it does for a Mexican circa 2005.  After all, the Pole likely had to work and live with speakers of multiple languages, given that the influx of immigrants at the time consisted of no dominant ethnic or linguistic group.  There were Italians, Poles, Serbs, Germans, and pretty much everybody else.  A modern Mexican immigrant will have to converse only in Spanish:  it's what everyone at home speaks, and what almost everyone at work speaks, too.  Businesses and governments can cater to his mother tongue, too, in a way that was simply impractical a hundred years ago.  It's one thing to have signs and forms in Spanish, another to have them in Spanish, Polish, Italian, Russian, Yiddish, and Serbian.  Besides, a Mexican immigrant today can move not just to a neighborhood where he is in the majority, but a city, county, and soon even a state.  He might as well ask why the few remaining English speakers in Southern California shouldn't assimilate to him.

walk and chew gum at the same time?

Any solution will have to include some pressure (read: prosecution) on employers, which has nothing to do with Homeland Security.

If employers (contractors, landscapers, etc) come to feel that hiring illegals is a distinctly risky proposition, the problem will diminish markedly, because the "cheapness" of the labor will now be offset by the danger of huge expenses in prosecutions.

How many billions do we spend treating illegal aliens in hospitals?  How many billions do they cost us in infrastructure and public services and upgrades for same required by the growth in population, which is almost entirely a product of post-1965 immigration, most of that illegal.  How much does crime by illegal immigrants cost?  I think you're unwisely preferring a greater hidden cost over the obvious, upfront cost of securing the border and getting serious about the problem.

You may be right about a small segment of immigrants but in the great wave of immigration that peaked in 1910 you had large numbers of marginally educated people who lived and worked in ethnic ghettos for multiple generations.

In fact, that would encourage assimilation.

The thing is, it isn't just illegal immigrant Tancredo is discussing - he's also after reducing LEGAL immigration.  There is a huge difference there, and to be quite blunt, I have very serious reservations about some of the folks that Tancredo and Malkin have aligned themselves with on this issue.

there are all manner of specific (unspoken) arrangements across the country.

The point is that no country conscious of his identity as a people and integrity as a nation, would willingly perpetuate an economic settlement that favors the citizens of other nations over its own. Nor would any serious nation, in the midst of a trying war, countenance with equanimity the massive daily breach of its sovereign borders as we do.

Until the leadership of the Republican Party gets these basic points through its head, I for one will not trust it as far as I can spit.

You can't actually live there.  Back here on Earth, Montana can't support a high population density because it doesn't have the water, for one thing.  Neither, when we get down to it, does California, nor Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, or Arizona, where so many Californians have fled in the past fifteen years in part to get away from the problems caused by our collective unwillingness to do something about illegal immigration.  Here in Northern Virginia, where as recently as 14 years ago (back when I graduated from high school) you could see middle-class white kids doing things like mowing lawns or shoveling snow, things are pretty darn crowded and getting worse, and much, if not most, of the growth and consequent sprawl is due to immigration.

From a fan

Once knew someone who worked in a U.S. Attorney's office who dealt with efforts to prosecute those employers.  The juries acquitted, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt.

U.S. Attorneys will not prosecute cases likely to end in acquittals.

No political alliance in so large a country can possibly be squeakly-clean. Communists backed the civil rights movement fiercely; does that invalidate the justice of said movement? Of course not; and neither does its justice diminish in the least the unparallel crimes in which those Communists were implicated.

How do we ensure that NO illegal aliens enter the country?  How do we deprot every one of them?

You have pretty much set a 100% success rate as the only acceptable performance level.  You and Mr. Cella are demanding the impossible, and then coming down hard on anyone who dares to bring reality into the mix.

Is it too much to ask conservatives to at least try to distance themselves from them?  I thought we held our own to a higher standard.

Right now, I do not see that from Tancredo or Malkin - to the contrary, both are at best turning a blind eye to these excesses by not calling people out.  At worst, they are deliberately pandering to some of these folks.

To say that we can and should do a better job of policing illegal immigration than we do now is a far cry from saying that we must prevent all of it.  I don't know where you're getting this 100% figure.  I didn't use it, and would be well satisfied with any sharp reduction, though admittedly, the closer to 100% the better.

in your responses. Totally ignore what I and this poster have said about the unity of the Spanish-speaking [not "Mexican"] immigrant bloc and the resulting motive for unprecedented non-integration that that unity provides. Ask for data for my argument without providing any for your own, and ignore what I post in response.

I'm not one of those people who insist that their interlocutors be as devoted to posting on a blog as they are, but you're not doing your credibility any favors.

the atmosphere of identity politics that hardly existed circa 1910, the history of racial and class conflict and resentment in Latin America (Indians vs. Mestizos vs. whites, everyone vs. gringos), affirmative action, and irredentist sentiment with respect to the southwest.  None of these factors were relevant to the experience of immigration in 1910.  Illinois had never been Polish territory, there were no set-asides for Italians, and no one in Serbia was conditioned to hate the US and blame it for all their problems.  And it wasn't as if our hypothetical 1910 immigrant could cross the border every weekend to visit his old neighborhood.  The old country was a long way away, and if you came here, you were very well here for good.  

In your high school Latino kids couldn't speak English. Fine. You're in collge. Wonderful, I'm sure. Lots of Asians in college, few Latinos. Cool. You aren't making racial or ethnic stereotypes. No one said you were.

They are called social organizations today but at the turn of the century every large city was rife with identity politics. Think police forces and fire departments were Irish by accident.

Been out of college for a while...

I don't think they were nation-wide, though, and they weren't officially recognized.

If you don't think I'm worth talking to, don't respond to my comments in the first place. You look stupid when you begin with a substantive response, then pretend I'm not worth your time when you run out of things to say.

I was replying to the other know-nothing

the you have not made a single assertion that could be characterized as a fact, meaning that in those few instances that you ventured beyond anecdotes your statements just aren't correct.

I didn't run out of things to say. I was under the misapprehension when I started that you actually knew something. You have successfully disabused me of that notion.

Try worshipped.

know nothing should have been capitalized: Know Nothing.

apologies here to you and to asf6. This is getting out of hand and I'm losing perspective here. I'm gone.

here

We're in disagreement. I presented the anecdotal evidence for my viewpoint, and then provided some data that troubled me when you (smarmily) asked for it. You provided nothing in return except sarcastic attacks on me. The side that's missing facts is yours.

I thought this was a place where people actually talked about issues instead of flaming each other. Oh well. The search continues.

And I hope none given, either.  This is an issue over which things often get out of hand.

"Is it too much to ask conservatives to at least try to distance themselves from them?  I thought we held our own to a higher standard."

Hey, rabble-rousers and demagouges have to eat, too!

If Congressman Tancredo runs for president in 2008 I will certainly support him in any way I can.