dsw162
12-23-2007, 02:42 AM
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is just the latest on the GOP presidential campaign trail to go tough on illegal immigration. But he, too, falls short on practicality and humanity.
From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Dec. 22, 2007
It would be best for this nation and for Mexico and other major contributing countries if the United States did not have illegal immigration.
It creates an underclass that is in constant fear of discovery and deportation to countries that do not offer enough life-sustaining incomes or opportunities for them and their children. They exist this way here though their labors are needed.
This is not humane.
For donor countries, illegal immigration creates a safety valve that, even as it alleviates current pressures, deprives these countries of some of their most intrepid residents and conspires against urgency in addressing the economic distress from which their citizens are fleeing.
This isn't smart.
Illegal immigration makes witting or unwitting lawbreakers of employers who know they cannot get U.S. citizens to do the work of these immigrants. There is a federal database that promises to verify quicker whether that employee is, in fact, an illegal immigrant. But suppose it can really be made to work real-time and be 100% accurate, an iffy proposition. The result: severe labor shortages.
This isn't fair. Or smart.
Illegal immigrants perform work that makes the rest of our lives easier and more affordable. In this Wal-Mart nation, most are happy to reap these rewards. Yet illegal immigrants are regularly derided and vilified, and their presence sparks proposals to get even tougher still. And that's just the GOP's presidential candidates.
This isn't fair, smart or humane. It also has the whiff of hypocrisy.
Last, illegal immigration has become such a corrosive, divisive issue that virtually no reasonable debate can occur. Witness the inability of Congress to enact sensible immigration reform in two tries in two years.
This is profoundly sad. And a failure of leadership.
So, you bet, illegal immigration is bad - and yearning for a solution. And there's the rub. Some people's solutions will damage the economy, do little to stem the tide and undercut bedrock American values.
On Thursday, the most virulent of the anti-immigrants among the GOP presidential candidates dropped out of the race. We will not miss Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and hope that his absence decreases the pressure on the other candidates to try to out-Tancredo Tancredo.
But even before Tancredo's departure, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee already had taken the plunge, and it's no accident that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has gotten Tancredo's nod. But Huckabee joining the fray is particularly disturbing. Earlier, he evidenced admirable humanitarian impulse on immigration, but his stance is such that he now has earned the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, a group best known for its hysterics over illegal immigration.
His proposal - borrowed at least in part from an anti-immigration think tank - is yet another that emphasizes enforcement. Its nonsensical solution to the existence of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already here is to have them register and then leave the country.
Aside from the damage the disappearance of so many workers would do to the economy, any expectation that they would register and willfully leave is simply delusional. The American value this offends - besides good ol' U.S. common sense - is that people who have contributed much to helping us should not then be told they are not welcome to be one of us.
The last reform legislation proposed in Congress would have provided a path to legal residency, if the immigrants did not have criminal backgrounds, learned English and paid fines. And enforcement was also a major part of this bill. It would have built more fence and beefed up measures against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
It died in large measure because the anti-immigration crowd was able to mischaracterize the earned legal residency provision as:
AMNESTY!!!!!!
That shouting tactic still works, as evidenced by Huckabee's transformation from someone who believed the children of illegal immigrants should get in-state tuition to a candidate who is now endorsed by the founding Minuteman.
This breathless mongering on immigration has had an effect, though not one that will serve the GOP well in the future. A recent poll by the Pew Hispanic Center showed that more than half of all Latino adults in the U.S. worry about deportation for family and friends.
Latinos, at 15.5%, are the largest minority group in the country. The survey showed that they are very concerned about immigration policies and favor Democrats over Republicans on the issue. They figure heavily, the Pew Hispanic Center noted, in four of the six states that President Bush carried by margins of five points or fewer.
Inaction by Congress has caused a bevy of municipalities and states to try to fill the gap - badly. Arizona, for instance, will have a law go into effect on Jan. 1 that severely punishes businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Arizona's foolishness is a microcosm for the nation's. It's difficult to name a state that owes its prosperity to immigrant labor more than Arizona.
Yes, illegal immigration is bad. The solution, however, is to regularize the flow necessary for a functioning and competitive U.S. economy - and do it legally. That means a guest worker program, adjustments on quotas, elimination of shameful backlogs and a means to legalize the existence of illegal immigrants already here.
That would be fair, smart and humane.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=699276
From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Dec. 22, 2007
It would be best for this nation and for Mexico and other major contributing countries if the United States did not have illegal immigration.
It creates an underclass that is in constant fear of discovery and deportation to countries that do not offer enough life-sustaining incomes or opportunities for them and their children. They exist this way here though their labors are needed.
This is not humane.
For donor countries, illegal immigration creates a safety valve that, even as it alleviates current pressures, deprives these countries of some of their most intrepid residents and conspires against urgency in addressing the economic distress from which their citizens are fleeing.
This isn't smart.
Illegal immigration makes witting or unwitting lawbreakers of employers who know they cannot get U.S. citizens to do the work of these immigrants. There is a federal database that promises to verify quicker whether that employee is, in fact, an illegal immigrant. But suppose it can really be made to work real-time and be 100% accurate, an iffy proposition. The result: severe labor shortages.
This isn't fair. Or smart.
Illegal immigrants perform work that makes the rest of our lives easier and more affordable. In this Wal-Mart nation, most are happy to reap these rewards. Yet illegal immigrants are regularly derided and vilified, and their presence sparks proposals to get even tougher still. And that's just the GOP's presidential candidates.
This isn't fair, smart or humane. It also has the whiff of hypocrisy.
Last, illegal immigration has become such a corrosive, divisive issue that virtually no reasonable debate can occur. Witness the inability of Congress to enact sensible immigration reform in two tries in two years.
This is profoundly sad. And a failure of leadership.
So, you bet, illegal immigration is bad - and yearning for a solution. And there's the rub. Some people's solutions will damage the economy, do little to stem the tide and undercut bedrock American values.
On Thursday, the most virulent of the anti-immigrants among the GOP presidential candidates dropped out of the race. We will not miss Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and hope that his absence decreases the pressure on the other candidates to try to out-Tancredo Tancredo.
But even before Tancredo's departure, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee already had taken the plunge, and it's no accident that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has gotten Tancredo's nod. But Huckabee joining the fray is particularly disturbing. Earlier, he evidenced admirable humanitarian impulse on immigration, but his stance is such that he now has earned the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, a group best known for its hysterics over illegal immigration.
His proposal - borrowed at least in part from an anti-immigration think tank - is yet another that emphasizes enforcement. Its nonsensical solution to the existence of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already here is to have them register and then leave the country.
Aside from the damage the disappearance of so many workers would do to the economy, any expectation that they would register and willfully leave is simply delusional. The American value this offends - besides good ol' U.S. common sense - is that people who have contributed much to helping us should not then be told they are not welcome to be one of us.
The last reform legislation proposed in Congress would have provided a path to legal residency, if the immigrants did not have criminal backgrounds, learned English and paid fines. And enforcement was also a major part of this bill. It would have built more fence and beefed up measures against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
It died in large measure because the anti-immigration crowd was able to mischaracterize the earned legal residency provision as:
AMNESTY!!!!!!
That shouting tactic still works, as evidenced by Huckabee's transformation from someone who believed the children of illegal immigrants should get in-state tuition to a candidate who is now endorsed by the founding Minuteman.
This breathless mongering on immigration has had an effect, though not one that will serve the GOP well in the future. A recent poll by the Pew Hispanic Center showed that more than half of all Latino adults in the U.S. worry about deportation for family and friends.
Latinos, at 15.5%, are the largest minority group in the country. The survey showed that they are very concerned about immigration policies and favor Democrats over Republicans on the issue. They figure heavily, the Pew Hispanic Center noted, in four of the six states that President Bush carried by margins of five points or fewer.
Inaction by Congress has caused a bevy of municipalities and states to try to fill the gap - badly. Arizona, for instance, will have a law go into effect on Jan. 1 that severely punishes businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Arizona's foolishness is a microcosm for the nation's. It's difficult to name a state that owes its prosperity to immigrant labor more than Arizona.
Yes, illegal immigration is bad. The solution, however, is to regularize the flow necessary for a functioning and competitive U.S. economy - and do it legally. That means a guest worker program, adjustments on quotas, elimination of shameful backlogs and a means to legalize the existence of illegal immigrants already here.
That would be fair, smart and humane.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=699276