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RogerRabbit
Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 05 Sep 2004
Posts: 748
Location: Oregon
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 Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 2:10 pm Post subject: Common sense on immigration |
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050424/news_mz1e24caldwl.htm
| Quote: | By Robert J. Caldwell
April 24, 2005
Americans are desperately in need of a sensible dialogue on immigration; a discussion featuring calm reason and eschewing polarizing emotions and divisively simplistic "solutions."
Look around us at the turmoil over this issue in just the last few days.
Self-styled Minutemen have been patrolling a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona providing unsolicited help to the Border Patrol. Alternately vilified as vigilantes and praised as patriots, the Minutemen are emblematic of the unresolved, incendiary issue of what to do about illegal immigration from Mexico.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzennegger rocked the debate by publicly declaring "close the border" as an answer, then promptly corrected himself by saying what he really meant was "secure the border."
A divided Congress offers little clear leadership. Democrats, wary of offending the Hispanic vote, are mostly silent. Republicans are of two minds: Business allies recognize the value of Mexican migrants to the U.S. economy while restrictionists and national security types in the GOP want a far more aggressive effort to police the borders.
The Bush administration seems similarly split. Just months ago, it was promising to add 2,000 Border Patrol agents. Then the number dropped to a token 200 and President Bush, meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox, echoed his Mexican counterpart's denunciation of the Minutemen as vigilantes.
Bush's own position is conflicted and contradictory.
As governor of Texas and as president, Bush has been notably reluctant to criticize illegal immigration from Mexico. Instead, he offers sympathetic descriptions of hard-working migrants seeking opportunity in the United States to feed their poverty-stricken families. Bush adamantly denies that his proposed immigration reform plan, which includes a temporary guest worker provision, amounts to granting amnesty for millions of Mexicans living and working in the United States illegally. But de facto amnesty is exactly what many, including more than a few Republicans, see in the Bush plan.
Meanwhile, Bush is also the post-9/11 stalwart on national security who cannot evade recognizing that properly policed and controlled borders are important – no, essential – to defending the United States against infiltration by terrorists.
Further complicating this tangle for the president and Republicans are the domestic political considerations. Bush won 44 percent of the traditionally Democratic, and heavily Mexican-American, Hispanic vote last November. That was a key factor in his re-election. Winning that much or more of the rapidly growing Hispanic vote is also a key to Republican hopes of making the GOP an enduring majority party.
The predictable result of all this is a quandary over both policy and politics. The resulting indecision produces drift – an existing policy that manifestly doesn't work but no agreement on what should take its place.
Yet, a careful look at the immigration issue in all its complexity can still offer some fundamental truths on which most Americans might agree.
First, it should be patently obvious that more, much more, must be done to secure America's borders, most especially the U.S.-Mexico border. Perhaps 2 million migrants enter the United States illegally from Mexico every year (another 1 million are apprehended by the Border Patrol). That border cannot remotely be called secure.
For reasons of national security, legitimate considerations of demographic stability and the costs of public services to illegal immigrants, the United States simply must impose tighter controls on its southern border.
Second, let's also acknowledge that the U.S. economy does, in fact, benefit from foreign labor. Several million migrants who are here illegally work daily in America's factories, agricultural fields, restaurants and hotels, adding the immense value of their labor to the U.S. economy. When that economy grows and expands, partly with the help of foreign labor, everyone benefits.
Third, we should also acknowledge that any serious effort to reduce illegal immigration requires adequately enforced employer sanctions against those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Absent this enforcement, the magnet that draws millions to enter the United States illegally will remain as strong as ever.
These three points, however, demonstrate the inherent contradictions in U.S. immigration policy. We want a secure border and we oppose illegal immigration. But we also want a growing economy.
Resolving these contradictions leads inexorably to the one remedy that could work: a sufficiently large and properly structured guest worker program.
If the U.S. economy needs millions of foreign workers and millions of Mexicans desperately want to work here, why can't the United States and Mexico collaborate in fashioning a program that would restore the rule of law and eliminate most of the rationale for illegal immigration? Let Bush's proposal, stripped of its quasi-amnesty flaws, be a start. |
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"Si vis pacem, para bellum" |
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Stevie
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 25 Aug 2004
Posts: 1451
Location: Queen Creek, Arizona
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| Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 6:29 am Post subject: |
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congress is to busy throwing tantrums to show any leadership!
rogerrabbit - have you ever camped in someone's driveway in Indiana?
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Stevie
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage
morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should
be arrested, exiled or hanged. |
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carpro
Admin
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 1176
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you for providing this article for us to read, RR.
You wouldn't by any chance have a comment on this article you'd like to share with us, would you? 
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"If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service." |
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PhantomSgt
Vice Admiral
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 972
Location: GUAM, USA
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| Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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I think Arnold got it right; "Close the border!". At least until we weed out the illegals already here.
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Retired AF E-8
Independent that leans right of center. |
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