Looks like Lindsay Graham is not, shall we say, a big fan of immigration reform—well, except for the kind of Orwellian “comprehensive immigration reform” that pushes for amnesty and panders to racist groups like La Raza. “Bigots,” to Graham, are those who would like to see the U.S. follow its own immigration policy, and enforce its own immigration lawas; whereas those who are hoping to “take back” part of America for Mexico? Great Americans who are being unfairly demonized by rednecks in lawnchairs.
Up is down. Black is white. Elton John is Kiki Dee.
I’m a supporter of a greatly expanded guest worker program. But I’m also a supporter of the rule of law. If politicians like Graham don’t like the current immigration laws, they are welcome to make their case to the American people for changing them. Because right now, what we have is the Running Man school of immigration reform: those who are able to sneak across the border without dying of thirst or being hunted down by Grossburger have won their amnesty.
And that’s just not right.
Really. With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?
Sadly, there are too many national issues where this rhetorical question can be asked.
I dunno, Jeff. Maybe we ought to just replace the citizenship test with the dodging bullets and running real fast test. At least then our new immigrants will be swift and agile.
Sen. Graham, it seems, has been steering a campaign to be John McCain’s running mate for the last few years. No surprise then that he’d endorse a position that mirror’s the Kennedy-McCain bill in it’s “open border”, “mi casa is su casa” approach.
The fact he’s from South Carolina, traditionally an early primary state, gave him a king-maker role under the old primary schedule.
Now? Not so much…..
Sadly, Mexico feels differently about it’s southern borders but then I guess that’s a “mexican issue” and we shouldn’t be bothered by that.
That’s a keeper. Yours too, Farmer Joe.
As the grandson of two sets of (legal) immigrants I am aware of the constituent concerns of our politicians. It does, however, send a very dangerous, sad message when national laws may be circumvented for the express purpose of pandering to a voting bloc.
I have just about given up on the concepts of courage of conviction and personal honor among our elected talking heads, regardless of party.
He reminds me of Tootsie.
I demand a lawn chair!
http://www.missouritrailertrash.com/non-mo4.htm
Get out the parachute pants, we’re going to have to kick your ass again.
Because right now, what we have is the Running Man school of immigration reform: those who are able to sneak across the border without dying of thirst or being hunted down by Grossburger have won their amnesty.
Think about all of the equally poor (or poorer) people who don’t live right across our border, who are just as deserving of a shot at US citizenship as the Mexicans, and yet because they happen to live in Asia or Africa, they have to wait in line behind everybody else, while the Mexicans get to cut in line ahead of them all.
That’s where the real injustice lies. I dig Latinos a whole lot, and I’m fine with making it easier to apply for citizenship from their homelands and upping quotas and such. But this illegal stuff with its millions of people off the books and cutting in front of the rest of the world… gotta go.
Elton John is Kiki Dee.
Sanjaya is Pavarotti, more like.
Graham can be right on so many issues and then he pops up with his own McCain-Feingold lunatic moment. He is gonna make a fantastic elder statesman shuffling along in his slippers, scratching his ass and shooing away imaginary gnats.
Lindsay hasn’t been right since he was named. He wanted Carroll.
If it is something our congress passes, then it would be our own immigration laws. Even if it is something that our own people of a certain color or class are in favor of.
As to the rule of law, i’m a big fan too. But not for the laws that I break or have broken. Lots of days I was an illegal worker because I broke the law to get to work. Or shop. Or whatever. Or an illegal partier even, because we used some not so kosher party supplies. I was very not rule of law those days. And continue to be.
“Because right now, what we have is the Running Man school of immigration reform: those who are able to sneak across the border without dying of thirst or being hunted down by Grossburger have won their amnesty.”
It’s also a lottery. Those lucky enough to be born here get citizenship. So are those lucky enough to born close enough to get near the border and be so lucky as to be desperate enough to try. Only one of these is the real injustice.
souvienne:
Meaning …what? That all of our immigration laws are racially motivated? This strikes me as a cart before the horse argument. Immigration laws have existed for decades. The reasons for their existance are many and varied. Is it your contention that they only exist because the White Patriarchy makes them to keep Latinos out of the land of Golden Streets? Or .. did the racial profiling/racism only become an issue of convenience after millions of Latinos elected to break the laws by crossing illegally?
So rule of Law is dependant upon your good graces? I would posit that there are many laws on the books that many people find either unfair or downright foolish (McCain/Feingold comes to mind.) The fact that you are “not a big fan” of the laws that you break means we should just … what? Wave a majic wand and say, “oh, right! Souvienne doesn’t like this law because he breaks it on a regular basis. Let’s just ignore it’s enforcment.” Without the rule of law there is anarchy. I happen to not be a big fan of that.
What lottery? Run by whom? This is language mutation at its finest. Let’s take a convenience of geography and an indifferent enforcement and call it a game of chance for whoever happens to be within striking distance of the Rio Grande. As far as injustice goes; whose? Those who live further from the border lack the justice of the lottery? you seem to be making an argument that the “justice” of a better life and work trumps the rule of law. I beg to differ.
Unless this entire spiel was a parody. Then I’m an idiot.
Only one of these is the real injustice.
So then, why is it that the U.S., which started out dirt poor like the rest of the Americas, has become the favored place to go and Mexico, which has plenty of natural resources, is the place to flee from?
You can rail about the injustices incurred by accidents of birth (sorry, I can’t be made to feel guilty about circumstances over which I have no control), or you can look at the human-caused injustices that prevented Latinoamerica from becoming prosperous in the first place.
The Latinos wouldn’t need to come up here if their governments stopped being so incredibly corrupt  everyone from the top down on the take  and they instituted laws and practices that allowed José Ordinario to start a small business and then “grow” it into something wonderful.
But south of our border, the attitudes, laws, customs (intense class-consciousness), and practices of the people are largely anti-prosperity.
She said, having lived there and seen it for herself.
I would like nothing better than to see our neighbors to the south do well. But until they change their anti-prosperity ways, they’ll stay poor as ever. Hard work in Latinoamerica doesn’t get you anything except callouses.
Well, things wouldn’t really be any better if it was the other way around. Just different.
“The fact that you are “not a big fan†of the laws that you break means we should just … what?”
It just means that I don’t make simple statements like “i’m a supporter of the rule of law.” Because i’ve broken enough laws to put me away for a long time. And I’m going to continue to, for example, speed, turn right on red, and enjoy the occasional illicit substance.
“Let’s take a convenience of geography and an indifferent enforcement and call it a game of chance for whoever happens to be within striking distance of the Rio Grande.”
Yes. It’s a game of chance as to who gets born here, and it’s a game of chance as to who gets born near and desparate enough to cross here. Only one is an injustice.
“You can rail about the injustices incurred by accidents of birth (sorry, I can’t be made to feel guilty about circumstances over which I have no control),”
I said it’s chance. No reason to feel guilty.
“So then, why is it that the U.S., which started out dirt poor like the rest of the Americas, has become the favored place to go and Mexico, which has plenty of natural resources, is the place to flee from?”
I have no idea how dirt poor we all started. You really want to talk development? Not me. I’m all for free trade and competition. Just so long as I don’t have to compete for work or language here.
dicentra,
It think illegal immigration has actually helped Mexico make inroads into those problems. A taste of the US system.
Immigrants have sent home, or taken home the capital to create a middle class, the idea of a level playing field that defies class. The lack of corruption in the police and the over all sense of order is a plus too, as Mexicans returning from time in the US demand more of their public officials, and they carry enough new found financial clout to be heard.
Old ways die hard though.
There are also a few things about the US that Mexican’s never really warm up to…. like rules about food (evidently chorizo doesn’t need refrigeration) and the intense packaged nature of everything here. There is no simple life here, no donkey wandering the streets of San Juan de los Burros looking forlornly for la India Maria…. We are too PC
Illegal immigration has propped Mexico’s economy up in a way that hand outs and debt forgiveness never could.
I think if we’d have cracked down on illegals for the last 50 years, that we would have a huge problem of seething poverty on our southern border.
Remittances, tourism, cement and beer all help Mexico’s economy and all of those things are tied to illegal immigration and impact Mexico in a much more powerful way because of the infuence Mexican’s living here have on travel habits, buying habits, construction needs, the banking system.
Mexicans have a vested interest in the US economy remaining strong and tinpot dictators with oil money can’t get the leverage on Mexicans they might otherwise be able to.
I went here:
http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersf134
They estimate the net cost of illegal immigration per year at $20B
That is around $2000 annually per illegal alien.
Sounds like a lot… but it really is a benefit package that costs $1-2 per hour.
Key question is: Do illegals stimulate the US economy enough to recover the benefit package outlay?
I think the answer is yes.
Without illegals, the strawberry industry in California would move to Mexico; construction costs would be higher
Yes. Those who violate our borders and our laws, and then agitate for the abolition of the border, are perpetrating an injustice on the United States of America and its law-abiding people.
I’m glad you agree.
Is it just me or is this kind of an uncharacteristically slutty way for Victor Davis Hanson to spread it around?
SteveG,
I think the better question is why are they here illegally? We clearly need the workers, and they need the work, a story that takes place all over the world. But there’s no good reason that we can’t accommodate their needs and ours without them having to sneak in.
It isn’t good for them as laborers, and it isn’t good for us from a national security perspective, nor as taxpayers. It’s a disgrace that this hasn’t been fixed and that our southern border is still open to anyone who cares to drift across it.
Lindsay Graham has been a disappointment – when I last lived in SC, he was my Representative. Seems he got burned a bit on that whole impeachment thing. Now he’s a Senator and “grown” in office – he’s McCain Jr, able to get airtime like crazy.
Always at the expense of Republicans and the administration.
So, yeah, who needs him – SC has plenty of conservatives on the bench that can better fill Strom’s seat.
happy,
Spread what around?
The last amnesty and guest worker program didn’t solve the illegal immigration problem. What’s that definition of insanity again? Something about trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results? The politicians whose immigration reform consists of another guest worker program and amnesty are not trying to solve the problem.
Also the INS sucks. They shouldn’t be in charge of cockroaches much less people.
meaning… it looks like he’s not too picky about who he hooks up with…
…lends his imprimatur to…
It think illegal immigration has actually helped Mexico make inroads into those problems. A taste of the US system.
As Pablo implies, you could get this very same effect with legal immigration or good guest worker programs.
And I’m all for the type of Foreign Aid that the workers send back from the US directly into the hands of regular people. I hate Foreign Aid that constitutes us writing a check to GeneralÃÂsimo Fulano, which disappears down rat holes.
I’m not that tweaked that the snuck in from a rule-of-law perspective, but the sheer volume of the illegals makes it a problem: employers screw them or fail to pay taxes on their wages, they don’t get insured but get into wrecks anyway, they shut down emergency departments in hospitals…
And worst of all, when people come illegally, they tend to congregate at the southern border instead of dispersing. All we need is our own multi-state Quebec.
Here is the board of directors of that group. Looks like he’s slumming it to me.
Hanging out with Jonah Goldberg and then getting in bed with these guys is slutty.
Creepy.
On the directors page, check out ”emeriti”:
# Garrett Hardin, Ph.D.
# Jane Hardin
Committed to the population control, these two:
The CAPS press release.
The movie is supposed to be out this year, directed by Bryan Singer.
Right.
I think the problem has been mismanaged.
A nod to expediency here, one to big agriculture there, another to the housing boom.
Next thing you know the problem is 10-12 million big.
I don’t want to ignore the good… or the bad.
I see the benefits of illegals in the labor pool every day.
I see the negatives too…. hell, go to Santa Ana and ask directions in English (you are doomed).
The gang problem, the meth cookers, the rest of the predators. I see it.
I live in it.
I think we need to bring them into some sort of system. Guest worker, whatever. Get their fingerprints, photo, an address where they get a drivers license (a powerful tool to maintain at least some form of fixed address).
We (conservatives) tend to argue against the free market when it comes to immigration. We tend to argue against things like drivers licenses for illegals.
We are faced with a porous southern border. There is a culture of smuggling there that probably will not be broken in my lifetime.
Mexicans laugh at a fence… and we should listen to them… because they will defeat it. Over it, under it, around it. Been there and done that is the attitude. Mexicans are self reliant, ingenious, and resourceful… particularly when confronting bureaucratic authority.
I’d recommend front loaded enticements to clean illegals. By clean I mean illegals without violent crime or property crime histories… nearly ALL of them have some sort of vehicle related misdemeanor that morphed into failure to appear etc. because they have no license.
So you have to either expel them or induce them to enter the system. Inducement requires enticement… legal status is the only thing that is powerful enough to move people up out of the staus quo and into the system.
The negative approach would be to shut down employment opportunities relentlessly by strict enforcement. Crippling penalties on employers. Tamper proof ID.
I think employer enforcement is a game of whack a mole. Penalties on employers won’t be enforced even handedly because certain economically “vital” industries in certain congressional districts rely exclusively on illegal labor.
Tamper proof ID is a pipe dream. Mexicans will have fakes out within days.
happy,
Not who, what.
Sorry. “Spreading it around” is a colloquialism. For what sluts do. Like Victor.
The question still stands.
Of course a fence won’t work!
And
means more assimilation.
Nope, fences just don’t work. Not a damn bit.
Google it!
guins, It’s just a colloquial way of saying that Victor is lending his name to an at-best questionable, and in-my-estimation tawdry little group. But I am not all that incensed. I just happened to click the AdSense ad from CAPS that was associated with this post and found that Mr. Hanson was all embedded with them. And it’s surprising given the group’s aims in contrast to what I have read of Hanson. Maybe I haven’t read enough of him. I haven’t seen The 300 either.
Stop going all guinPeno-a-penguino on me. My flock and I went through a hard time this year and I’m still healing.
Sorry happy, no offense intended.
Thanks for answering my question.
Paint it Black66
Benefits aside, why put Mexicans ahead of Nigerians, Ghanans, Poles, or anyone else who has to wait in line at the Embassy in Warsaw, Lagos or such? Because they have overwhelmed the enforcement end of our laws? Because they have strong interest groups lobbying for them?
Why is the illegal laborer from Guerrero let go to the front of the line, while the bricklayer from Lodz is told “no”?
Overloaded jails, packed emergency rooms and floundering schools aside, isn’t it just a matter of fairness at some point to even it back out for the grant of that precious thing – our citizenship?
You absolute tossoffs don’t get the point. We are being inundated with illegals because we haven’t sealed the border, becuase it isn’t politically expedient.
We love the cheap stupid labor; let them have their pointless marches every year. Give them amnesty, let the next wave come. You get what you need, and America gets a quiet tumor that expands from its inside.
No problem, sir. I should have adduced that stuff less provocatively.
Your welcome.
expected42
…And yeah, I am referring to any illegal. When the hell will we be smart enough to defend our own immediate interests? And yes, I’m willing to pay more for lettuce. But that’s not what it comes down to, you little capitalist simps? What say you?
Isn’t it tossers?
BTW – I wasn’t afraid to use “illegal” either.
I say you’re.
I love people that want to be here being here. I say welcome. But I defer to the grownups on the actual policies.
I don’t have some utopian fantasy of sealing the border, cynn. All I want is to slow the annual increase in border crossings so that a lot more assimilation occurs. If the massive influx of illegals continues to exceed the capacity of American society to assimilate them, then America will become a lot more like Mexico with rigid class lines and a smaller middle class. I don’t want to see America with a permanent underclass that only speaks spanish.
All the previous periods of mass immigration to America came to an end. So should this one.
damn—I just deleted my entire post. But since I can’t remember what it was…
Was going to say that tossoff sounds vaguely Russian, and that’s a small good thing.
And you, happyfeet, are a tossoff.
I am so not dancing for you like ever.
I have absolutely no idea why….but that charmed me to no end. I am sitting here smiling like a complete idiot. Thanks happyfeet.
thank you – I was kind of giggling too
So, kirf,etal, sorry don’t know your whole name. What do you propose?
Life isn’t fair… possession is 9/10 of the law..
Mexican’s have the geographical advantage.
Bricklayer in Poland vs. one next door.
It isn’t fair, but by virtue of birth in an adjoining country, Mexican’s have an advantage… and the feds make a hash out of building “level” playing fields.
Its tough for me to say this, but as a conservative I do not want to have to ask the feds to verify who I can or cannot hire. It is tough because the feds are the only ones that can do it. I think the only way to stop the flow of illegals is to curb employers. To do that fairly, you’d need to have a federal database of identities. Name, SS#, Alien ID #. Photo all would need to match. The ACLU freak out, and would argue for concessions that at the very least would make employers do this to J.K. Smith applying for his first job at the Sonic in Fargo, ND the same as Hopkins Strawberries in San Diego, CA asking about Javier Espinosa.
What does an employer need to ask for in the interim?
Birth Certificate? (easily forged) SS Card (easily forged) National ID card that everyone who wants a job would need to show?
I’m at ground zero. I’m a white guy in a business where everyone is hispanic, and few enough of them are legal.
Agriculture is worse.
Until you’ve seen fake green cards, fake SS cards and tried to deal with federal anti discrimination laws you will never know how much we need a National ID…. an idea I despise on principle.
Incentivize the illegals that are here to get in the system.
Seal the border as well as possible.
Create a National ID for employment verification (it’ll have to be for everyone or it’ll never hold up in court)
Evenhanded enforcement of national employment law with overwhelming penalties for intentional cheaters.
Structured approach to appeals for cheap labor from groups like Agribusiness etc via guest worker program.
My guess? It’ll never work. Free market economies demand entry level labor as cheap and agnostic to ideology. Then the free market labor economy becomes an agnostic meritocracy.
Conservatives get hoisted on their own free market, no federal government interference in our daily lives petard….
I agree with with your assessments, Steve g. Thanks for your efforts, steveG, but I have been head-butted incessntly by the loyalists: the wind is knocked gone. Best of luck!
No SteveG
All you would need is a specific SSN# plus a biometric (retinal scan or digital thumb print). That’s it.
Identity theft is a real serious problem, not the least of which is because as hard it is to get one’s credit record cleaned up, if the thief that stole your id commits crimes under your name/SSN#, it may stay in the system for years as his “aka”
I look at rap sheets every day. We process significant numbers of illegals and their raps may have several aka’s, several SSN#’s and several CA driver’s license #’s.
Illegals are strangling the publics schools and the ER’s.
and very few people seem to have the cajones to go after employers.
Dry up the jobs and illegals will have to self-deport
and add a huge crackdown on the Mexican mafia and their associated gangs (like OVS/Black Angels in my area)
Do the Mexican and El Salvadoran gangs et cetera serve to check the growth of our native gangs? Meaning mostly in terms of the organized crime activity… That’s not meant to sound absurd… but it’s a difficult thing to just google.
Controlling immigration is not anti-free market. I also can’t seem to find anything in the US Constitution or law about not having border enforcement or that free markets demand the toleration of law breaking for the convenience of allegedly cheaper produce.
I also don’t remember that part in learning about free markets that allows for artificially propping up businesses that would otherwise fail if they couldn’t rely on underpaying illegals.
In short, I don’t remember that part about free markets equalling anarchy.
If you restrict the import of sugar to prop up the price domestically, that is restricting free trade. The same applies to unskilled labor. It is wages you are artificially propping up if you restrict the labor pool, that is how unions work. If you over-restrict a commodity, a black market develops, that is the situation we are in now.
BMoe
However, sugar doesn’t use the ER “free”, sugar doesn’t have several kids in the public schools “free”
And not all that illegal labor is “unskilled”. Check out the construction industry.
Wages are not artificially propped up as much as they are artificially depressed when whole swathes of jobs are being done by people who are paid cash off the books.
Illegal labor hasn’t been over-restricted, indeed, IMHO the reason it has become harder to erradicate is because many companies figure they are chumps if they DO try and remain legal.
Illegal aliens are a huge net loss to the communities where they live. They do not put into the community infrastructure what they take out.
Remittances are propping up a corrupt Mexican government.
Unless you’re willing to concede the American southwest to Reconquista, this huge and complex problem needs to be addressed now.
As I have said before, I think your last point is a huge part of the debate that gets overlooked. I haven’t visited the southwest in far too long, and have no first hand experience of what is going on, but I trust your account. In the southeast, however, the Mexican influx, I truly have no idea how many are legal or illegal, is very much a positive influence. The boom around Atlanta couldn’t maintain at its current rate without immigrant labor, and alot of abandonded, run-down strip malls, etc. are being reopened and revitalized as Spanish business. I can only speak from my own experience, and for my purely selfish reasons I hope any measures taken against illegal immigration don’t destroy the economy from which I am greatly benefiting right now.
Just sayin’.
“Wages are not artificially propped up as much as they are artificially depressed when whole swathes of jobs are being done by people who are paid cash off the books. “
Right. Because borders, laws that enforce them, and laws that tell businesses what to pay people are what is natural. And walking across a border and striking a deal to work is what is artificial.
“Remittances are propping up a corrupt Mexican government. “
Also right. Because whenever people are poorer than in mexico, they overthrow their governments and then those governments become clean and the people start making money.
“Unless you’re willing to concede the American southwest to Reconquista, this huge and complex problem needs to be addressed now.”
This is why some think its not just a “rule of law” problem. People would still be quite mad at those people if it was all done legally. This is not about racism, as our host pointed out in his post.
People are not commodities.
I also do not see any contradiction in immigration restrictions or controls if you prefer, and supporting a free market. I consider the “free market” excuse a canard.
Controlling the borders is not advocated in order to restrict the labor pool;(if that were the case, you would see the Unions supporting the political parties and politicians that advocate strict border control. THAT sure ain’t happening)it’s done to ensure assimilation and that we don’t import criminality and other assorted riff-raff. Also, it is a public health issue. The SW is experiencing a rise in TB and Hepatitis cases due to unscreened illegals literally infesting communities and spreading these diseases.
In nowadays terms, it also is a severe security issue.
Again: being in support of free markets does not equate to allowing anarchy or lawlessness or endangering the health of others. Which is what seems to be advocated by some of the free market purists here.
So we should just scrap the minimum wage, the unions and Department of Labor and all of the employment laws? You might be onto something there.
When was the last time a Mexican government was either clean or overthrown?
What people are those?
Just wait for it cause there’s always another “artificially propping up businesses” bus coming along.
Oublienne, you’re funny. Will you dance for us on Friday?