Hillary Hush!
How quickly America is, apparently, going to hell. Not more than a month or so ago we were a “plantation.â€Â Now, it seems, we’re on the verge of becoming a “police state.â€
I could use this bandwidth now to muse over the Dubai Doo Doo. Or over the prolongation of the Patriot Act. Or a million other worthy subjects. But, instead, I want to focus –yes—on Hillary.
After what she said the other day – that some GOP immigration proposals would create a “police state†– I simply have no choice. Too outrageous. Can’t let it pass. Someone, somewhere has to take five minutes to underscore the gross and rather macabre hypocrisy that’s involved here.
So let me start with the lede: While our current immigration mess has bi-partisan roots, it was precisely the Clinton administration that is most responsible for our contemporary border nightmares.
In 1993-94, Bill Clinton made a conscious decision to pander to the illegal immigrant fever then sweeping California and ordered Janet Reno to blockade the border -- or at least those portions of it in public view that could cause him embarrassment. The traditional urban crossing points for migrants – San Diego, El Paso, Nogales etc.—were barricaded with steel, sensors and Border Patrol agents in what was, essentially, a policy of deterrence by death. No dent whatsoever in the migrant flow was achieved by the Clinton policies. Desperate immigrants merely went around Clinton’s blockades, trekking into perilous and unpopulated deserts, using their bones and blood to sear new routes of entry.
When Clinton came into office, a few dozen people (at most) would die every year trying to cross. By the time he left office, that figure had climbed ten-fold to an average of 300-400 deaths per year. The full consequences of that policy are brilliantly discussed in this policy paper by UCSD demographer Wayne Cornelius. If you want to know what the real life policies of the Clintons are, read it. If you want to persist in campaign-spun fantasies, please don’t.
Much worse, the Republican Congress and President Clinton cynically used the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing to levy two horrific punishments upon immigrants and on immigration policy. Indeed, for those who actually work in the field, 1996 is remembered as the dark year of a “perfect storm,†to quote leading immigration lawyer Dan Kowalski. In his own policy analysis of that period, Kowalski reminds us that two bills signed by Clinton – the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and the Illegal Immigrant Responsibility Act—landed two “deadly body blows†to the immigrant advocacy community.
These two pieces of Clintonian legislation – waving the “anti-terrorism†flag every much as manipulatively as Bush would a few years later-- “tightened the grounds of exclusion and deportation, tightened some waivers and removed others, made detention mandatory for vastly greater numbers of deportable aliens and radically restricted judicial review of immigration agency action,†says Kowalski.
In short, the Clinton bills turned U.S. immigration policy and especially the immigration courts ever more Kafkaesque – a sad reality with which immigration lawyers grapple every day of the week. Walk into any federal immigration court at anytime and watch the Clinton-engineered deportation railroad doing its grim duty.
Can anyone provide us, then, with a single, on-the-record statement from Ms. Clinton expressing, at the time, any concern for a police state? I’d love to see it. Did Ms. Clinton believe it was a "police state" tactic to exploit a bombing by a couple of American loons to justify a crackdown on immigrants? (Not to mention the concurrent stripping of rights from death row inmates included in the same "anti-terrorism" bill promoted by her hubby).
What we can show you are the memorial crosses for the 3500 migrants who died as they were pushed deeper into the desert by Clinton's various border "operations" We can show you the deportation orders for literally tens of thousands of legal immigrants (that’s right, legal green-card holding permanent residents) who have been deported and in many cases have had their families shattered thanks to the policies imposed by Bill Clinton.
So Hillary, on this subject at least, have the minimal decency to hush.
March 9th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
Aside from your “Clinton did it!” blast from the past and stern reminder that the First Lady at that time didn’t break with precedent and issue broadsides against her husband’s policies, is the Senator from New York fundamentally right or is she wrong on this? Is it a great idea to create a new class of felons or should she take your counsel and refrain from harsh criticism of this bill:
(News clip) The House measure would make unlawful presence in the United States, which is currently a civil offense, a felony.
Clinton said it would be “an unworkable scheme to try to deport 11 million people, which you have to have a police state to try to do.”
Just asking…
(Also the link to rosedog’s LA Times mag piece doesn’t work. Is it anywhere else ??? )
March 9th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
That’s hardly the point, Reg. It’s a bullshit statement because even the authors of the House bill know very well they are not going to deport 11 million people. She’s waving around a bloody shirt after going the last number of years (since her hubby left office) with NO proactive immig reform proposal. It’s cheap politicking, it doesnt get us to where we should be or even toward that goal and it’s rather unseemly coming from her.
March 9th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
So turning a civil offense into a felony is the way to go ????
I guess I’m missing your point, other than that Hillary is a hypocrite who has no right to speak out on anything because her of husband. I got that part of it.
March 10th, 2006 at 12:23 am
Come on Reg.. u can accuse me of obsessing over the Clintons, but Im quite open about it. You on the other hand are being completely disingenuous. You know exactly the point Im making. The very same one you’d be making when and if George Bush stood up to talk about, say, the great civil rights record of the Republicans.
What about my point do you not want to understand?
Do you want me to preface all criticism of Hillary by saying she is the lesser of two evils? Perhaps.
Except, of course, on immigration policy — a place where Clinton and the Democrats were NOT. Reagan, at least, signed the 1986 IRCA which granted amnesty to about 3 million undocumented living here. Clinton, instead, signed laws which allows permament legal residents to be deported for trivial reasons.
Something here I didnt catch?
March 10th, 2006 at 1:15 am
I’m still not clear on whether you disagree with Hillary’s position on the issue of making illegal immigration a felony. I think Hillary’s a creep and a hypocrite for a dozen different reasons, but I’m dubious about criticizing her for not engaging in public combat with the President when she was first lady or for suggesting that this move might be draconian.
March 10th, 2006 at 1:28 am
Clinton’s bill signed into law in 1996 in link below.
Clinton apologists can try to defend Hillary all they want, but the fact is that Bush and most of the Republican Party is far more sane and open minded on immigration than the Clinton administration ever was.
http://immigration.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.shusterman.com/newlawhl.html
March 10th, 2006 at 2:48 am
1. People who come to this country illegally should be deported. They have broken our laws. Case closed.
2. I do believe in the fence.
3. I do NOT believe in amnesty.
4. Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn’t really have a position on immigration - she has “talking points” and next week she’ll have DIFFERENT talking points.
5. If she finds the current laws onerous, then try to change the damned things. But do not, ever, try to blame laws passed when her husband was President on the current President. That is not acceptable behavior and if she is called on it, then JUST LIKE ANY OTHER POLITICIAN she should be able to defend herself without claiming gender bias or some other kind of bloviating nonsense!
March 10th, 2006 at 5:27 am
Marc-
I’m of the mind that we should build the border wall to control the flow of immigrants and when it is complete start an amnesty program.
I don’t recall reading your solution. Or do you consider illegal immigration not to be a problem at all?
March 10th, 2006 at 5:39 am
As a United States Immigration Officer for 7 years and now a Customs and Border Protection Officer for 3 years (Still doing the same job under a new name thanks to DHS) I have some experience on the southern border. All my time has been spent here in San Diego working on the Tijuana/San Ysidro border.
John Davies has the perfect solution. Build a fence. We can afford it and it will work wonderfully.
Of those 11 million people that we love to cite every time we talk about illegals in the US? No problem. Really, no problem. If I catch 10 people in one day, usually all 10 of them are returning home. That’s right, usually all 10 of them left the United States to go to Mexico and are now coming back to the United States. They deport themselves folks.
Obviously they won’t all deport themselves. So, just as John Davies says, once we get the wall in place and the flood is reduced to a trickle, get the families back together with an amnesty.
I hate the idea of an amnesty, but heck, i’m willing to compromise. Build me a fence all along the southern border and reduce the flood to barely a trickle and i’ll be happy to vote for an amnesty.
We make this problem a lot more complicated than it needs to be. Build a fence, it will work.
March 10th, 2006 at 5:44 am
Far be it from me to defend Hillary, but she didn’t actually say the Republicans are trying to build a police state. She said their plan would be “an unworkable scheme to try to deport 11 million people, which you have to have a police state to try to do.†In other words: the scheme won’t work precisely because we do not have a police state!
March 10th, 2006 at 6:02 am
I don’t see why it is a tragedy when someone who commits a crime gets deported. The 1996 Act made committing a felony automatic grounds for deportation. If you are living here on a green card, don’t commit a felony and you won’t get deported. I have no one ounce of sympathy for those who are being deported under the law.
Amnesty is a terrible idea. It just encourages more illegals because they know that if they just hang in there long enough, someone will declare amnesty and they can live here legally. It is also a slap in the face to everyone who plays by the rules and comes here legally.
People who live in cities do not see the social costs of immigration. You live in your neighborhood and don’t see the crime and poverty that illegal immigration brings. Go to a small town in places like Kansas or Wisconsin and you will see thousands of illegals forced on small communities that do not have the social services to handle the influx. My hometown in Western Kansas is no a literal cesspool of poverty and crime thanks to meat packing plant and their largely illegal work forces. Crime is nearly impossible to prevent because local police cannot enforce immigration laws. They catch people driving with no insurance, identification, or anything and they just have to turn them loose because they can’t deport them. Dangerous criminals are deported only to return within weeks. It is a mess.
My sollution is to build the wall and then put a price on the head of any illegal immigrant. Tell all state and local governments that the feds will give $1,000 for any illegal aprehended by local authorities and turned over to INS. Extend this to private citizens who call INS and tell them the wereabouts of an illegal immigrant. For $11 billion dollars you could clean out the entire country. It would be the best $11 billion we ever spent.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:09 am
And a ‘police state’ is worse than a “It Takes A Village” Nanny State just how? More obvious brutality?
And if there were an olympics for obdurately missing the point, Reg would win the gold every time, evidently.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:13 am
I hate the idea of an amnesty, but heck, i’m willing to compromise. Build me a fence all along the southern border and reduce the flood to barely a trickle and i’ll be happy to vote for an amnesty.
An amnesty just gives illegals reason to hope that there will be another one in the future, all they have to to is get here and wait for it.
No amnesties, and start penalizeing the hell out of businesses who employ illegals. They’ll stop coming when there aren’t any jobs.
Then maybe those brave, hardworking, risk-taking people will turn some of that courage, energy, and daring towards making Mexico less of a mess.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:23 am
You folks are focusing on the wrong end of the problem. It’s not the supply (i.e., the influx of illegal immigrants); it’s the demand (i.e., the desire of employers for cheap labor that is effectively exempt from labor laws. This sentence from John’s comment says it all:
“My hometown in Western Kansas is no a literal cesspool of poverty and crime thanks to meat packing plant and their largely illegal work forces.”
I would wager that the meat packing plant John mentioned knows full well that most of its employees are in the country illegally. But they don’t care, because they’re making money, and that’s all the matters. Hit the owners of the meat packing plant with felony charges — hit ‘em hard, and make it swift and sure — and the problem will quickly go away.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:33 am
Volunteering to Fight the Police State
Anyway, Marc takes up the gauntlet and manfully thwacks Hillary about the head and shoulders, but misses a broader point.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:34 am
Brandon has it right. Just a few well publicized felony convictions of those employing illegal immigrants, and youi would see this problem go away pretty quickly.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:49 am
You guys are just mad at Hillary for the same
reason you hate Bubba; they’re stealin’ yer
thunder!.
She is to the right of WH on WoT, and Billy
commandeered the Welfare Reform ship.
That drives you guys batshit.
Like when FDR tuned the 6 Navy vessels
escorting him around and back to Europe
when he discovered his beloved Scottish
Terrier was left behind. You guys mewed
and bitched trying to get your stank on
him, but the American Public just responded
by saying: “Awwww. he loves his dog.”
Idiots. In spite of what you think, Billy was
not consulting with Hillary on his decisions
of State. That’s why he hired Dick Morris.
Stop trying to equate Hillary with Billy.
It may be a tactic, but it’s not a strategy.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:55 am
In spite of what you think, Billy was
not consulting with Hillary on his decisions
of State.
So when they were sold to the public as “co-Presidents”, we were just being lied to? Well, that’s alright then.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:01 am
How quickly America is, apparently, going to hell. Not more than a month or so ago we were a “plantation.†Now, it seems, we’re on the verge of becoming a “police state.
LOL. One of the greatest one-liners I’ve read. I’m still giggling ten minutes after seeing it!
Too bad America’s elite can’t spend a little time on a plantation or live under the thumb of Castro to get a real idea of how incredibly stupid they really are.
How long would Hillary last pickin’ cotton? Only in my dreams.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:09 am
I like Hillary a lot. She has balls of steel. Which really take you a long way. Her biggest failure is that she has to work behind the scenes.
The Clinton Administration was probably a joint Hillary/Bill affair. More Hillary then Bill because of the balls of steel.
But she doesn’t have the speaking skills of Bill or Ronald Reagan. The words don’t flow out of her, her style of speech grate like nails on a blackboard. Its a combative style of speaking which just doesn’t go over good. Which is why you get things like “police state” “plantation state.”
She is reduced to style over substance, which is a lethal combination when it comes to politics. She hasn’t found her style yet, which is troubling for her and for her constituents.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:12 am
“Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all.”
(Nikita Khrushchev , February 25, 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party)
“We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.”
(Hillary Clinton, 1993)
March 10th, 2006 at 7:17 am
“We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.â€
I see. How many times a week do we subjugate
our individual rights in the WoT? Been to the
airport lately?
March 10th, 2006 at 7:23 am
Marc-
Good observation about Clinton’s Border policy.
He campaigned on the theme that the economy at that time was the worst in 50 years. But the American economy grew despite Clinton’s trade policies, not because of them. We became the engine for world economic growth, while many other major powers suffered finacial crisis.
Clinton added to this mistake by adopting “free trade” rather than a more targeted approach. He lost control of the process, allowing other states to export their problems to America.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:31 am
Illegal Immigration Problem Fixed:
1) Impose heavy fines on employers knowingly employing illegals.
- A transition period to allow employers to transition to a legal workforce. Yes, prices for some products will rise (concomitantly with wages for the legal parts of the workforce).
- A government service allowing employers to verify the immigration status of job candidates.
2) A border wall (in whatever effective form).
3) No catch-and-release–detention until deportation.
4) Empower local law enforcement to arrest illegals.
5) No amnesty, although we will pay for a bus ticket back to Mexico for them to get in the back of the line.
6) No entitlements for illegals. No in-state tuition for their kids.
7) A correct interpretation of the citizenship requirement; just being born here is not enough.
Problem solved. Until we take our laws seriously, don’t expect the Mexican government and its nationals to take us seriously. The reconquista will continue unabated until we are left with a fractured bicultural nation and a chuckle whenever someone mentions ‘rule of law’.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:38 am
You know, I would love to see the Federal Government build a serious fence along the entire southern border but, face it, neither political party is interested.
The Republicans take money from people like the above mentioned meat packers to keep up the supply of cheap labor and the Democrats don’t care about green cards as long as they can get the illegal immigrants voter registration cards.
So it seems like there ought to be a way that private individuals can get together to do something. If individual property owners within a hundred miles of the border were willing to replace their four strand barbed wire fences with eighteen foot tall chain link fence topped with razor wire and if individuals all over the United States were willing to contribute a few bucks to pay for those fences, it sould cut down on the number of places where people could cross over from Mexico and the existing Border Patrol resources would be more adequate.
Back in the 1970s the artist Christo built his “Running Fence” artwork accross Sonoma and Marin Counties in California by getting property owners to agree to it and by collecting donations to pay for it.
http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/rf.html
Why can’t we do the same thing today with chain link and razor wire instead of nylon cloth?
March 10th, 2006 at 7:38 am
There’s only one solution to the immigration - make Mexico a decent place to live.
Unfortunately, that’s a tough one. But we could be doing more.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:40 am
I see. How many times a week do we subjugate our individual rights in the WoT? Been to the airport lately?
That’s not giving up our individuality to the benefit of society. That’s trading the right to not take off our shoes for the right to not be blown up by terrorists.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:55 am
“And a ‘police state’ is worse than a “It Takes A Village†Nanny State just how? More obvious brutality?”
For someone who jibes about missing points, you manage to state the obvious and miss the point at the same time….congrats.
March 10th, 2006 at 8:04 am
The “you can’t deport 11 million” is so much nonsense. You don’t have to. You simply make life here unpleasant for ‘em, and they’ll head on home of their own accord.
It’s all so simple, were our politicos not whores and cowards. “B” above has the plan down pat. Especially his/her point #6: stop the entitlements. That’s right: no foodstamps, no health care, so sending the kids to public schools. None. And I’m talking right down to the level of “leave ‘em dying on the street rather than pay for their hospital stay.”
Oh thousands will die, the immigrant-whores scream with phony empathy, ratcheting up their already sky-high sense of moral superiority! Ummm… no. A few will die. Then the rest will get the message and get the hell out of here.
You might add another point to that list, which is if you’re caught and deported, we confiscate your property (all those greenbacks you illegally earned). Just another little incentive to not show up again.
As for that fence idea. Effective, yes. An obvious solution to anyone but the willfully blind, yes. But land mines might be cheaper.
March 10th, 2006 at 8:12 am
Wow, Marc, no many fruits and nuts coming out on this issue your blog is a regular supermarket aisle.
All this talk of “solving” the immigration “problem” presupposes that immigration into a country of immigrants is a problem in the first place.
Culturally, economically and politically it seems to me laden with benefits, just as earlier immigrant waves were. Marc and I both live in Los Angeles, which used to be a bastion of white supremacy and union hostility but has become considerably more progressive as it has turned browner y mas espanol. That’s only a good thing.
The problems have a lot more to do with the realities of globalisation, especially NAFTA (a Clinton-era phenom), which has screwed up the North American labour market, and irrational fear and hatred of The Other, as exemplified in the very notion that immigration is, in and of itself, a problem, a security risk, a call for militarisation of the border, fences, dogs, watchtowers etc.
Stirring up fear of immigration is a longstanding form of political crack (read yr 19th century history) to which Clinton and the Republican loons are both, in their different ways, addicted. It’s very similar to the lock’em-up-and-throw-away-the-key attitude to law enforcement that has prevailed in both parties for the past 20-30 years.
Hillary’s comments are like the tut-tutting of a closet alcoholic at the sight of a bunch of louts staggering drunkenly out of a bar on a Saturday night. The only difference between her and them is that she sips her poison from an expensive hand-crafted hip flask and pretends to herself that this is somehow classier.
So, Reg, her condemnation of Sensenbrenner et al is not wrong. It’s just that she is part of a political process that made their wingnuttery possible in the first place. That’s why Marc is pissed off, and rightly so.
March 10th, 2006 at 8:26 am
“I guess I’m missing your point, other than that Hillary is a hypocrite who has no right to speak out on anything because her of husband. I got that part of it.”
I guess I am too and no I didn’t detect a policy either except “Come on down.” Advocacy groups are classic special interests. They all want total immigration freedom wihout regard for anything including environment degradation which is rampant all over socal. Too many people is indeed a problem wherever they may be. As I understand it defending the immigration laws was a Clinton crime? Fai enough, it’s not but so what? He didn’t build the wall to Texas? Or just advocate letting them all in?
I’d go with the Border Control officer who had the courage to post his qualified opinion. There are precious few of those.
March 10th, 2006 at 8:34 am
“# Nathan Says:
March 10th, 2006 at 5:44 am
Far be it from me to defend Hillary, but she didn’t actually say the Republicans are trying to build a police state. She said their plan would be “an unworkable scheme to try to deport 11 million people, which you have to have a police state to try to do.†In other words: the scheme won’t work precisely because we do not have a police state!”
Nathan, don’t cloud anybody’s mind with quotes of what she actually said..
And aside from the idiocy of the old John Birch Society-style juxtapositon of a quote from a centrist like Hillary or Eisenhower with a line from some Communist, I think it’s interesting that JL actually wrenched a quote from Kruschev’s landmark speech denouncing Stalin’s one-man tyranny over the Soviet Union as having something to do with a comment from Hillary sans any context.
Brandon nails the essence of the problem and its solution. Stem the creation of demand and go after the employers. The rest of it will take care of itself. “Market forces” and all that… Of course there’s no race card to play and people who donate to the GOP might end up on the wrong side of the law. Come to think of it, the latter seems to be a mushrooming trend these days, so maybe there’s hope for this approah.
March 10th, 2006 at 8:42 am
Modestproposal, you said:
“All this talk of “solving†the immigration “problem†presupposes that immigration into a country of immigrants is a problem in the first place.”
I think everyone here is talking about the illegal immigration problem–which is indeed a problem; visit your local correctional facility–and I didn’t see a single post complaining about legal immigrants, so please stop with the straw men.
March 10th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Definitely the employers. They are the source. That quote is telling. Talk about misreading what she’s saying. Key missing parts: unworkable; try. Shameful tactics of propaganda.
March 10th, 2006 at 8:48 am
“So, Reg, her condemnation of Sensenbrenner et al is not wrong.”
I just wanted Marc to admit that…
Also, I can assume that Hillary approved of most of Bill’s policies when she was First Lady, but I think it’s unseemly to lampoon her for a position she takes now that is probably correct while lambasting her for not publicly attacking some contradictory policy of the old Clinton administration. Let her establish her own record as a politician - sleazy or otherwise - and blame Bill for the policies of the first Clinton presidency if blame is warranted. There’s something truly pathological that the Clinton’s bring out in some people and the hysteria and venom says more about their critics than a fairly reasonable observation about a bad piece of legislation says about Hillary. And my comment is coming from someone who really doesn’t like Hillary and dreads the idea of her running for President (although my eyeballs don’t turn red).
March 10th, 2006 at 8:52 am
So Hilary Clinton is forbidden from speaking out against the felonization of immigrants, now? You want her to remain silent, now, as a Senator, because you don’t feel she spoke out enough ten years ago, as a wife?
Yeah, good thing you didn’t speak up about the Patriot act. Getting a rush of that traffic from right wing blogs must be exhilarating.
March 10th, 2006 at 8:54 am
“Marc and I both live in Los Angeles, which used to be a bastion of white supremacy and union hostility but has become considerably more progressive as it has turned browner y mas espanol.”
Well I suppose if you go back far enough. California is one of the most heavily unionized labor markets in the country. “Browner is better” is the message I’m seeing here, which is a proposal that’s quite open to debate aside from the fact that this is an openly racist statement on its face.
Of course there have always been white slobs building the freeways to for union wages, so it’s not like all caucasians are wealthy business leaders and slave-shop mongers.
Yeah it’s really improved here. Now almost everyone can’t afford to be here.
March 10th, 2006 at 8:57 am
[...] Ooops, I meant HRC, of course. He’s had enough with her getting away with saying any lame crap that comes into her angry little head and he’s saying so and looking at Clinton policies. Good piece. [...]
March 10th, 2006 at 9:01 am
b,
Where’s your evidence that illegal immigrants pose a significant crime problem? I can show you evidence that they are net tax payers, that they work incredibly hard at shitty low-paying jobs with few if any benefits and essentially sacrifice their own aspirations for their children’s. I’m sure some of them get in trouble, too, but my local correctional facilities, since you mention them, are notable mostly for their disproportionate numbers of dark-skinned petty drug offenders — the vast majority US citizens — serving shockingly long sentences imposed by out-of-control politicians trying to impress fear-mongers like yourself.
Your assumption about illegal immigrants being criminals is no different from past fear and paranoia about the Irish, the Italians, the Poles, the Jews etc etc. The descendants of those immigrants are now part of the bedrock of this country. Or would you, like your historical forebears, espouse a United States for white Protestant Europeans only?
March 10th, 2006 at 9:07 am
sorry to hog so much space, but gotta answer mark a. york:
“racist… on its face” to celebrate america as a cultural, linguistic and ethnic melting pot?
listen to yourself.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:07 am
“My hometown in Western Kansas is now a literal cesspool of poverty and crime thanks to meat packing plant and their largely illegal work forces.”
So with impeccable logic, this commenter proposes that the solution is to build a wall down in Texas and put a federal bounty on the heads of illegal immigrants. That’s like dropping a glob of honey in the middle of the kitchen floor and proposing to get rid of the resulting ants by fencing in the yard and chasing the little fellas down one by one with a pair of tweezers. (Before the PC police arrive, that was an analogy, not a simile.) Targeting employers in a handful of industries would cut the problem radically. Of course, there’s a GOP senator waiting in the wings to give a speech claiming it would take a police state to enforce labor laws, etc. etc. And many of those who attack Hillary here would applaud his stirring defense of freedom for capital to skirt regulation.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:14 am
is the Senator from New York fundamentally right or is she wrong on this?
The real point, apart from the issue itself (who cares about those), is that if she’s declared us a police state and a plantation this far ahead of the election, what will America be, rhetorically, by election day? Innocent insects slowly being dissolved in the acidic maw of Bush’s Venus Fly-Trap? An earthly recreation of the fecal pool from the Inferno? How high will she have to dial that stuff up in 2-1/2 years if she’s starting there?
Somehow it all makes me think of that silly V For Vendetta movie coming out, based on a comic book which was convinced that Margaret Thatcher’s election would lead straight to 1984, man, instead of what it actually did lead to– a really bitchin’ gallery and restaurant scene. Surely there has to be a form of opposition that stops short of apocalyptic hysteria.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:14 am
Once again, Cooper gets it wrong.
Countries have a right to defend their borders, taking advantage of natural defenses as necessary.
The Americans who are responsible for those 3500 deaths are those who encourage illegal immigration. That includes “liberals” as well as those who directly profit off illegal immigration.
Very few people would try to illegally cross our borders if they knew they couldn’t get a job or public services.
It’s those that give them jobs and fight to give them non-emergency services that are largely responsible for the deaths.
The reader should see my comments on Cooper’s other recent entries about immigration for much more.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:19 am
“is that if she’s declared us a police state and a plantation this far ahead of the election, what will America be, rhetorically, by election day?”
Freddy, the real point is that you’re a bloviating bullshitter who’s taken her words out of context - to the point of dementia. Flaming ignorance or hysterical malevolence ? Take your pick, folks. But recognize the direction that crap, hyperbolic rhetoric is floating in from…
March 10th, 2006 at 9:21 am
“I have to go to the bathroom,†Chairman Mao
“I have to go to the bathroom.†George W. Bush
March 10th, 2006 at 9:21 am
“Surely there has to be a form of opposition that stops short of apocalyptic hysteria.”
Ya think ?
March 10th, 2006 at 9:25 am
That “Anchoress” thing is kinda scary…
March 10th, 2006 at 9:26 am
A Couple of quick responses: Hillay can say whatever she pleases. She has a right to be a as dupliciyous and hypocritical as she pleases. I dont really care what she says about he Sensenbrenner bill or anything else because I have known since the beginning that she lives in a moral void.
As to illegal immigration: I have no prolem whatsover with tight enforcement, employer sanctions, worksite inspections even a fence if it makes you happy. But none of that work unless there is an acknolwedgement that with a 10 to 1 wage differential and with the Mexican and other economies in shambles AND with the need that American business has for a growing pool of unskilled workers, we must acknowledge the need for and then provide a LEGAL channel for these migrants and, yes, an amnesty program for those already here. That doesnt put me too far off from the Border Agent commenter.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:32 am
Marc… This is one more reason that I’ll slit my wrists if the woman becomes the dem nominee. Of course she’d been the lesser of two evils. But her unwillingness to have an honest discussion about much of anything is…deeply disheartening.
Reg, annoyingly, the LA Times links never work past the first week. Here’s a site that I notice has archived that particular immigration-related piece of mine… that Marc was kindly trying to link. Thanks for noting.
http://www.streetgangs.com/topics/2005/091805banned.html
March 10th, 2006 at 9:39 am
“I have known since the beginning that she lives in a moral void.”
The beginning of what ?
Seriously though…Marc, as someone who’s surely more hardline on this issue than you are, I’m kinda shocked that you would throw in “even a fence if it makes you happy”. The two “enforcement” proposals that are most often heard coming from the Right are the two that are most repugnant - building a “Berlin Wall” the length of our border with Mexico and proposals like 187 that turn school teachers and nurses into cops and punish the families of illegals. I guess you were being flip, but a “fence” is one of the most screwball, wrong-headed proposals I’ve ever heard of (with all due respect to Robert Frost). The issue is, as you accurately state it, about labor markets. Deal with it there - pro or con. But don’t turn America into something akin to, dare I say it, Sharonist Israel.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Hi to you too Reg– I knew my reappearance would make you chime like a clock!
March 10th, 2006 at 9:40 am
I presume the reason for expunging illegal immigrants is to provide greater employment opportunity for the native born (are you picturing a white person?), maybe something approaching full employment. But that doesn’t gibe with Republican macroeconomic policy. Republicans don’t want anything close to full employment because that drives up the price of labor. This isn’t a small thing. Republicans will never support policies that drive up labor costs because they primarily identify with business owners and not workers. So we see Bush’s guest worker program. Here’s an opportunity to keep labor costs, down which keeps our efficient society running cheaply, and simultaneously prevent those workers from benefiting from the efficient society to which they contribute. Meanwhile, no appreciable difference in the job market for legal residents will appear. Supporting Republicans and expecting an approach to illegal immigration that will lead to an increase in jobs for the American-born is at cross-purposes.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:44 am
Yeah, Freddy. Everytime the cuckoo bird pops out…
March 10th, 2006 at 9:45 am
Of course the fence is wrong and offensive, Reg. But it aint gonna get built. Everyone in Washington knows it, including Hillary who was simply demagoging in the issue.
The beginning? Well for me it was the 1992 campaign when I got to ride in Big Bill’s plane and watch him set up the show around the execution of Rickey Ray Rector. That pretty much explained it all.
Also.. ur gonna hate this– what I learned from Whitewater made me sick. NOT the trumped up part pushed by the Right.. I didnt care about that. All I had to do was see in the words of the defense what the Whitewater project really was and that the Clintons were prinicpals in it and it told me oodles. It was a shakedown land deal aimed at poor people who live in trailer parks. Gag me.
My beef with Clintons is primarily with their soiled personal character. All the rest, their opportunist politics– flows from that. And I mean flows.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:47 am
PS: Marc’s right. Clinton was really hideous on immigration. It was a knee jerk thing for him because it was the issue that he felt cost him the Governorship of Arkansas in 1980. (If you’ll remember, he was tossed out after one year term, but then came back to win again as more of a centrist 1982.)
It was the only election Bill lost, and he never, ever forgot it. …and was afraid to make a brave move on immigration ever after.
I’m no immigration expert, so don’t believe my analysis. But you’d also hear the same thing — as Marc and Dan Kowalski will concur—from the head of Clinton’s immigration policy, Doris Meissner.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:49 am
“I presume the reason for expunging illegal immigrants is to provide greater employment opportunity for the native born (are you picturing a white person?)”
Mavis, when I get exercised about this, I’m actually picturing either a “native born” black person or a brown person who’s either “native born” or in a family of recent legal immigrants. Probably 17 to 30. And living in a neighborhood where unemployment has gone beyond being an individual’s problem to an epidemic.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Rector is a good answer.
The rest of it, not so much.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:57 am
HRC is clearly pathological … and Democrat Socialists shouldn’t be undertaking all these parsings and relativities just to experiment with her in office. Once was clearly enough.
Fortunately, her constituents are already disillusioned:
March 10th, 2006 at 9:59 am
[Hillary] hasn’t found her style yet, which is troubling for her and for her constituents.
Hillary would need constant polls to decide anything which is WHY she would be “style” and no substance anyways… just as Bill was. The Dems will be making a HUGE mistake putting all their bets on her for President, it’s a SURE loser! Until the public knows how it feels about the borders, Hillary won’t.
March 10th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Melting pot? Framed in a “brown is better white is not” context? Please. It’s racist statement. Stated that way it’s a takover and fodder for Michele Malkin. Why invite it? We don’t really have a melting pot now only a mosaic of other cultures walled off and conpeting with each other as groups not individuals. This is a disastrous course.
Whitewater displaced trailer park residents? Recreational lots on the White River? Quite a goof trout stream too. I just dion’t but this concept.
“It was a knee jerk thing for him because it was the issue that he felt cost him the Governorship of Arkansas in 1980.”
Actually it wasn’t. He cracked down on logging and a papermill operation and I believe the chicken business over environmental controls and policy. He went on to craft the best environmental record since TR. Since I was involved with this I can’t resist. The letters are posted on my blog since I was “dared” to do so. Everything changed with junior in office. He reversed everything and installed industry lobyists in the place of qualified scientists.
Most of this bashing is just not qualifed, but opinion can be any old thing true or not.
March 10th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Marc,
The deal is that Hillary has taken a position on illegal immigration that’s indistinguishable from yours…
and you’re mad as hell and won’t take it anymore !
March 10th, 2006 at 11:23 am
Marc, can you cite the evidence of our purported “need” for unskilled workers? If the unemployment rate is not hitting record lows, then, no, I don’t see a “need” for unskilled workers from Mexico. Say you want about a humanitarian motivation for an amnesty program of sorts, and that’s a debatable point. But to try to get mileage out of this issue by aligning with business interests is slimy and disingenuous. Trust me, I’ve been there: I spent years schmoozing with local Chamber of Commerce members to tout how different we immigrant organizations were from other social service groups because we had “motivated” workers to offer the business community (code word for “docile”). I eventually saw the error of my ways. And so I’d advise against similar “creative” uses of the immigration cause. At least be honest about the our country’s “needs”, and who the hell’s needs these are.
March 10th, 2006 at 11:28 am
If Hillary Clinton is nominated as by the Democrats in 2008 as their presidential candidate, I am going to change my party membership. It is bad enough that my contributions to the Democratic Party over the years have gone to people like John Breaux, Zell Miller, Bill Clinton, and Joseph Lieberman. If that woman gets the nod in 08, that will be the last straw for me.
March 10th, 2006 at 11:41 am
Clinton knew about Mena. The right was right about that but couldn’t push it to its logical Iran/Contra conclusion. Clinton also promised Bush sr. that he’d cover his ass if vice-versa. The Clintons are as low as the Bushes.
March 10th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Not accurate.
It’s certainly true that the Clinton administration wass’t exactly bold or honest about immigration (compared to Bush? Riiiight) — but it was a LOT better than the Congress, which actually enacted most of the policies you’re bitching about, precisely because your SOURCES — those blessed immigration advocates — were dumb as rocks.
Item: in 1994, the first national figure to oppose Prop 187 (largely promoted by Republicans, like Hal Ezell and Reagan INS head Nelson) was the late Barbara Jordan. But she didn’t just oppose Prop 187 as bad policy, she promoted an alternative: worksite verification.
Item: As one, your ‘immigration advocates’ opposed Jordan — who, at that moment, also became the first to oppose the welfare ban. (August-September 1994)
Item: from 1994-1996, immigration advocates kept their mouths shut about the welfare ban, having made common cause with CATO’s argument “immigration yes, welfare no”. During those years, conservatives called better verification “the Mark of the Beast” (Grover Norquist), and wanted to know if we were going to barcode babies (Stuart Anderson, later Bush’s top immigration policy guy).
Item: 1995, the Jordan Commission urged that priority for legal immigration be given to the wives and kids of legal permanent residents.
Item: 1996, the Republican Congress rejected that priority, egged on by AILA (whcih claimed this was merely the ‘amnesty echo’ , and would go away).
Item: When legal immigration reforms were defeated, the worst anti-immigration provisions passed, because the Republican House in particular saw no need to bargain them away.
Item: the absolute nastiest provisions, e.g., the 3/10 year ban, were moved in Conference by Republican Senator Spencer Abraham — the darling of the immigration advocates. (Who had just hired Anderson.) Then the advocacy community gave Abraham the “defender of the melting pot” award.
The list goes on.
So it’s more than a bit disingenous to blame the Clinton administration for failing to veto acts of Congress that originated in the corner immigration advocates had unfailingly painted themselves into.
And, oh yeah — the border stuff? That wasn’t Clinton’s initiative, it started with Silver Reyes, the highest ranking Border Patrol guy ever elected to Congress, and WHEN COMBINED WITH INTERIOR ENFORCEMENT, it’s surely the smartest way to manage the border. The point isn’t to arrest people crossing the border, it’s to STOP people entering without inspection. The coyotes take ‘em into the desert because once they are across the border, there is no enforcement.
I look forward to your persuasive advocacy for 1) better worksite enforcement based on electronic verification of the Social Security #, and 2) delivering visas to the wives and kids.
Or, you could just bash Hillary.
March 10th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
I Know all of you will ignore my comment……..but are you all so blind that you will still defend the 2 most (in Marc’s words) morally bankrupt politicians ie: The Clintons, to come down the pike since God know when? No matter what?
Most of you are the prime example of what’s wrong with what’s left of the Demoratic Party. Open your minds and let some fresh air come in!
March 10th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
There are two problems with excessive immigration (which is, for my purposes, very close to illegal immigration): it increases overpopulation, and reduces wages. Much of the U.S. is already overpopulated - especially the coasts (just look at housing prices there). As for wages, had the minimum wage ($1.60/hr around 1970) kept up with inflation, it would now be about eight dollars an hour. It’s about $5.20. Had it kept up with productivity (which has doubled - see http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=070804D ), it would be about sixteen dollars an hour! And wages in general have stagnated - see http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=011206D . So the minimum wage, and wages in general, are way too low. And excessive immigration lowers them still more.
I do agree that cracking down on employers of illegal immigrants would be the best approach.
March 10th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Our new found friend India is constructing two walls, not one as we are considering. One is to protect them in Kashmir for the same reasons that the Israelis are building a wall and the other a 1,864 mile fence to seal off the Indian-Bangladeshi border. The fence at the Bangladeshi border will be just under 10 feet high and will run almost all the way around Bangladesh’s land border with India. The stated aim of the fence is to stop infiltration of terrorists, prevent smuggling and end illegal immigration. I support them and us in this, but it is interesting that we I haven’t heard a peep out of anyone on this action by India; especially at the UN.
March 10th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
“Brandon has it right. Just a few well publicized felony convictions of those employing illegal immigrants, and youi would see this problem go away pretty quickly.”
You mean just like with music downloading?
March 10th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
People who get huffy about immagration are like fire breathing partisans on The Middle East; they generaly have found an axe in this heartbreaking problem and they are only too happy to grind it all over you. I don’t know what to do about this mess; which seems to me generally a symptom of the worldwide race to bottom on wages. Sure, start talking like that and see if you can get elected to the clean up committe for the next Pancake Breakfast.
Luckily, we don’t have have to back further than a week to
see Cooper’s misbegotten “gotcha” with the Clintons on the Port’s deal. It is good to see Cooper freely admit his Clinton Obsession; oh that it were the first step toward recovery!
So, we can pretty much assume here that “Campaign Spin fantasies” means “a version of the story without good guys and bad guys out of a Gene Autrey flick. ” If the new measures enacted under Clinton were so horrific, why did they completly fail to stem the tide of illeagal immigration? Am I really to despise Clinton for (even lousy) anti-terror legislation in the pre-911 years, when our Congress and Media were content to endlessly rub our noses in the deficanties in Ken Starr’s fantasy life?
What if we sent 10 billion of that Iraqi money down to
Mexico as aid in helping them develop a viable economy; at the same time demanding a livable wage for service industry jobs in our country? Politicos don’t talk that way for the same reason Cooper doesn’t write that way….. there’s no job in it.
So, he drags his self loathing over to attacks on the Clintons for not being the altruistic do gooders of our dreams.
But consider Cooper’s last pre-11 Weekly piece, a great yucking it up over Gary Condit and how it was hilarious it was that the media fixated over such stuff instead of, oh, terriorist legislation and other lofty stuff. Talk about not having the decency to put a sock in it.
In the meantime, the level headed are stuck with Hillary Clinton’s sole big plus as a candidate or anything else: She drives the dopes crazy.
March 10th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Marc — two issues.
Is not increased illegal immigration as Mexico falls ever deeper into a pit of corruption and violence and no jobs as good an explanation for increased deaths on the border as Clinton’s policies of increased border enforcement at some points? The deaths roughly correlate with declining investment in Mexico and increased investment in Asia (chasing cheap labor again).
Second, if we cannot stop illegal immigrants from coming into this country in massive amounts, doesn’t that just require the US to openly intervene in Mexico by military means to order the nation to our liking?
If we are obliged to employ all of Mexico’s poor and unemployed, then certainly we have the right to intervene in Mexico by force and do what we like there.
Why not simply invade and annex Mexico?
Your view that we cannot regulate who comes into this country from Mexico implies the annexation and absorption of Mexico into the US as a dependent territory.
Why can’t we deport 11 million people? For one thing you’d see employment levels and wages go up. If they are not citizens they should go. All it requires is will. Deport a few at a time, with exceptions made for those who add value to America (kids with good grades, special talents, the like). Along with heavy fines for employers of course.
You are right however on Hillary. She is not only factually wrong but sounds as politically adept as Al Gore crossed with John Kerry. Dems would be wise to dump her for Vilsack (a guy I really like).
[Mexico has been a mess for generations, abetted by the immigration lobby and remittances to keep it afloat, instead of a short, sharp crisis and genuine reform which means honesty, no corruption, and the state stopping the various armed bands from imposing violence on the people. Every illegal immigrant only cements the corrupt system in Mexico further. See: Philippines, remittance society.]
modest –” Culturally, economically and politically it seems to me laden with benefits, just as earlier immigrant waves were. Marc and I both live in Los Angeles, which used to be a bastion of white supremacy and union hostility but has become considerably more progressive as it has turned browner y mas espanol. That’s only a good thing.”
Well it’s a plus if you want cheap nannies or gardeners for your Malibu mansions. And great ethnic food for cheap. It’s a minus if you’re a working class white guy (I know Modest, you’d rather they all just died or something) and a minus if you’re a working class African American or native born Latino guy. Because you get your wages undercut. The Drywaller’s Union (which was mostly White and African American) was destroyed by illegal scabs, and then formed a Union with only ex-Illegals (at much lower wages). Which is now surprise surprise under attack by new waves of illegals. Unionism (as opposed to excluding social networks, try and get into the Drywaller’s Union now as a working class Black or White guy) is mutually exclusive with illegal immigration. Because Unions restrict the labor supply to create higher wages.
So much for “progressive.” Which is shorthand for getting rid of working class white and black and native born Latino guys (who are too troublingly conservative in social outlook) and replacing them with a constantly churning underclass various Tammany Hall figures can exploit (see Mayor Tony).
Mexico — BUILDING A WHACKING GREAT FENCE ON IT’S SOUTHERN BORDER. To keep out poor Guatemalans and such. Yeah tell me why we can’t build a fence.
March 10th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Let’s see if this works.
March 10th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
India’s building a fence ? Mexico’s building a fence ?
Well then, by all means, let’s get cracking on ours.
March 10th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
I can agree with some of what Rockford says. The drywallers are part of the Painter’s or were. My uncle retired from that union but it was a long time ago.
March 10th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors?
…
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’
March 10th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
“ While our current immigration mess has bi-partisan roots, it was precisely the Clinton administration that is most responsible for our contemporary border nightmares.â€
It takes a village to build a police state—by George, we got one! Don’t you think if our government wanted to seriously deter illegal immigration they would have? Obviously they are not interested.
Now the Clintons are a very special couple—I would classify them as veiled chameleons (Chamaeleo calyptratus) this the most commonly bred and available species of its genus in herpetoculture. The popularity of the veiled chameleon is due to a number of factors: veiled chameleons are relatively hardy, large, beautiful, and prolific.
It is not uncommon to encounter this species as reptiles whose color and spots change to suit any political climate, they are especially known for the amount of bodily waste that they throw incessantly on those around them.
Unfortunately, veiled chameleons are all too often purchased by unsuspecting buyers, who without acquiring the correct information prior to their purchase, have found themselves in a messy situation, the unwitting purchaser is constantly being crapped on by the chameleon and then forced to clean it up!
March 10th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
It’s good to see Cooper responding to comments. Unfortunately, AFAIK, he’s never responded to mine here.
Regarding the typing teacher’s comments, illegal immigration mostly hurts Hispanic American citizens and legal immigrants, as well as blacks. In fact, over half the black males between 16 and 60 (?) in NYC are unemployed. Despite that, Bloomberg supports illegal immigration.
Regarding The Wall, we already have walls. Did you know that? More walls around urban areas (El Paso for instance) would make a lot of sense. In less populated areas border drones and other forms of sensors.
Mexico is a corrupt country, but they’re hardly poor. They have more millionaires than Germany. The problem is that they have crooks at the top.
Those crooks are able to maintain power because of those who support illegal immigration in the U.S. It’s people like Cooper - as well as those who employ illegal aliens - who give the Mexican government a safety valve. They can just send their problem population to the north, and pick up billions of dollars in remittances in return.
It also leads to Mexico’s corruption flowing north, as banks and corporations profit off illegal activity and then donate to politicians who look the other way.
Check out my link or immref.com if you want to learn the truth about this issue rather than Cooper’s or Insty’s spin.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
# TallDave Says:
March 10th, 2006 at 7:38 am
There’s only one solution to the immigration - make Mexico a decent place to live.
Unfortunately, that’s a tough one. But we could be doing more.
Well, like any tough task, you break it down into less ambitious subtasks.
Here’s my modest proposal. With the election on July 2 the PRI will be back in power or possibly even the PRD. Within five years, ten at the outside, Mexico will once more be struggling with the possibility of defaulting on their national debt. The US government can simply pay off all of their debt in return for Baja California. Here is a hint: what explains the difference between property values in San Diego and Tijuana? How many points do you think that developing 2000 miles of waterfront property along the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez will add to the US GDP?
By the time we have absorbed Baja California and made it part of the USA, the Mexican government will be up to their nose holes in debt again and we can do the same thing with Sonora.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
The initial first question be, with what? We’re way beyond broke now and plummeting further every day. Chameleons aren’t the problem. Snakes can be though if you happen to be one of the ones eaten. Clinton tried things and and we had money when he left office. We sure don’t now. That’s the difference between an snake and a chameleon.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
I think there are at least three major issues that get mixed into spumoni in this sort of discussion. That they are all legitimate points should be the first point. That they are somewhat contradictory is the other. That there could theoretically be solutions to the problems is the more important point that seldom is recognized.
Point the first: In the short to medium run, a huge pool of low price labor obviously pushes down the wages that would otherwise be made by the native born. Many of the lost jobs belonged, or would belong, to native born African-Americans. Other jobs used to be union or at least well paid. Now, we see a race to the bottom in construction, roofing, slaughter house work, hotel work, and so on.
Point the Second: In the long run, the United States will be a very different place if it grows to a population of half a billion, then three-quarters of a billion. The growth rate, fed by immigration, predicts those numbers given another half-century and century or so. In a future world that will be largely unable to produce cheap petroleum (ever hear the term “peak oil”?) and which will need to recover an earlier form of agriculture, this does not promise a happy future for our progeny. A U.S. which maintains its population more or less at its current level would be a far happier place.
Point the third: There is a terribly serious humanitarian issue here that is also wrapped up in a never-spoken-about political issue. The fact that Mexico has been ineffective in creating a U.S. level standard of living may have many causes, among them U.S. meddling (call it imperialism if you like) and political criminality at the local level. That there are demonstrable reasons doesn’t make life easier for those who must endure it. Still, it is a legitimate question as to how much of the treatment for this problem should be provided by the U.S. The problem is complicated still further by the argument that NAFTA had the effect of putting small farmers out of business in Mexico. The never to be talked about issue is probably the more important to the U.S. — if things get bad enough in Mexico, the whole political structure could fall in something approaching a civil war.
One aside: I think the lamest retort among apologists for illegal immigration is the argument that we should go after the employers with criminal sanctions. I think that people dust off this argument simply because they know full well that it wouldn’t happen. It’s a rhetorical “talking point” that allows its vendors to pretend to intellectual legitimacy. At least Marc has the honesty to ignore such an obvious subterfuge and call for a more open border system. I don’t agree with him because I take points 1 and 2 (above) seriously, but I understand the argument.
Final remark: To argue that immigrants are a boon to the economy, and therefore we should ignore our own laws and sovereignty is the weakest argument of all. As a nation, we make lots of decisions that cause us to forego some economic advantage in order to achieve some other goal (preserving national forests and parks, for example). To argue that we need illegal immigration because we need cheap labor (even in agriculture) is to place our own benefit at the checkout line above other equally valid considerations.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
Mark–they are both reptiles.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
Each year hundreds of criminals die because we arm our policemen. Despite our armed policemen criminals still commit crimes. Disarm our policemen and all those criminal lives could be saved. Since crime is a reality we have to live with, the only real solution is to find a way for people to commit crimes legally. I suggest we make all criminals Republican congressmen.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Mexican drug lords are calling the shots in what the UN estimates is a $142 billion a year business in cocaine, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, and illicit drugs on US streets.
Today, the Mexicans have taken over and are running the organized crime, and getting the bulk of the money.
One consequence of the new dominance of Mexican cartels is a spike in violence, especially along the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border where rival cartels are warring not only against Mexican and US authorities, but also against one another for control of the lucrative transit corridors.
While the Colombian cartels still control most of the production of cocaine and heroin, the more profitable part of the trade - transport to the US, and distribution there - has come under control of various Mexican cartels.
Well, it seems the whole world his going to pot! And since corrupt official are no dopes they would rather not miss out on the high cash rewards found in the drug trade!
March 10th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
According to the authoritative National Academy of Sciences’ 1997 study, the MAXIMUM economic benefit of immigration to the United States is “as much as” $10 billion a year…..
… in a trillion dollar economy. Do the math.
That’s like picking up a dime off the street, when you have three 20s, a ten, three fives, 12 singles, 6 quarters, 11 other dimes, 5 nickels and 21 pennies in your pocket. I mean — you’d pick up the dime.
But you wouldn’t cross the street to do it.
Moreover, the National Academy of Science pointed out that like most good things, immigration ain’t free. The small economic benefits are national — and the costs are all local.
Taxpayers in California pay $1,000 a year more in taxes because of immigration, mostly in education; in New Jersey, it’s about $300 more a year.
So whenever you hear an economic argument for immigration, realize: this, is a con. It’s somebody who wants a subsidy in the form of government-supplied labor. (Chief among the rent-seekers are immigration lawyers: the single most telling stat on immigration is the 500% increase in immigration lawyers in the last 20 years.)
The real value of American immigration is CIVIC, not economic.
And on that score, Clinton rules: record levels of naturalization.
You could look it up.
‘Course, whether you’re looking at the real options for dealing with illegal immigration, or for reforming legal immigration, or for how we got into the mess, or what to do about it: our host has nothing to say.
Except — to bash Hillary.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
p.s. According to the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, as much as 90 percent of the cocaine sold in the US is smuggled through Mexican territory. Mexico is also the No. 2 supplier of heroin, the largest foreign source of marijuana, and the largest producer of methamphetamine. Moreover, Mexican criminal groups now dominate operations in the US, and control most of the 13 primary drug distribution centers in the US.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Another comeback to Mark York, apols for the delay:
“Brown is better white is not” is your chosen interpretation of my words. It’s not what I said.
My point was that I prefer the Los Angeles of Mayor Villaraigosa to the Los Angeles of Mayor Yorty. I have nothing against white people. I’m white myself.
(And no, Jim Rockford, I don’t have a death wish for low-skilled white workers. I think all workers, migrant or not, should have basic protections, living wages etc etc. But, for the moment, we don’t live in that world. We live in a world where undocumented workers are exploited in jobs no US citizen would do — witness the current desperate shortage of ag workers in Arizona and elsewhere.)
As for the melting pot being less than perfectly melted… you’re right, of course, but — I can almost feel another discussion about “Crash” coming on. Save us!
March 10th, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Hillary will say whatever her pollsters tell her the majority on that particular day want to hear. She has no principles of her own, aside from those she dare not speak.
And let’s not pretend, Reg, that she was just the good little housewife during Bill’s admin. She was an active partner, if not the driving force, in policy decisions. She ruled with an iron ash tray.
Does the phrase Healthcare Plan ring any bells? Sure, it wasn’t even legal for her to head those infamous secret talks about abolishing private doctors in this country, but that doesn’t negate the fact that she was the architect of the whole thing.
And police state? With Janet Reno as enforcer, the Clintons ran one of the most frightening juntas of the past century, killing children by burning down their compound in Waco, tearing a child at gunpoint from his relatives’ arms to send him back to Castro’s Cuba, and calling their critics a “vast rightwing conspiracy”, blaming Rush Limbaugh for the Oklahoma City bombing.
No, Bill was not interested in policy. He was only in it for the cheap floozies and the free food.
And now she wants to be seen as a hawk. Oh, please. A vulture maybe.
And who could forget this:
http://www.korlapundit.com/korlapundit/images/hillarysuha.gif
March 10th, 2006 at 8:11 pm
But they were hawks–has everyone forgot about a country called Yugoslavia?
The bombing of Yugoslavia was, overwhelmingly, of specifically civilian targets: homes, roads, farms, factories, hospitals, bridges, churches, monasteries, columns of refugees, TV stations, office buildings. The bombing was not intended to maximize civilian deaths, but neither was it intended to minimize them. The aim of the bombing was to destroy civilian installations on which people’s lives and comfort depended, killing a few thousand random civilians for good measure, and thus weakening the will of the population to resist, so that they would submit to NATO occupation.
On paper, at least, NATO failed to achieve its precise objectives, and had to settle for what it could have achieved without bombing. At Rambouillet, NATO had insisted upon NATO occupation of the whole of Yugoslavia. This has not been obtained, and seems to be off the table for the moment.
NATO had demanded occupation of Kosovo, followed by a referendum after three years. Given other provisions encouraging the racist Albanians in the KLA to terrorize the rest of the population of Kosovo (Serbs, Gypsies, Turks, Muslim Slavs, and non-racist Albanians), this was, as everyone acknowledged, tantamount to guaranteeing the separation of Kosovo from Serbia after three years.
March 10th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
Given your venomous demeanor, Korla, it would seem to me that Hillary is right up your alley. Sheesh, “poor Rush Limbaugh.” The same clueless twit who attacked Hillary and Bill’s daughter as “the family dog.”
March 10th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Yeah why rescue muslims from genocide from their fellow countrymen when it clearly isn’t worth the bother.
March 11th, 2006 at 12:03 am
Americanist: Say what u please, but you make urself a fool. I have tons to say on immigration policy and much of it has been posted on this blog. Failing that, you can always Google/ But that’s a foolish and quite ignorant assertion you have made.
March 11th, 2006 at 12:19 am
TallDave Says:
“There’s only one solution to the immigration - make Mexico a decent place to live.”
Well, Mexico is a very decent place to live — if you have money, but I know what you mean and I agree.
Maybe the folks who reflexively object to NAFTA and World Trade should get a counter-theory of wealth; I’m all ears. Where does wealth come from? How do historically poor countries like Mexico get their share?
What does Mexico need? What does Ecuador need?
Who cares?
March 11th, 2006 at 1:26 am
I’m coming into this after more than 90 comments but just want to say that only modestproposal has put his/her finger on the real issue in my view: We need to question the entire notion of borders whether it be between the US and Mexico or between France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, etc etc. What are borders for? How legitimate are any “us vs them” distinctions? It is a laugh to see Americans engage in nativism when they are a nation of immigrants. Those who make a distinction between “legal” and “illegal” immigration are only fooling themselves in light of real word realities and those who dream of a wall between the US and Mexico and just nativist fantasists.
March 11th, 2006 at 1:27 am
PS–As for the main point of Marc’s post, Hilllary is the ENEMY of anyone who wants to see the Democratic Party reformed and progressive. She cannot be attacked enough for her opportunism and dishonesty.
March 11th, 2006 at 5:34 am
Then do tell us, Marc, how a former First Lady got to be the bad guy in a debate over immigration?
I noted what, 16 specifics — and so far, all you’ve had to say is Hillary sucks.
March 11th, 2006 at 6:14 am
MARC, BLAME IT ALL ON THE CLINTONS, AND THAT’S THE BEST YOU CAN DO.
March 11th, 2006 at 7:54 am
Balter says: “Those who make a distinction between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ immigration are only fooling themselves…”
Yeah — those of us who believe in American citizenship are real suckers.
Good thing we have folks like Marc Cooper to straighten us out, show us how we can blame our stupidity on a former First Lady.
March 11th, 2006 at 8:28 am
“Los Angeles, which used to be a bastion of white supremacy and union hostility but has become considerably more progressive as it has turned browner y mas espanol. That’s only a good thing.”
That’s the quote. When it was a “bastion of white supremacy” would be bad.
“but has become considerably more progressive as it has turned browner”
Would be “good” if you consider progressive good. So yes that’s exactly what you saud and meant. I think it’s an innaccurate statement. Since Villarigosa just got into office there isn’t much data to back that up.
March 11th, 2006 at 8:33 am
The Hillary card is a red herring for anyone using it as the fulcrum of their reasoning. We saw how badly she was misquoted here. It’s really bad journalism at the very least. When the argument turns on personalties those making it don’t have much of a case of their own. They just know they have bad “feeling” about an individual. And they can base that on just about anything they choose. Like trailer parks on the White River that don’t and never would exist.
March 11th, 2006 at 8:43 am
“those of us who believe in American citizenship”
“Believe” in American citizenship? Believe in what sense, as some kind of superior quality? As something earned by one’s accomplishments or by how hard they work? If the latter, then immigrants are the most deserving!
“The Hillary card”
Would this refer to her Congressional voting card? I am sure this is not what you meant, but I will say that anyone who voted to empower Bush to go to war is disqualified from presidential office on my voting card, from John Kerry on down. Find us a real, honest candidate for 2008 and then we won’t have to attack Hillary anymore. But don’t expect any progressive worth his or her salt to stand by silently while she marches onward.
March 11th, 2006 at 9:03 am
Oh please Michael. They all voted for it due to being buffaloed and misled. There are no candidates who were against the invasion for regime change. It’s pitiful but true. They believed it despite the pitiful facts. If you’re looking for the peace and pacifist candidate good luck and say goodnight Dick. The Nader camp awaits.
As for citizenship it is indeed a right that has to be earned. You can’t do that by going on the lam under the table and shipping the money back home. Not in my citizenship book.
March 11th, 2006 at 9:15 am
“They all voted for it due to being buffaloed and misled.”
Say what? We are not talking about the hapless American people here, but Senators and Representatives in the U.S. Congress. We are talking about complicity, not victimization. Complicity is a willful act and the carte blanche handed to Bush et al. was willful. Some did not buy it, is it too late for them to run or must we choose from the candidates the Democratic leadership crams down our throats? Isn’t that what we did in 2004? No lessons learned?
March 11th, 2006 at 9:16 am
PS–and save the appeals to “realism,” another word for political cowardice.
March 11th, 2006 at 9:32 am
Here you go, still plenty of time to pick your candidate for an election that is 2 1/2 years away:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll455.xml
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00237
March 11th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Oh oh wait wait no delete button too late to realize my mistake! We have to choose a candidate that is ELECTABLE, like, like… John kerry!
March 11th, 2006 at 9:46 am
Balter, I remember proposing a similar “open borders” argument–in my 8th grade Spanish class. That your idea resonates with 8th-grade minds is, well, kind of telling.
March 11th, 2006 at 9:48 am
“That your idea resonates with 8th-grade minds is, well, kind of telling. ”
I totally agree: Kids have a much stronger sense of fairness and justice than cynical adults.
March 11th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Mark York et al… You guys are really something. Go into the tank for Hillary. Please. Real deep.
Personally, I can’t wait until she is elected… y’all deserve her.
Just as a matter of record. Hillary was not misquoted or mischaracterized here. She has an abominable record on immigration — the deaths of thousands and the heartache of hundreds of thousands are the direct results of the Clinton admin policy on this issue. She is but a rank opportunist who, now yes, is paying lip service to a better policy (but for which she has taken no risks or any pro-active moves).
So she was “buffaloed” and foold by George W. Bush? You sure you want to assert that? You weren’t but she was?
March 11th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Well marc weren’t they all? The basic premise of giving Bush the option if necessary applies. Of course judging by the way he does things it should have been apparent he’d decided, but that isn’t what many of them thought.
Immigration policy was bad insofar as he didn’t wall off the whole border or let everyone in? If the solution was easy we’d have one already.
Did you read the quote about the police state? All she was saying is it was impossible to implement and thus farcical. That’s not her policy on its face. I’m in the “anyone but Bush or another Republican” camp, but the goggle-eyed wistful longing for an idylic hero is of a fictional nature and nothing more.
March 11th, 2006 at 10:24 am
In that case I nominate Tom Udall D-CO.
March 11th, 2006 at 10:26 am
“but the goggle-eyed wistful longing for an idylic hero is of a fictional nature and nothing more.”
Sorry to have to repeat myself, but this is early 2006 and the Democratic primaries will be in 2008. Could someone tell me who decided that Hillary Clinton is already the nominee? Has anyone here heard of something called politics? Or do we just open our mouths like little birdies and swallow whatever we are fed?
March 11th, 2006 at 10:30 am
This is not an endorsement, even though I know this guy, but even in NY there are alternatives to Hillary:
http://www.tasinifornewyork.org/
March 11th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Michael.. surely you jest! Politics? Here’s the truly sad part… we already had Anyone But Bush… his name was Bill Clinton. He led his right back to Bush.
York.. wake up man! I didnt say Hillary was proposing a police state! I said she was denouncing the Republican proposal to deport aliens.
I, in turn, was denouncing her for her cheap demagogy. When the OkC. bombing was used by The Other Clinton in 1996 to justify expansion of the death penalty and to justify expedited and expanded deportation of LEGAL residents, where was Hillary’s big mouth then? Where was it when her husband signed away FDR’s federal welfare safety net the same year? At least one of Hillary’s long time associates, Peter Edelman, had the decency to resign his sub cabinet post over that little horror. And what was Hill doing? Frankly, who cares anyway? One has to be really really brain dead to consider her seriously as someone with principles or a program. All politicians dodge, weave and scheme some of the time. But that’s all she does. Maybe she can offer u some tips on commodities trading? Making a 100 to 1 profit on a minor investment aint so easy.
Anyway… let me repeat again… I WANT her to be elected. I cant imagine how much fun it will be to hear folks like you apologize for her for four years. It was pretty damn entertaining last time around!
March 11th, 2006 at 11:15 am
btw, since Mark has picked Tom Udall (of New Mexico, perhaps you were thinking of Mark Udall of Colorado, who also opposed the war resolution?) as his candidate, here are his remarks on the House floor before the war vote. If Hillary was too buffaloed to echo these sentiments why in God’s name would ANY Democrat want her as the candidate?
http://www.tomudall.house.gov/display2.cfm?id=5820&type=Issues
March 11th, 2006 at 11:44 am
Marc, you’re veering perilously close to lying. Senator Clinton was not ‘denouncing a Republican proposal to deport aliens.’
What Senator Clinton referred to as a ‘police s