Immigration

I'd been skirting this issue a bit. Not because I was afraid to talk about it but just because I wanted to be as educated about it as possible before putting my foot in the pool. It's not a black and white issue and proponents of both sides are finding odd bedfellows. One of my friends forwarded me his letter that he sent to the RNC concerning Bush's stance. I thought a critique of it would be a good starting point for a discussion. My friend is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who prays at the altar of Rush and Krauthammer and Hannity. He's fun to have arguments with because he is fairly well-educated(albeit, misinformed) on his stance. And he doesn't take criticism personally. First of all, here's his letter in it's original context:

Mr. Mehlman,

I'm sorry I cannot sign the petition. While I do agree that our immigration system is broken, I cannot support the President on his agenda. I feel that any immigration reform must start with security first. The President wants a comprehensive plan that deals with all aspects of immigration. This will fail, just like it did under Reagan's amnesty program. Under Reagan's program, there was supposed to be tighter security and employer penalties for hiring illegal workers. None of that happened. All we got was 3 million law breakers made into citizens.

The President wants to give amnesty to those that are here illegally without shutting down the border first. I strongly disagree with this policy. Yes, it's amnesty, no matter what type of spin the President wants to put on it. Allowing those that broke our laws, that demonstrated in our city streets DEMANDING legalization, is a slap in the face to every legal U.S. resident and the millions around the world that are trying to come here through legal channels. Without shutting down the border, we'll be looking at another 30 million or more in the next 20 years. No, I do not believe the 11 to 12 million figure. The President stated that the U.S. has detained and deported 6 million illegal crossers under his watch. Since the U.S. Border Control admits that they catch less than half of those coming in, do the math. If they did catch half, that means 6 million have gotten through at a minimum. That's 6 million in 5 years and this has been going on for 20 years. This doesn't even take into account the children born here to illegal aliens (we need to change that part of the Constitution as well and get rid of the anchor baby status).

There are laws on the books now that deal with employers that hire illegal workers. Here's an idea, enforce them. We do not need another law for this, just enforce what we have now. This would be easy to do if the President and members of Congress weren't afraid of losing big business political donations.

The President spoke of the catch and release policy. Why is it they we immediately send back all OTM (other than Mexicans)? Why release all or most of the Mexican law breakers? They will never show up in court. All of this talk of these illegal aliens "living in the shadows" is a joke. Maybe the President didn't see the millions of illegal aliens protesting over the last few months. They didn't seem to be hiding in the shadows as they demanded their rights. They have no fear of being sent home because the local police cannot detain them unless they are committing a crime.

Yes the system is broke and a big part of it is the President's unwillingness to shut down the border. Does he actually think sending 6000 National Guard troops down to the southern border in a SUPPORT role will make us forget that he has ignored this issue for over 5 years? Why is the President so afraid of Mexico's President Fox? He went out of his way to emphasize that the United States is not militarizing the border. We aren't we? We have a huge problem here. Fox's government is threatening lawsuits if the National Guard directly detains any Mexican entering our country illegally. Am I missing something here? Mexico can militarize their border but we're racists if we do the same? For all the President's talk on security and life after 9/11, it's inexcusable and appalling that he has done nothing to secure our borders. If he really wanted to, the southern border could effectively be shut down within a week. He is selling out this country to Mexico.

I've been a strong support of the President on most issues, but on this one, he is dead wrong. The people of the country demand a secure border. We demand that our laws are followed. We do not want people who broke our laws rewarded with citizenship. It does not matter if they've been here for 15 years, that only means that they've broken our laws for the last 15 years. These people got here illegally, they can certainly return to their country legally and apply for either a guest worker program or one of the other 30 something work visas we already have.

The McCain-Kennedy-Bush amnesty bill would be a devastating blow to this country. While I do agree that we need some type of guest worker program, anything that gets passed in Congress that does not effectively shut down the border to stop the millions of illegal crossing is doomed to failure. I simply do not understand the Republican's short sightedness on this issue. Thankfully we have people like Rep. Tancredo, Rep King, Sen. Cornyn and Sen. Kyl fighting for the will of the American people. I just wish one of them would run for President. The Republican's that support this amnesty will be very sorry come election time. The conservatives will not vote for them ever again under any circumstance. MCain has no chance of being President now. If it's McCain vs. Hillary, most conservatives will stay home and Hillary will win. I hope the GOP is ready for that. Bill Frist has turned his back on the conservatives as well. I'm waiting to see how Mr. Allen votes. He could be the last one standing.

It's a sad day when the demands of illegal immigrants are more important to our elected officials than our laws, our sovereignty and the will of the American citizen.

Now, I'll begin with what I agree with:

"I feel that any immigration reform must start with security first." - Without beefed-up security, any changes in policy could affect the influx of illegal immigrants. The administration needs to go beyond talking about beefing up security to actually funding it. Congress authorized hiring of 2000 new agents yet Bush has supported hiring only 210. Additionally, the responsibility needs to be a federal one. The governor of Georgia recently signed into law a measure that would have local law enforcement detaining people on federal immigration law violations. This is the wrong way to handle it and a dangerous precedent. Local law enforcement is already tasked with maintaining the peace. Having this added burden would hamper their ability to maintain useful relationships with immigrant populations and would be opening law enforcement up to charges of racial profiling and civil rights violations. Governor Napolitano of Arizona saw the folly of a similar measure and vetoed it.

"There are laws on the books now that deal with employers that hire illegal workers. Here's an idea, enforce them." - a very valid point. The biggest obstacle to these laws being enforced is that a large percentage of businesses that support Bush and Republicans don't want it enforced. They make their profits on the backs of underpaid illegal immigrants.

And what I disagree with:

"... we need to change that part of the Constitution as well and get rid of the anchor baby status." - The 14th Amendment states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.". From Wikipedia, "According to Congressional records of the original debate on the Amendment, the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was specifically inserted to make it clear that a person is not a citizen simply by the location of their birth. The intent being that children born to foreign citizens would fall under the jurisdiction of their parent's respective governments, unless their parents are entirely under the jurisdiction of the United States." If I am understanding the amendment, it is written correctly. It is just not being enforced. So the amendment would not need to be changed. I believe this amendment was originally created to grant citizenships to children of slaves. But I may be wrong.

"They have no fear of being sent home because the local police cannot detain them unless they are committing a crime." -- There is a funny little thing called "due-process". Are you sure that you want to open up the can of worms that allows police to apprehend people without knowing they've committed a crime? That is where neo-cons and the Patriot Act are leading us.

"Thankfully we have people like Rep. Tancredo, Rep King, Sen. Cornyn and Sen. Kyl fighting for the will of the American people. I just wish one of them would run for President." -- He-he. That statement is just scary. Here are some of the highlight statements by these Neanderthals:

Tancredo:
"We will never be able to win in the clash of civilizations, if we don't know who we are. If Western civilization succumbs to the siren song of multiculturalism, I believe we're finished."

"Well, what if you said something like "if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

Peter King:
" The world is safer today because of George Bush, 'cause of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya.'"

John Cornyn:
" It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right. Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife."

John Kyl:
Too many to mention. He blindly parroted the neo-con line and pushed lies to get support for the war. Here are just a few: Wrong as Wrong Can Be

"It's a sad day when the demands of illegal immigrants are more important to our elected officials than our laws, our sovereignty and the will of the American citizen." - It's a sad day when neo-cons think they know what the will of the American people is. And could he be any more melodramatic? Sovereignty only seems to come up when they're talking about immigration. They seem to conveniently forget about it when pushing democracy on other sovereign states.

All in all, he puts his points forward decently within the framework of what he believes. He has some valid points. He has some misguided ones. Tying it all up in a nice bow and calling it immigration reform just seems to be "polishing a turd". It's still xenophobia or outright racism. They oppose amnesty because it rewards those who "break the law". Breaking the law to get a below minimum wage job is wrong ... breaking the law to steal millions from retired people (Enron) or Native Americans(Reed, Abramoff, DeLay) is OK. Illegal wiretapping is OK too in their book. There is no consistency in conservative beliefs.

My conservative friends seem to be fairly constant fodder for my posts. And for that, I apologize to them. But I'd rather talk about stuff that is personally relevant to me and that I hear about on a daily basis. I'm not trying to hide any of my opinions. I'm not afraid to defend or admit I'm wrong on any point that I've tried to make in person or in writing on my blog. If my opinions are fodder for my conservative friends' blogs (if they have them), more power to 'em.

And I don't want to make these discussions into a personal issue. It's not. I still like my friends, but I have a profound philosophical difference with them on some things.

Maybe I'd trust my friend's intentions more if not for his history. He fired off this missive in an e-mail a few years ago: "There are plenty of things wrong with our justice system. How about 25% of the prison population in AZ being ILLEGAL immigrants. They'll just let them go after their sentence is up to go out and commit more crimes or suck more tax dollars from everyone that is here legally. Hey, here's a thought...send them back to fucking Mexico. Put them all on a plane (or as many planes as it takes) and fly them to the most southern airport available in Mexico. Drop them off at the airport and say "Adios"." I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say his opinions have matured. But a part of me thinks that the neo-conservative movement just uses fancy terms like "immigration reform", "No Child Left Behind", and "school vouchers" to hide their racism.

I do find it amusing that true hard-core conservatives are having problems with Bush, Frist, McCain, etc. They usually aren't this cannibalistic. Hopefully it will translate into big changes in November.