What should be done about illegal immigration?

Interesting ideas popping out of Foxfyres head, she has made a litany of "majority rules" statements but now offers "sustantial majority" as prefered. Actually I have consistently rejected the "majority rules" attitude as being all too often "mob rule" but that's really beside the point.

Besides that, some persons with more knowledge about law than most of us here have will tell people about the difficulties to create a law which is a mixture of ius soli and ius sanguinis (dual citizenship is only one).

You may be right, but look at the poll results on this thread. As A2K memberhsip seems to be much more Left than Right overall, at least among those posting on the political threads, the polling results would suggest that this isn't so much a partisan issue as some.

That big wall on our southern boarder is in direct response to the public demand that Congree do something. I suspect it will be seen as way too little and too late by most though.

If Immigration Reform continues to be an issue with the American people and Congress gets off the dime and actually does something about it, a Consitutional Amendment making that relatively minor change in citizenship requirements could very well be a part of it, and would likely be well received across the board. I think Congress really is responsive to loud demands of the public and the Immigration issue is one that has been loud and will likely continue to be so from time to time.

Actually - but that may have changed since I studied law - ius soli and ius sanguinis were the "sources" of any citizenship, anywhere. But that really might have changed within the last years.

If it is so easy and only a minor change, I would be glad, other constitutional jurists would than look at how it's done in the USA - especially those here in Germany, but in some other countries as well.

The issue is compassion.

I don't object to a wall on the Southern border.

What I object to is deporting, or condemning to a life as an underclass, people who are working and raising families here now.

The problem with Conservative views on immigration is that they are cruel. They want to keep kids out of school. They want to deny medical care to indigent workers. They want to strip citizenship from babies.

A path to citizenship is a necessary part of any decent immigration policy. A majority of Americans say they will support that as part of a compromise bill.

The wall and whether we should treat people with compassion are two completely separate issues. You can build a wall without breaking families or keeping people from getting an apartment.

Treat people with families and roots and communities here with compassion, and you can build whatever wall you want.

How is that not a contradiction?

You either care about Mexicans or you don't. If you don't, why not deport them back to the desperately poor places they came from? If you do care about them, why keep them in those places by force?

Nah...there's a difference there, thomas. Leaving someone in unchanged life circumstances, even where those circumstances are not happy, is surely less "cruel" than relocating them after they've established whatever level of domestic settlement here.

I'm not at all sure what I'd do on this question of immigration, greatly because I don't know enough about the various pros and cons. There's a racist element certainly, which simply needs to be understood, isolated, and then disregarded. But the economics might justify some stricter policies...I just don't know.

But it is kind of fun issue to watch as a political question. All Bush can do, because he is torn between two essential and conflicting groups of base voters, is not much of anything.

Well, he can always hold a press conference and give the camera a determined look.

LOL

Yesterday, with Karzai, and on the subject of the leaked NIE bombshell, he had that painfully revealing victimized-narcist-child-monkey smirk again. I found that I had no sympathy.

This series of Newsweek covers as published in four different geographical areas has absolutely no relevance to this thread at all. I've pasted it where it has, but I don't want anyone to miss seeing it and understanding its importance...

Holy ****.

Right.

Ignoring posts by the trolls and pertinent to the topic is the following:

September 28, 2006
Time to Close and Defend Our Borders
By Michael Smerconish

Pat Buchanan is finally hip after all these years.

The man who is legendary for advising Richard Nixon, appearing on "Crossfire" and running for president, told me that never before has he evoked the level of interest in a matter of public policy.

I spent some time with him earlier this week after reading his new book, "State of Emergency," in which he pulls no punches in spelling out how the United States is being "invaded." So worried is Buchanan that he says children born in 2006 will experience the "death of the West." It's not just hyperbole, he's got lots of data to back up his concerns:

* There are at least as many illegal aliens now in the United States as all English, Irish, and Jewish immigrants who came to America in 400 years.

* Every month, the border patrol apprehends about 150,000 illegal aliens, more than the number of troops in Iraq.

* One in every 12 people breaking into the United States illegally has a criminal record.

* By 2050, the U.S. population of European descent will be a minority, as it is today in California, Texas, and New Mexico.

Buchanan argues that these trends make America more vulnerable than any threat we face from al Qaeda.

It's not just the magnitude of the invasion, it's the composition. Like the Cuban Mariel boatlift, Buchanan makes the case that we've become a dumping ground for the Third World.

Those coming here are disproportionately poor, uneducated and criminal. And the fact that they are emigrating from countries that have themselves never been fully assimilated into the First World, is what separates this group from our forefathers.

They are breaking in, not playing by the rules. Most important, many have no desire to be American. So why does it continue?

The status quo is enabled by multinational corporations anxious to topple sovereign borders, a Hispanic media that depends for its survival on the perpetuation of bilingualism and gutless politicians.

Political correctness is a major factor. Witness how many seek to dismiss Buchanan's analysis as the work of a white guy uncomfortable with the realization that his kind is losing its dominance and control. Or they try to label him a racist or xenophobe.

That kind of talk limits the debate. But Buchanan has heard it before. The elitists who try to cast him as a relic clinging to cultural oppression are no match for his arguments.

He's on a mission to foster a debate he knows he can win on the merits.

That'll happen if Republicans get some guts and stop deluding themselves into thinking they'll get Hispanic votes sooner or later. Democrats, after all, are a winner on this issue. They're already getting this bloc, and soon the political dynamics will be such that no candidate for president will be willing to go to California, Arizona or New Mexico and speak the truth about immigration, much in the same way that no one will go to Florida and question the Cuban embargo.

Thinking about all this, I'm reminded of a personal story. In 1926, Victoria Grovich came to Ellis Island with an infant in her arms to reconnect with her husband, who left her in Yugoslavia a year before so he could go to work in the Pennsylvania coal mines and establish a new home.

Today, she is my 100-year-old grandmother. One of her daughters met the son of Ilko Smirikowitz, who had come here from Austria-Poland in 1891. That union produced a talk-show host and columnist who in 2006 has had his eyes opened by Patrick J. Buchanan to the fact that the American dream has become a national nightmare.

"State of Emergency," indeed. It's time to close and defend our borders.
SOURCE

Keep up the good work Blatham.

Even if this gets as well nice remarks by McG, I'd started an own thread about that some hours ago ... here.

I'm sure all the "I hate America" or the "Bush sucks" crowd will enjoy it immensely Walter. It compliments all the other threads along that vein so well too.

But thank you for taking it to its own spot, and maybe we can keep the focus on illegal immigration and immigration reform in this thread.

I just want to say that its a shame that the decision to build a wall is not combined with a proper inmigration reform. It smells like "electoral period" to me. And to quote "El Universal", "no wall in history of mankind has been succesfull; on the contrary, all fall sooner or later".

Hi el_pohl. Where've you been? Missed ya.

And thank you. I think you identified what has been bothering me about the wall. It is purely window dressing to appease the public while our elected legislators lack the will and/or energy to tackle the really tough work of hammering out a comprehensive immigration policy.

I also hate to 'wall off" our good neighbors and friends to the south. I hate that they (and we) are punished by those who commit illegal acts.

Foxfyre, This is a debate about compassion.

Why you would post an article that says ethnicity is a major problem in immigration is difficult to understand. The irony is that if I respond to this article that warns that "the population of European descent" will be a minority... this is a clear play to an ethnic threat... you will accuse me of playing the race card.

But I must respond, and when you accuse me of playing the race card, I will simply point out that to me, this is a question of compassion and that race shouldn't matter.

The claim is that there are more illegal immigrants in the US right now, then the total amount of English and Irish immigrants over 400 year of history. The irony of using "English and Irish" immigrants together as some sort of "more American" immigrants is probably beyond you (the Irish immigrants were once despised more than Bucchanan despeses Mexicans).

But the current estimates range around 12 million people here illegally. Incidentally a
number of these illegals are Irish so I guess we would have to count these in both sides?

I did a bit of Googling... and found that there have been 28,000,000 legal immigrants into the US since 1965. I would guess a fair number of these would be from England an Ireland. 1965 is significant because this was the year we abolished racial quotas.

Since 1965 there has also been a steady stream of illegal immigration from Ireland. There are several prominant Irish groups that are very involved in the immigrant rights movement.

Before 1965, the immigration policies distinctly favored Northern Europeans (particularly protestants). During this time thousands of English immigrants came legally each year (and doubtlessly some illegal).

During the late 1800s, there was a large wave of Irish immigration. The articles I found claimed that in the 1820s and 1840s a third of Immigrants were Irish, and that by 1840 nearly half were Irish.

There were anti-immigrant groups against Irish immigrants making the same claims that anti-immigrant groups make now.

The KKK has often gained support because of anti-immigrant position. For a while Irish Catholics were their prime target. The KKK is now focused on Mexican immigrants and not surprisingly the rhetoric hasnit changed that much.

It would be surprising to me from legal immigration policies that favored English immigrants above others, waves of Irish immigration, millions of legal immgiration and a large number of illegal immigrants from Europe if there haven't been more than 12 million immigrants from England and Ireland since 1800.

The artical says 400 years.... and there was a large number of immigrants from England in this time from the Puritans to the Quakers to my ancestors.

I simply don't buy this alarmist statistic.

But what puzzles me even more is why this statistic even matters. Americans are equal. Among Americans the background... Irish or English or Chinese or African... who cares?

All of them were descended from immigrants some who came legally, some who came illegally all of who came-- many of who built lives here while facing hardships. All of them are now Americans equally. Each of these groups has a unique part in American history.

But ethnicity shouldn't be a part of this debate.

The real issue here is compassion.

Actually, as I've said a couple of times, having lived in a country divided by a fence (and a wall in one city) has coined my deep opposition against fences.

Something, only people affected directly and literally to the 'iron fence' are able to relate to. (A fence is a fence from both sides, you know = two countries are behind it.)

You must have missed my post to el_pohl.

The Berlin wall however separated people in their own country sometimes separating even members of the same family. It would have been cruel in any case but in that case was especially cruel.

I think most people emotionally reject a wall.

In defense of the wall presumably going up on the USA/Mexican border, however, the purpose is to prevent people from breaking the law much in the same way as you may lock up and secure your house or automobile to prevent unlawful entry. It isn't the same thing as the Berlin wall.

(Acknowledging that ebrown is still posting screed after screed to scrap the law in favor of his definition of compassion. I see no need to respond as that has been well covered.)