My Take On Illegal Immigration

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea

Say it w/ me ... President Bush's administration has UNEMPLOYMENT LEVELS AT AN ALL TIME LOW!!!

Yes everyone, say it with Danny...

Doesn't change a thing I said, but let's all play along with Danny boy and his little "repeat after me" song

[SDG]

IR: That kind of conflict permeates our history, doesn't it?

SWARTZ: America's history is in part a story of ethnic succession. At times, we've had major ethnic violence surrounding this dynamic of ethnic succession.
Benjamin Franklin was afraid Germans were going to come in and take over Pennsylvania and overwhelm the English language.
We had the Know-Nothing Party that came up in response to the beginnings of Irish and Catholic migrations in the early and middle 19th century.

There were similar responses to Jewish and Italian immigrants in the late 19th century.

The KKK of the 1920s was rooted in anti-Catholicism.
Today, Tanton works to create similar kinds of conflict amongst ethnic groups.

IR: During the 2000 Michigan senatorial race, FAIR ran ads that essentially suggested that Spencer Abraham [R-Mich.] was allowing terrorists into the country by backing higher numbers of visas for immigrants with high-tech skills. The ads also implied, but didn't say directly, that that was because Abraham was an Arab American.

Did the brouhaha over those ads hurt FAIR? Didn't Alan Simpson, one of FAIR's biggest supporters in the Senate, resign their board as a result?

SWARTZ: He did! Simpson condemned the ads. I think the attacks on Abraham really hurt FAIR among certain Republicans. Something like 20 to 25 Senate Republicans put their names on a letter denouncing FAIR for the Abraham attacks.
Some of these senators today probably have no idea that so-called "respectable" organizations, like the Center for Immigration Studies, are linked to FAIR.

But to go back to the theme of infiltration, if you look at the record of witnesses before the House and Senate immigration subcommittees, you will see that FAIR or some other FAIR-connected group is a witness at the vast majority of the hearings.

Thank you, Lamar Smith and Alan Simpson! Those kinds of relationships are legitimizing.

FAIR can say, "How can you say we're an extremist group when we're being invited to testify to Congress all the time?" It creates great camouflage.

IR: We've noticed some connections between the Tanton network and European anti-immigrant parties.
For instance, Glenn Spencer, leader of the hate group Voice of Citizens Together and a Tanton grant recipient, recently shared the podium with Nick Griffin, leader of the neofascist British National Party. Both men spoke at an event put on by another racist outfit, American Renaissance magazine.

SWARTZ: There is a transatlantic character to the ideological underpinnings of the Tanton movement. I believe that there has been for years substantial financial and political and personnel interaction between the Tanton movement here and the anti-immigration movements in Europe.

I remember in the '80s, when I was always debating Conner in a variety of public forums, that he made a lot of references to France, how he had just come back from France and so on.
In fact, I believe that FAIR and Tanton have an agenda of seeking a Front National [a virulently anti-immigrant French party] type of political party in the United States, in significant part through their strong involvement in the Reform Party.

Their takeover attempt was personified by the former governor of Colorado, Dick Lamm, who is a FAIR adviser and director and who tried to run for president in 1996 on the Reform Party ticket.

In 2000, Pat Buchanan, whose views are quite similar to those of FAIR, also tried to take over the Reform Party. [Editor's note: Glenn Spencer was scheduled to speak to the Iowa Reform Party this April.] So while I can't name names, I would guess a significant number of Reform activists are connected to the Tanton network.

But then again, both Lamm and Buchanan failed pathetically. This gives hope that their ideology is seen as bankrupt by most Americans.

IR: Since California's Proposition 187 was thrown out by the courts in 1998, a number of anti-immigration groups like the Voice of Citizens Together/American Patrol and the California Coalition for Immigration Reform [CCIR] seem to have gotten significantly harder-line, and also far more conspiracy-oriented.
At the same time, Tanton creations like Center for Immigration Studies very assiduously court mainstream respectability. Are these contradictory strategies?

SWARTZ: My guess is that every move is strategic and deliberate. The anti-immigration movement is both radicalizing on the fringes of the Tanton network and at the same time mainstreaming at the core of the network.

In some ways, FAIR is more moderate than it once was. NumbersUSA is also more sedate.

Simultaneously, the harder edge is carried by people like [CCIR leader] Barbara Coe. She acts on the extremes, while FAIR appears more "sophisticated."

My point is that Tanton is a brilliant tactician. He has created a system where he can have his cake and eat it, too. He has a political movement on the extremist, racial fringe that is stirring up popular discontent and hatred with its harsh rhetoric.

There is a lot of fertile ground out there, and the fringe is increasingly significant in areas like what is going on in Iowa right now.

At the same time, other Tanton groups are getting invited to testify before Congress on a regular basis.

IR: So what is your prognosis for the future?

SWARTZ: The challenge is to ensure that our political culture is not poisoned by Tanton and his crowd, and that leaders and citizens alike repudiate racial and ethnic fearmongering.
Know-Nothing ideologies — and multimillion-dollar media buys — cannot be allowed to spawn racial and ethnic violence against immigrants.

In Europe over the last 20 years, Tanton-like leaders have resurrected far-right and sometimes violent movements — and political parties — rooted in the fear of the stranger.

The Tanton vision laid out in the 1986 memos is of an apartheid United States beset by racial violence, and whites not going quietly into the night as their numbers are overwhelmed by the demographics of immigration.

It would be very unwise to underestimate the danger in the Camp of the Saints ideology that Tanton embodies and in the work that they have doing for 25 years to turn immigrant against native, black against brown, and so on.

But in the end, I am confident that the vast majority of Americans will, as they have in the past, reject the fearmonger and, through the toil of people from all over the world, build the freest and most prosperous nation yet known. America is hugely resilient and immigration is one of our priceless resources, especially in the coming global age. I take nothing for granted when it comes to threats to America's future, but I am totally confident about the goodwill and common sense of America's people.

[Praxeas]

I have yet to see anyone here make claims or statements that support anti-immigration. In fact it seems everyone is pro-immigration but anti-illegal immigration.

[SDG]

Facts on Immigration

As Senate Immigration Debate Proceeds, Public Support Solid for Comprehensive Immigration Reform


May 25, 2007

The New York Times today published the results of the latest in a series of polls that have tested public preferences on immigration as Congress grapples with immigration reform. Consistent with many public opinion surveys conducted in the last year, approximately two-thirds of those questioned favor giving undocumented immigrants "a chance to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status."

With the Senate debate underway, this survey tested the public's reaction to the most significant elements of the legislation being considered in the Senate and, as the article notes,

Point by point, large majorities expressed support for measures in the legislation that has been under debate since Monday in the Senate. - New York Times "Immigration Bill Provisions Gain Wide Support in Poll," May 25, 2007.

Specifically,

• Two-thirds (67%) of those polled said undocumented immigrants who had a good employment history and no criminal record should gain legal status by paying at least $5,000 in fines and fees and receiving a renewable four-year visa.
• Nearly six in ten (59%) said illegal immigrants should be considered for citizenship, but only after legal immigrants who have played by the rules.
• Two-thirds (66%) of Americans in the survey favored creating a guest-worker program for future immigrants. (Of those, more than half said that workers should be allowed to live in the U.S. permanently.)
• Three-quarters (75%) of respondents favored tougher penalties on employers who hire undocumented immigrants, and 82 percent favor more border enforcement (but only 15 percent favor fences as the main method for border control).
• A slight majority (51%) favors overhauling the immigration system to give more priority to job skills and educational accomplishments while a minority (34%) feel that immigrants with family ties in the U.S. should be given precedence.

The article points to one question in the poll that might give some insight as to why the public debate, and the debate in Congress, has been so acrimonious.

A plurality of 48 percent favored imposing some controls on immigration. But large minorities on either side disagreed, with a quarter of respondents saying the United States should open its borders to all immigrants, and a quarter saying that the borders should be completely closed. These polarized positions may help explain the acrimony of the immigration debate across the nation. - New York Times, "Immigration Bill Provisions Gain Wide Support in Poll," May 25, 2007.

[SDG]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

I have yet to see anyone here make claims or statements that support anti-immigration. In fact it seems everyone is pro-immigration but anti-illegal immigration.

Everyone??? ... sounds like hyperbolic Spockisms to me.

Enforcement alone simply is not the answer:


Between 1986 and 2002, the number of Border officers tripled and the number of hours they spent patrolling the border grew by a factor of around eight.

However, the probability of apprehension along the border fell from about 33% during the 1970s, to about 20% in 1993-1994, to an all-time low of 5% in 2002. The proportion of migrants to the US crossing at "non-traditional" sectors along the border rose from 29% in 1988 to 64% in 2002.

What does this tell us? Even though the US has beefed up border patrol, the migrants are coming in through other areas that are more physically dangerous but much easier of probability of success to make it into the US than where they used to enter more frequently.

The cost of making one arrest along the border increased from $300 in 1992 to $1700 in 2002, an increase of 467% in just a decade.

For those that insist that these migrants return back to their country, this statistic demonstrates that the trend has changed:

The average probability of return migration among Mexican migrants to the US declined from 45% prior to 1986 to around 25% in 2002

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea

Everyone ... sounds like hyperbolic Spockisms to me.

Sounds like the shrill hysterics of a mad wo...er.....man to me

[berkeley]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Sounds like the shrill hysterics of a mad wo...er.....man to me

Immigration now is among the top issues of concern to the American public. However, contrary to the claims of many politicians and commentators, the public does not favor a continuation of the current “enforcement only” strategy. As it turns out, the public is far more pragmatic and interested in real solutions than immigration restrictionists would like us to believe. In fact, a wide range of public opinion polls over the last year indicates that significant majorities of Americans across the political, ethnic, and geographic spectra support comprehensive reform that provides a workable, long-term solution to our nation’s broken immigration system. To be sure, those polls show that: yes, Americans want border control; yes, Americans want to halt undocumented immigration; and no, Americans do not support amnesty. But they also show that Americans don’t believe that we can or should deport 12 million undocumented workers and that Americans (a) support providing a path to citizenship for undocumented workers who pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, and get to the back of the line, and (b) don’t believe that such a program constitutes amnesty.


Perhaps more instructive than opinion polling, however, were the November election results which highlighted how poorly the anti-immigration campaign rhetoric of many restrictionist candidates resonated with voters. The electoral defeats of J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf in Arizona and Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania should provide a stark lesson for other politicians who might attempt to use anti-immigrant rhetoric to win votes. The aggressive restrictionist stance of these candidates held little appeal for moderate voters and drove away Latino voters, whose growing numbers and increased mobilization make them a key demographic for elections in 2008 and beyond.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Fahrenheit

Immigration now is among the top issues of concern to the American public. However, contrary to the claims of many politicians and commentators, the public does not favor a continuation of the current “enforcement only” strategy. As it turns out, the public is far more pragmatic and interested in real solutions than immigration restrictionists would like us to believe. In fact, a wide range of public opinion polls over the last year indicates that significant majorities of Americans across the political, ethnic, and geographic spectra support comprehensive reform that provides a workable, long-term solution to our nation’s broken immigration system. To be sure, those polls show that: yes, Americans want border control; yes, Americans want to halt undocumented immigration; and no, Americans do not support amnesty. But they also show that Americans don’t believe that we can or should deport 12 million undocumented workers and that Americans (a) support providing a path to citizenship for undocumented workers who pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, and get to the back of the line, and (b) don’t believe that such a program constitutes amnesty.


Perhaps more instructive than opinion polling, however, were the November election results which highlighted how poorly the anti-immigration campaign rhetoric of many restrictionist candidates resonated with voters. The electoral defeats of J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf in Arizona and Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania should provide a stark lesson for other politicians who might attempt to use anti-immigrant rhetoric to win votes. The aggressive restrictionist stance of these candidates held little appeal for moderate voters and drove away Latino voters, whose growing numbers and increased mobilization make them a key demographic for elections in 2008 and beyond.

Fahrenheit, please quote the sources when you are quoting someone else. Plagiarism is not a good thing