What should be done about illegal immigration?

I mean, if soldiers don't get even disciplined because "what they did was wrong but not deliberate abuse" - I'm sure, something similar can be found for illegal immigrants as well.

mm wrote:
Is it racist if the laws about stealing cars are enforced?


It's really a very stupid question; but what has race got to do with "stealing cars?"

Meanwhile, two stories from fthe frontlines in the war on illegal immigration (as least, illegal immigration from Mexico):

Cattle ranchers, tired of the expense of having to repair cuts in their fences, have taken to setting up ladders over them.

And the Minutemen group started building a fence on private property along the border. They got a lot of publicity for awhile and had some 150 volunteers. But the work is hard, and it is damned hot there now.
So they have hired a private construction firm to provide the laborers to finish the project.

You talk about respecting the law and every time we talk about rigged elections, lies and corruption by republicans you tell us we are whinning. There is no more law. There is only what you can get away with. anything goes. F**K the law, thats what the message from that slimeball in the Whitehouse is.

If you really think its a waste of time,go somewhere else.
Leave us alone.

amigo said...


Has any competent legal authority filed charges?
If there are legitimate charges filed by anyone,then I will support the investigation and possible trial.

Just because some people think that crimes have been committed,doesnt mean there have been crimes committed.

Nothing. And neither does illegal immigration. Doesn't matter what color, race, ethnic group, or religion does it. It's still illegal. Which was MM's point I believe.

You believe? Go walk on a short pier...

Mexico Worries About Its Own Southern Border

Migrants from Guatemala cross a stream into southern Mexico, a common route for those seeking jobs in Mexico or passage to the United States.

June 18, 2006
By GINGER THOMPSON

TAPACHULA, Mexico, June 11 Quiet as it is kept in political circles, Mexico, so much the focus of the United States' immigration debate, has its own set of immigration problems. And as elected officials from President Vicente Fox on down denounce Washington's plans to deploy troops and build more walls along the United States border, Mexico has begun a re-examination of its own policies and prejudices.

Here at Mexico's own southern edge, Guatemalans cross legally and illegally to do jobs that Mexicans departing for the north no longer want. And hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from nearly two dozen other countries, including China, Ecuador, Cuba and Somalia, pass through on their way to the United States.

Dense jungle makes establishing an effective law enforcement presence along the line impossible. Crossing the border is often as easy as hopping a fence or rafting for 10 minutes. But, under pressure from the United States, Mexico has steadily increased checkpoints along highways at the border including several posts with military forces.

The Mexican authorities report that detentions and deportations have risen in the past four years by an estimated 74 percent, to 240,000, nearly half along the southern border. But they acknowledged there had also been a boom in immigrant smuggling and increased incidents of abuses and attacks by corrupt law enforcement officials, vigilantes and bandits. Meanwhile, the waves of migrants continue to grow.

Few politicians have made public speeches about such matters. But Deputy Foreign Minister Gerónimo Gutiérrez recently acknowledged that Mexico's immigration laws were "tougher than those being contemplated by the United States," where the authorities caught 1.5 million people illegally crossing the Mexican border last year. He spoke before a congressional panel to discuss "Mexico in the Face of the Migratory Phenomenon."

In an interview, Mr. Gutiérrez said Mexico needed to "review its laws in order to have more legitimacy when we present our points of view to the United States."

Another high-level official in the Foreign Ministry was more blunt, but spoke only on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as undermining Mexico in its dealings with the United States.

"Are we where we should be in the treatment of migrants?" the official said. "No we are not. But is the Mexican government aware of that? Yes, and it is something we are trying to correct."

Unlike the immigration debate in the United States, where immigration opponents and proponents bandy about estimated costs and benefits for everything from the agriculture industry to suburban horticulture, hard numbers on the effects of illegal migration on Mexico are rare. A trip to Chiapas raises questions about whether Mexico practices at home what it preaches abroad.

If the major characters in the migration drama unfolding in Chiapas could be captured in a collage, it would include a burly, white-haired farmer named Eusebio Ortega Contreras, who did not hide that most of the workers who picked mangos in his fields for $6 a day were underage, undocumented Guatemalans. Indians from Chiapas used to do these jobs, Mr. Ortega said. But in the past five years, they have been migrating to the United States. And lately, he said, he has begun to worry that he is going to lose the Guatemalans, too.

"We know that the conditions we provide our workers are not adequate," said Mr. Ortega, president of the local fruit growers' association, who showed a reporter the meager shelter he can offer: an awning off a hay shed for a roof and lined-up milk crates for beds. "But costs are going up. Production is going down. We barely earn enough money to maintain our orchards, much less improve conditions for the workers."

Joaquín Aguilar Vásquez, a 22-year-old father of two, would be standing with his knapsack in front of a passenger bus for the northern border, because jobs here at home barely kept his family fed. He said he started migrating two years ago to work in an electronics factory in Tijuana, where he earned $12 a day and saved enough to build a house. When he reaches Tijuana this time, he said, he will hire a smuggler to sneak him to a construction job in New Orleans.

There would be a skinny unidentified Chinese citizen, chain-smoking in the new migration detention center after being caught with more than 50 of his countrymen stowed away among banana crates in the back of a tractor-trailer. Next to him would be a group of Cuban rafters who floated to Mexico because of the increased United States Coast Guard presence around Florida. And there would be a flock of Central Americans, so scruffy and tough they seemed right out of "Oliver Twist," hopping a freight train north.

In the collage, Edwin Godoy, a 21-year-old Honduran who said he was deported last year from Miami and separated from his wife and two children, would be posing in front.

"They call this train the beast," Mr. Godoy shouted in English to get attention. "Do you want to know why? Because it can either take you where you want to go, or it can kill you. Some of us won't make it out of here alive."


Luis J. Jimenez. for The New York Times

Eduardo Esobar, a Salvadoran
migrant, hopped a train in Arriaga,
Chiapas. He said he was headed
to the United States to search
for work.

At the start of his presidency nearly six years ago, Mr. Fox pledged that, as part of negotiations with the United States for legal status for illegal Mexican immigrants, this country would crack down on the flow of illegal immigrants crossing from Guatemala. He talked of a so-called Southern Plan that was to be an "unprecedented effort," and the United States offered an estimated $2 million a year to help Mexico deport illegal Central American immigrants.

George Grayson, an expert on Mexico at the College of William and Mary who has made several research trips to Mexico's southern border, said little had come of those efforts. He described this border as an "open sesame for illegal migrants, drug traffickers, exotic animals and Mayan artifacts."



And Mr. Grayson said the United States ended its support for deportation after the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, which instead provides some technical aid and training to increase security at Mexico's southern border checkpoints.

Mexican migration officials acknowledged that they had fewer than 450 agents patrolling the five states along this frontier, which has some 200 official and unofficial crossing points.

The rains came recently and flooded most rivers, making parts of this border as treacherous as the Sonora Desert, the deadly Arizona gateway where more than 460 migrants died of exposure and dehydration last year. But human rights advocates and government migration officials say nature does not do as much harm here as crime and corruption.

The Rev. Ademar Barilli, a human rights advocate who, with the support of the Roman Catholic Church, runs a shelter for migrants in Tecún Umán, a Guatemalan border city, said that unlike crossing patterns at the northern border, migrants here did not typically go far into remote areas, hoping to avoid the authorities. Instead, he said, the migrants try to bribe their way through.

"A migrant with money can make it across Mexico with no problems," Father Barilli said. "A migrant with no money gets nowhere."

Mexican law authorizes only federal migration agents and federal preventive police officers to inspect cars for illegal migrants and to demand proof of legal status. But Mexican authorities acknowledge that migrants face run-ins with every level of law enforcement.

Migrants are also routinely detained by machete-wielding farmers, who extort their money by threatening to turn them over to the police. So many female migrants have been raped or coerced into sex, the authorities said, that some begin taking birth control pills a few months before embarking on the journey north.

Few are punished for such crimes, the authorities added, because the migrants rarely report them.

"This society does not see migrants as human beings, it sees them as criminals," said Lucía del Carmen Bermúdez, coordinator for a government migration agency called Grupo Beta. "The majority of the attacks against migrants are not committed by authorities, although there is still a big problem with corruption in Mexico. Most violence against migrants comes from civilians."

Grupo Beta is a uniquely Mexican creation; established 16 years ago in Tijuana to protect migrants. It was a time, said Pedro Espíndola, the director of Grupo Beta, when Mexican migration to the United States began to soar, and smuggling groups evolved from small-time, community-based operations into transnational criminal cartels.

Grupo Beta was expanded to the southern border in 1996, Mr. Espíndola said, when throngs of Central American migrants, aiming for the United States, began hopping freight trains in Tapachula. Train stations became easy staging areas for gangs to ambush migrants. Hospitals became overwhelmed with men and women who had fallen beneath moving locomotives, often losing limbs to their wheels.

Last year, Grupo Beta reported, 72 migrants died crossing the southern border, mostly in accidents on trains or highways. Human rights groups say the real figure is more than twice as high. And in the 16 years since one woman, Olga Sánchez Martínez, began selling bread and embroidery to operate a shelter and then a clinic for migrants, she said, she has treated more than 2,500 migrants with machete and gunshot wounds or severed limbs.

Last year's rains did so much damage to the bridges and roads around Tapachula that the train does not stop here anymore. But that has not stopped the migrants.

Some detour north of here, the authorities said, to train stations that run through the state of Tabasco. But migrants like Mr. Godoy, the Honduran, have so far refused to abandon this route. He walked eight days along the tracks that run from here to the station in Arriaga, about 120 miles away. Then he, along with at least 300 others, hopped a freight train that leaves there almost nightly, in plain view of evening traffic, the local police and the train's engineer.

It was Mr. Godoy's third attempt in three months. He said he had been caught by United States Border Patrol officers in Laredo, Tex., on each of his previous trips.

"I am not going to give up," he said. "I had a good life in Miami. I got no criminal record. I never hurt nobody. I'm just trying to be with my kids, you know? That's all I need."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

source: Chicago Tribune, June 18, 2006, page 8; online version

Probably the 'close the border first advocates have it right. Those of us trying to incorporate enforcement, accommodation, policy, remedies, and controlling illegal immigration are expecting way too much from one immigration bill.

First Things First on Immigration
By Center for American Common Culture

An Open Letter to President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Frist, and Speaker of the House, Hastert.

Recently, columnist Thomas Sowell wrote: "It will take time to see how various new border control methods work out in practice and there is no reason to rush ahead to deal with people already illegally in this country before the facts are in on how well the borders have been secured."

We the undersigned agree with this statement. In 1986, Congress passed "comprehensive" immigration reform that included amnesty for around 3 million illegal immigrants, border enforcement, and interior enforcement (employer sanctions). Amnesty came, but enforcement was never seriously implemented either at the border or in the interior.

Let us not make this mistake again. We favor what Newt Gingrich has described as "sequencing." First border and interior enforcement must be funded, operational, implemented, and proven successful¾and only then can we debate the status of current illegal immigrants, or the need for new guest worker programs. We are in the middle of a global war on terror. 2006 is not 1986. Today, we need proof that enforcement (both at the border and in the interior) is successful before anything else happens. As Ronald Reagan used to say "trust, but verify."

The majority of Republicans in the Senate opposed the recently passed Hagel-Martinez bill. Senator Vitter (R-LA) said that because border enforcement will not be in place, "this [bill] will in fact make the illegal immigration problem much bigger." The No. 3 Republican in the Senate, Senator Rick Santorum (PA) said, "We need a border-security bill first." Senator Vitter, Senator Santorum, the majority of Senate Republicans, and the majority of House Republicans are right¾we need proven enforcement before we do anything else. Adopting cosmetic legislation to appear to be "doing something" about enforcement, but which actually makes the situation worse, is not statesmanship, it is demagogy.

We thank the majority of the Senate Republicans (33 in all) and the seven Democrats who supported the Isakson amendment, which insists upon verifiable benchmarks for border security before considering other issues. Moreover, we say "Thank You" to Jim Sensenbrenner, Peter King, and the bi-partisan House majority including 36 Democrats, that passed HR 4437. We may quibble with a clause here and there, but you in the House and the majority of Senate Republicans are right to emphasize that the Congress and the President must deal with enforcement first and other issues later. Stand fast; the American people are overwhelmingly with you.

Signed,

William B. Allen, Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University

William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education under President Reagan, former Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under former President George H.W. Bush

Thomas L. Bock, National Commander of the American Legion

Robert H. Bork, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, former Solicitor General, acting Attorney General, Supreme Court nominee, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge

William F. Buckley, Jr., founder and Editor-at-Large of National Review

Peter Collier, founding Publisher of Encounter Books, cofounder of Center for the Study of Popular Culture

Ward Connerly, former Regent at the University of California, founder and Chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI), winner of the 2005 Bradley Prize for Outstanding Intellectual Achievement

T. Kenneth Cribb, former domestic policy advisor for President Ronald Reagan

Glynn Custred, Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Hayward, and coauthor of the California Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 209

John C. Eastman, Professor of Law at Chapman University School of Law, Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence

John Fonte, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center of American Common Culture at the Hudson Institute

David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush, Resident Fellow at American Enterprise Institute

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., founder and President of the Center for Security Policy

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chairman of the Gingrich Group, Senior Fellow at American Enterprise Institute

Jonah Goldberg, Editor-at-Large of the National Review Online, national syndicated columnist

Victor Davis Hanson, Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, recipient of the 1991 American Philological Association Excellence in Teaching Award

David Horowitz, cofounder of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, Editor of FrontPageMag.com

Fred C. Iklé, former Undersecretary of Defense under Reagan, former Director of U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

David Keene, Chairman of the American Conservative Union

Brian Kennedy, President of the Claremont Institute, Publisher of the Claremont Review of Books

Roger Kimball, Managing Editor of The New Criterion

Alan Charles Kors, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania

Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies

Bevery LaHaye, Founder and Chairman of the Concerned Women for America

Michael A. Ledeen, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

Seth Leibsohn, Fellow at the Claremont Institute

John Leo, columnist and Contributing Editor to U.S. News and World Report

Herbert London, President of the Hudson Institute

Kathryn Jean Lopez, Editor of National Review Online

Rich Lowry, Editor of National Review

Heather Mac Donald, John M. Olin Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, winner of the 2005 Bradley Prize for Outstanding Intellectual Achievement

John O'Sullivan, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, Editor-at-Large of National Review

Juliana Pilon, Research Professor at the Institute for World Politics

Daniel Pipes, founder and Director of the Middle East Forum and Campus Watch, former member of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace

Andrew "Andy" Ramirez, Chairman of the Friends of Border Patrol

Phyllis Schlafly, founder and President of Eagle Forum

Thomas Sowell, Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, winner of the 2003 Bradley Prize for Outstanding Intellectual Achievement

Shelby Steele, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, winner of the 2006 Bradley Prize for Outstanding Intellectual Achievement

Stephen Steinlight, Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, former National Affairs Director of the American Jewish Committee, and Vice President of the National Conference of Christians and Jews

Thomas G. West, Director and Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute, Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas

Wendy Wright, President, Concerned Women for America
SOURCE

Looks like the immigration bill is more dead than alive.
From the NYT:

source: Guardian, Thursday June 22, 2006, page 53/ online version

I am wondering if I am invited to these House hearings on immigration.

The House Republicans say they want to listen to the American people. I am an American person. I hope my voice is heard. I fear that these "hearings" will turn out to be pep rallies for white Christian conservatives.

The fact is that most Americans want an immgration bill now. The fact is that most Americans will accept a solution that includes a path to citizenship. And there are millions of us who will accept nothing less.

I am going to do my best to go to these hearing...and to be heard. And this is what I will say:

We can have both security and compassion. Congress has the opportunity to pass a bill that has security, it shouldn't reject this opportunity just because this bill contains the compassion that many Americans want anyway.

They say they want to listen to me... I hope they are sincere.

Some Americans, and I believe most Americans, want a good immigration bill that will not create more intractable problems than we already have.. The Senate bill isn't it. The first House bill wasn't it either. The House is right to shelve it now and go back to the drawing board to work out a good piece of legislation.

No bill is better than a bad one.

So "shelving it" is a better idea? What's is wrong with the normal way of doing business... bring it to conference and an up or down vote on the floor.

The Conservative Republicans brought this issue to the forefront with hysterical rhetoric about "invasion" and how we needed to solve this right away! Then with a Republican controlled congress... all they can do is "shelve it"?

The reason they are going to "shelve it" is that they object to the compassionate way of dealing with people who have lives here.

We need a Bill now and other than Conservative Screaming (which is clearly to the right of most Americans) there is no reason why we can't have a bill now.

The House should bring the Bills already passed to a conference and an Up or Down Vote.

It is not the Bill that needs to be shelved.... it is the Republican controlled do-nothing House that needs to be shelved -- and God willing they will be.

I hope they pay for this hypocricy.

This is politics as usual in the land of the free(?).

It looks like this is how its done.

Source: USA Today

Shelve it... and get to work figuring out how to do away with the damn border altogether. Job-hunting shouldn't be a life threatening activity.

As stated by an employer with a likely large camaradarie of illegals working in his restaurants.

I'm not buying it.