What should be done about illegal immigration?

Quote:

ANALYSIS
N.M. Voters Friendlier to Migrants, Poll Says
63% Support Right ToWork in U.S.

BY BARRY MASSEY
The Associated Press

SANTA FE ?- New Mexico voters were more immigrant friendly than the electorate nationwide and in neighboring states along the U.S.-Mexico border.

About 63 percent of New Mexicans who voted in the general election supported giving illegal immigrants working in the United States a chance at becoming legal residents, according to an Associated Press exit poll.

That's higher than the 57 percent of voters nationwide who expressed a similar view when surveyed in the exit poll. It's also a stronger majority than in neighboring Texas, where 59 percent of voters said they supported some opportunity for legal status, or in Arizona, where 55 percent held that view.

Among border state voters, only those in California appeared to be slightly more immigrant friendly than the New Mexico electorate. Sixty-five percent of California's voters favored a chance for legal residency for illegal immigrants and 27 percent said illegal immigrants should be deported.

In New Mexico, 31 percent of voters supported deportation ?- well below the 38 percent of the national electorate who favored that policy.

In the U.S. Senate race, Republican challenger Allen McCulloch criticized Democrat Jeff Bingaman's stance on border security and immigration issues. But the incumbent was overwhelmingly re-elected.

Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, won another term in a landslide and he has supported allowing illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.

Even among those New Mexico voters who favored deporting illegal immigrants, almost half backed Bingaman over McCulloch. And half the deportation supporters favored Richardson over his GOP challenger, according to the exit poll, which was conducted for the AP and television networks by Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International voters. About 13,400 voters were surveyed nationwide and Mexico.

Eric Lee, a 37-year-old military veteran from Albuquerque, said the Iraq war, President Bush and immigration were the issues that influenced his vote on Election Day.

"I don't really like what I've seen from the Republican Congress. They're chasing those people away, and it's wrong," Lee said of illegal immigrants. "They deserve a chance at a better life."

Albuquerque pollster Brian Sanderoff, who wasn't involved with the exit poll, said the views of New Mexico voters reflect the state's demographics and its history, with centuries-old Spanish influences.

Hispanics represent about 39 percent of the state's voting age population ?- the highest percentage in the country ?- and about 31 percent of registered voters.

"We have a higher Hispanic about than in the other states, and Hispanics are more likely to feel that immigrants should be given a chance for legal status," Sanderoff said.

Seventy-three percent of Hispanic voters in New Mexico held that view compared with 57 percent of white voters, according to the exit poll.

Among Democratic voters, 74 percent favored giving illegal immigrants a chance at legal residency. Sixty-five percent of self-described independents supported that position but only 46 percent of GOP voters.

"The Hispanic population in New Mexico is much more likely to be native ?- not immigrant. And so, we're not visibly seeing the effects of illegal immigration as dramatically as the big cities in California and Arizona. So, for all of these reasons, the politicians aren't making it a polarizing issue," Sanderoff says.

source: Albuquerque Journal, 14.11.2006, pages D1 & D3

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The thing is, though, that in New Mexico immigration was kept way below the radar in the election and it was rarely mentioned or featured in any way. I would guess not one out of ten voters had a clue of the stance on immigration of their preferred candidate. And, I think that was intentional.

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Right, as quoted:

Quote:

Albuquerque pollster Brian Sanderoff, who wasn't involved with the exit poll, said the views of New Mexico voters reflect the state's demographics and its history, with centuries-old Spanish influences.

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Foxfyre wants to believe that she holds the "official American" view.

She refuses to accept the fact that the majority of Americans disagree with her on immigration.

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ebrown_p wrote:

Foxfyre wants to believe that she holds the "official American" view.

She refuses to accept the fact that the majority of Americans disagree with her on immigration.

So noted as ebrown's opinion however bad is his apparent ability to read what has actually been said.

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You "think that was intentional".

An opposite opinion to Albuquerque pollster Brian Sanderoff, who said "the views of New Mexico voters reflect the state's demographics and its history, with centuries-old Spanish influences".

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

You "think that was intentional".

An opposite opinion to Albuquerque pollster Brian Sanderoff, who said "the views of New Mexico voters reflect the state's demographics and its history, with centuries-old Spanish influences".

So what else was he going to say? It's all in how the questions are worded and the context in which they are asked. I don't doubt that New Mexico voters are more accommodating to illegals than are Texas voters as New Mexico is a far more blue state than Texas. That should not be interpreted, however, that all or most New Mexicans think we should just open up the borders and let everybody in who wants to come.

Also for those paying attention, there is more than a little hypocrisy and playing of politics on this issue:

Quote:

In New Mexico, Gov. Richardson has done much the same thing. He now blasts the federal government for not showing "the commitment or the leadership to deal with border issues." He is demanding that officials on the Mexican side bulldoze an abandoned town on the border that serves "as a staging area for illegal drugs and illegal aliens." But Mr. Richardson sang a different tune in late 2003, when he showed up at a rally for the "Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride" and told them, "¡Viva la raza! . . . Thank you for coming to Santa Fe. Know that New Mexico is your home. We will protect you. You have rights here." Jaime Becerril, one of the organizers of the freedom ride, told the Santa Fe New Mexican that the participants favored a new amnesty program. He called immigration "a byproduct of colonialism and capitalism."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110007108

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HOUSTON, Nov. 15 ?- In a sign of rising passions over immigration issues, Texas lawmakers prepared for the 2007 session this week by filing a flurry of bills that would deny public assistance and other benefits to the children of illegal immigrants, tax money transfers to Mexico and the rest of Latin America and sue the federal government for the costs of state border control.

At the same time, a Dallas suburb, Farmers Branch, became the first Texas municipality to enact measures fining landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, authorizing the police to seek certification to act on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security and declaring English the city's official language.

Many of the bills are unlikely to become law, but, combined with the Farmers Branch action, they have raised questions about whether Texas, where almost a third of the population was listed as Hispanic in the 2000 census, is about to get caught up in the kinds of legal fights about illegal immigration that have occurred elsewhere.

"It's awful," said Brent A. Wilkes, the national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation's largest and oldest Hispanic rights group. "Texas for a long time has avoided this anti-immigrant hysteria."

But some Texas officials said the time had come for the state to crack down on illegal immigration because the federal government had chosen not to do so.

"Want to know what it's all about?" asked State Representative Burt R. Solomons, a Republican from Carrollton, outside Dallas, who introduced a bill to deny state licenses to people without proof of legal residence. "Absolute frustration."

"If they get a license or permit, they ought to be here legally," Mr. Solomons said. "What's wrong with that? I don't think it's draconian."

Mr. Solomons also filed a resolution to put the House on record, as he put it, as "demanding the federal government do what they're supposed to" to control the border with Mexico and to authorize the state attorney general to sue Washington to recoup the state's costs.

Monday was the first day members of the Texas House and Senate, who convene every two years, could file bills for the coming session. At least 9 of the first 325 or so bills, as posted on the legislative Web site, dealt with immigration.

Perhaps the most sweeping, proposed by Representative Leo Berman, a Republican from Tyler, would deny state benefits, including welfare payments, food stamps, disability payments and public housing and unemployment assistance to the children of illegal immigrants. The children, if born in the United States, are American citizens.

An earlier version of the bill would also have denied the children schooling and health care, rights affirmed as basic constitutional guarantees by a divided United States Supreme Court in 1969. Mr. Berman said he removed those provisions to gain passage of the measure in Texas with the goal of leading to another Supreme Court review.

"We want to see if that law is still applicable today," he said. "The environment is totally changed."

Mr. Berman also proposed a bill that would impose an 8 percent tax on electronic money transfers from immigrant workers in the state to people in Mexico and Central and South America, although it is not clear whether federal law would allow it.

Another Republican representative, Dianne White Delisi, from Temple, introduced a bill to require state agencies to report the cost of services like hospital care provided to illegal immigrants. Ms. Delisi said some figures suggested a rise of 77 percent in unpaid hospital care in Harris County, which includes Houston, over the last three years. But, she said, "the bottom line in Texas is we don't know."

The housing ordinance in Farmers Branch, adopted on a 5-to-0 vote by the City Council, requires landlords to demand proof of legal residency from all renters, with violations punishable by fines of $500 per tenant for each day of violation. The preamble says the action was taken "in response to the widespread concern of future terrorist attacks following the events of Sept. 11, 2001."

It prompted quick opposition from landlords who protested that they were ill-equipped to police the immigration status of their tenants, and from Hispanic activists who said they would challenge the measure in court.

On Tuesday, two other towns, Taneytown in central Maryland and Pahrump in southern Nevada, passed measures declaring English the official language. Hazleton, Pa., enacted a similar ordinance in July, but it has been held off pending a court challenge.

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If this isn't amnesty what is it??

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 4, 2006

Congress will approve an immigration bill that will grant citizenship rights to most of the 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the U.S. after Democrats take control next month, predict both sides on Capitol Hill.
While Republicans have been largely splintered on the issue of immigration reform, Democrats have been fairly unified behind the principle that the illegals currently in the country should get citizenship rights without having to first leave the country.
"Years of dawdling have worsened our border security and made it harder to fix this broken system," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who will lead the Judiciary Committee next year. "We should not let partisan politics and intolerance continue to delay and derail effective reform."
Democrats in both chambers say they will start with some form of legislation first drafted by Sens. John McCain, Arizona Republican, and Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, which was the basis for the bill that was approved earlier this year by the Senate.
"This past May, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported and then the Senate passed bipartisan versions of comprehensive immigration reform to bring people out of the shadows while strengthening our borders," Mr. Leahy said. "I look forward to building on that work next year and making progress on a bipartisan effort that improves security, supports our economy and respects the dignity of all people."
House Republicans and many outside Congress derided that bill as "amnesty" for allowing illegals to remain in the U.S. and eventually become citizens. Democrats say it's not amnesty because aliens must pay a fine and wait years before becoming citizens.
"The Senate bill is pure amnesty," said Rep. Jack Kingston, Georgia Republican. "Dress it up any way you want, it's still amnesty. It lets people pay their way out of sneaking into the country illegally."
With President Bush as an ally in the White House, he worries, Democrats will proceed next year with legislation to ultimately make citizens out of most of the illegals now in the country. And Republicans, still reeling from deep losses in the November elections, will give up the fight.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, said he expects an immigration-reform bill that doesn't deport illegal aliens to be the only significant legislation to come out of the new Democratic Congress and win Mr. Bush's approval.
"The only real legislation that can be expected from Congress is amnesty," he said. "If they come up with a plan and the president is behind it, it will pick up a lot of our own members."
Republicans also expressed little confidence that their leadership team is committed to blocking amnesty.
The group Americans for Better Immigration, which supports tougher immigration policies, has given Republican leaders mixed grades on the issue. But on the issue of amnesty, the grades have been much worse

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061204-122448-1240r.htm

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I think if they pass anything close to the McCain/Kenndy bill, we'll see the current problems in no way solved and we will double them many times over in the next ten years.

I wonder how the Democrats, champions of the poor, justify letting the more affluent illegals BUY their citizenship? For that matter, how can any sensible person think a person willing to break the law to be here would be honest about how long they had been here? How can anybody reasonably think that is the way to go with this?

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Quote:
ANALYSIS
N.M. Voters Friendlier to Migrants, Poll Says
63% Support Right ToWork in U.S.

BY BARRY MASSEY
The Associated Press

"The Hispanic population in New Mexico is much more likely to be native ?- not immigrant. And so, we're not visibly seeing the effects of illegal immigration as dramatically as the big cities in California and Arizona. So, for all of these reasons, the politicians aren't making it a polarizing issue," Sanderoff says.

source: Albuquerque Journal, 14.11.2006, pages D1 & D3

Walter, it's entire possible that in our stroll (Shopping Trip, if you must) through Old Town you didn't see a single Mexican, especially around the church. Hope you're not disappointed.

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roger wrote:

Walter Hinteler wrote:
Quote:
ANALYSIS
N.M. Voters Friendlier to Migrants, Poll Says
63% Support Right ToWork in U.S.

BY BARRY MASSEY
The Associated Press

"The Hispanic population in New Mexico is much more likely to be native ?- not immigrant. And so, we're not visibly seeing the effects of illegal immigration as dramatically as the big cities in California and Arizona. So, for all of these reasons, the politicians aren't making it a polarizing issue," Sanderoff says.

source: Albuquerque Journal, 14.11.2006, pages D1 & D3

Walter, it's entire possible that in our stroll (Shopping Trip, if you must) through Old Town you didn't see a single Mexican, especially around the church. Hope you're not disappointed.

Very true. Among the Hispanics in my family are naturalized citizens (or children of same) who immigrated from Mexico, one Puerto Rican, and most go back to the Spanish Conquistadors and their ancesters were grandfathered in as the Southwestern territories were admitted as states of the Union.

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I was stationed in New Mexico for the better part of two years back in the late fifties, and don't remember seeing anything resembling anti-immigrant sentiments. Glad to hear it still holds true today.

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The problem is not immigrants and I hope there aren't anti-immigrant sentiments anywhere. Certainly I have not witnessed any in New Mexico.

I hope there are anti-ILLEGAL-immigrant sentiments everywhere, however.

Some don't seem to be able to make a clear distinction between the two, however. It is particularly frustrating when the media doesn't make a distinction in its headlines.

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Foxfyre wrote:

The problem is not immigrants and I hope there aren't anti-immigrant sentiments anywhere. Certainly I have not witnessed any in New Mexico.

I hope there are anti-ILLEGAL-immigrant sentiments everywhere, however.

Some don't seem to be able to make a clear distinction between the two, however. It is particularly frustrating when the media doesn't make a distinction in its headlines.

Quote:

You Don't Speak for Me formed when Col. Al Rodriguez became fed up watching media coverage of the mass protests of April. "Their leaders were saying it was a march for immigrant rights and a Latino/Hispanic movement," says Rodriguez. "I thought to myself, 'Hey, those are illegal aliens, not immigrants!'" Col. Rodriguez began speaking out to others saying, "I'm of Hispanic ancestry and those people are acting like they speak for me. Well, you don't speak for me!"

How much weight will be given to the views of these legal immigrants? Surely this removes any claim of racism.

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LittleBitty wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
The problem is not immigrants and I hope there aren't anti-immigrant sentiments anywhere. Certainly I have not witnessed any in New Mexico.

I hope there are anti-ILLEGAL-immigrant sentiments everywhere, however.

Some don't seem to be able to make a clear distinction between the two, however. It is particularly frustrating when the media doesn't make a distinction in its headlines.

Quote:
You Don't Speak for Me formed when Col. Al Rodriguez became fed up watching media coverage of the mass protests of April. "Their leaders were saying it was a march for immigrant rights and a Latino/Hispanic movement," says Rodriguez. "I thought to myself, 'Hey, those are illegal aliens, not immigrants!'" Col. Rodriguez began speaking out to others saying, "I'm of Hispanic ancestry and those people are acting like they speak for me. Well, you don't speak for me!"

How much weight will be given to the views of these legal immigrants? Surely this removes any claim of racism.

I don't know LittleBitty. I hope, however, that all most Americans, including legal immigrants, do see themselves as Americans first and that their own ethnic or national heritage is here to blend with the whole instead of being something separate from the whole. Unfortunately, those who do not think it important to control our borders and who will be here do not give them any credit at all. Some people I think don't think immigrants see themselves as Americans at all.

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Foxfyre,

I (as an American who was born and bred here) love my country at least as much as you do.

I feel strongly that immigrants who are here must be treated with compassion and understanding. I believe this because I believe that diversity and respect and understanding are the among very values that make America great.

I understand that you and I are on opposite sides of this issue. I am willing to accept that you are as American as I am even though you don't share these core values with us.

There are many Americans who support a compassionate immigration policy that includes a path to citizenship.

I hope you don't intend to claim that just because someone disagrees with you about immigration (legal or illegal), it means they don't love their country.

That just isn't so.

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ebrown_p wrote:

Foxfyre,

I (as an American who was born and bred here) love my country at least as much as you do.

I feel strongly that immigrants who are here must be treated with compassion and understanding. I believe this because I believe that diversity and respect and understanding are the among very values that make America great.

I understand that you and I are on opposite sides of this issue. I am willing to accept that you are as American as I am even though you don't share these core values with us.

There are many Americans who support a compassionate immigration policy that includes a path to citizenship.

I hope you don't intend to claim that just because someone disagrees with you about immigration (legal or illegal), it means they don't love their country.

That just isn't so.

ebrown_p, I'd love to hear your views on the organization "Don't Speak for Me". I know we disagree on this subject but I'm interested in what you have to say just the same.

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I respect their right to a voice. I disagree with their position.

Theirs is also a minority position-- 70% of Americans of Hispanic descent want a solution that includes a path to citizenship for people here illegally, and many American citizens of Hispanic descent want more than this (meaning a complete amnesty).

But in any population you are going to find some people with a dissenting opinion and they have as much a right to add their voice into the debate as anyone.

I am an American of exclusively Northern European descent. I want a path to citizenship for people who have have lives and friends and communities and families here now.

I assume that the voice of people like me is just as impressive, and I am pretty sure there is a lot more of us by both number and percentage.

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ebrown_p wrote:

I respect their right to a voice. I disagree with their position.

Theirs is also a minority position-- 70% of Americans of Hispanic descent want a solution that includes a path to citizenship for people here illegally, and many American citizens of Hispanic descent want more than this (meaning a complete amnesty).

But in any population you are going to find some people with a dissenting opinion and they have as much a right to add their voice into the debate as anyone.

I am an American of exclusively Northern European descent. I want a path to citizenship for people who have have lives and friends and communities and families here now.

I assume that the voice of people like me is just as impressive, and I am pretty sure there is a lot more of us by both number and percentage.

I wonder what that percentage would be in the border states and if there is a difference based on one's proximity to the border. I'm also curious as to why this receives more attention and perhaps more compassion than other countries wishing to enter the U.S.

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What should be done about illegal immigration?

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