only two minutes? I think not.

It's called "ethnic outbidding", and it's a winner. Immigrants, terrorists, Cadillac welfare queens, who else ya got? Unfortunately, it works really well.

I hope Republicans keep demonizing the fastest growing minority population in the United States.

So the LA Times hates Republicans. This is news?

Question Number 2: Who would invade the most foreign countries?

You all forgot the most overwhelming question to which a majority of the Republican Presidential campaigns lead: who will allow the brownies to be tortured the most and keep us uninformed enough to feel safe and morally superior despite all the reprehensible things that are allowed to be done in our name?

And, question 3 -- who would pass the biggest tax cut to avoid paying for this?

The Republican party is full of so much fear, hate and xenophobia it?s truly repulsive. Toss in the religiosity and it gets worse. And that for me is why I always have favored the Dems, even if I don?t vote for them. The Republicans operate from a base of fear-mongering, racism and the like. The Dems don?t. For me those foundations are more important than everything else. Even with misguided or poor policies, the Democrats are capable eventually of fostering a country that I want to live in and that I?m proud to be a member of. The Republicans can?t. In fact, the more they push their policies through, the less I like this country; e.g. Iraq, Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

From an email I sent to a friend today.

"'Who detests illegal immigration the most?'

They always have to detest someone, don't they?"
________________

No. The first question asks who detests the act of breaking our immigration laws, not the people doing it. The question is as legitimate, proper, and free of racial bias as if one had asked, "Who detests cheating on taxes?" Mr. Drum's question sidesteps the legitimate original question in order to drop the charge of racism on an entire party and, by extension, anyone who is concerned with the collectively corrosive effects of large numbers of people (and not just the immigrants) ignoring our laws.

The illegal immigration problem is not going to be solved by simply accusing those who are worried about it of racism. If Mr. Drum's preference is an open border policy, then he should say so. That, at least, would be an honest proposition to be debated, decided, and acted upon. If so decided, we could stop issuing green cards and visas and simply ask anyone entering, from anywhere, if they intend to stay and, if so, would they like an application for a social security card. But, to accuse anyone who thinks immigration laws should actually be enforced of racism is simply a cheap shot and an avoidance of the issues involved.

For Republicans illegal immigration is the new Gay.

(Interestingly enough that's exactly what Obama told a group of gay activists about the Republicans in a recent off-the-record basement meeting.)

Republicans are a very immature bunch and they kinda remind me of the Little Rascals movies, where they have this "He-Man Woman Haters Club", except the word "woman" is interchangeable with "black", "Hispanic", "gay" or "liberal".

trashhauler--
Anybody who opposes 'Amnesty' is either in favor of the status quo or in favor of spending every tax dollar rounding up and deporting over ten million people. Therefore, if you want to accuse people of avoidance of issues, you should start with the wingnuts on the Right and the Party that represents them.

Reino is wrong. (So is trashhauler, but he's less significant for progressives.)

Let's STOP accusing people of avoiding issues, without actually proposing how to SOLVE them. Fair enough?

LEGAL immigrants are people we want. That's why they are legal.

Foreigners living illegally in America are people we do NOT want. That's why they are illegal.

With some exceptions, the Rule to tell the difference is that LEGAL immigrants are invited -- by name -- by individual Americans and employers.

If we can't say "no" to illegal immigration, our "yes" to legal immigrants becomes meaningless. THAT is what has happened over the past decade and a half -- and that is what progressives ought to stop enabling with the bullshit idea that "immigration" includes "illegal".

I must agree with trashhauler and theAmericanist. I am not in favor of amnesty at all. I don't have a comprehensive solution to the problem, but I do believe it is a problem. Illegal immigration quickens the transition of power from citizens to corporations. Illegal immigration is used to undercut unions, undercut minimum wage laws, undercut OSHAA, and to make America's labor costs more "competitive" with China, India, et. al. I think any business caught using undocumented workers needs to face stiff fines and criminal sanctions. I don't think anyone has a good idea what to do with the ones that are here. "Sending 'em back" appeals to base instincts, but is not feasible (nor humane). Granting amnesty, however, simply encourages the next wave, and dooms us to repeat this experience. It is a tough issue.

By 57% to 23%, more Hispanic registered voters say they favor Democrats than Republicans, according to a survey by the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center. 12/07/07

ouch

Hatred: the force that gives their lives meaning. Preach it, Al!

I can think of comprehensive solutions for immigration, but they don't have enough political support. The solutions either require businesses to be responsible for hiring only people who have the right to work in this country or make it possible for anyone who wants to work in this country to come here to work, much like our treatment of northern Europeans for much of the history of the US. Solutions that control employment require some level of improved identification papers for everyone, maybe free passports for all. They require realistic immigration quotas, maybe as much as 1% of our current population or more. They also require amnesty, no matter what you call it, if you want anything like a sensible solution. Sure, we could enforce the laws for a extra trillion dollars and kick out all of the illegals. We might get a special bonus revolution in Mexico which would flood the US with refugees if we did that.

As long as Republicans refuse to make employers criminally responsible for hiring those who don't have the right to work here, don't address amnesty, and don't address the pathetically, intentionally undersized quotas we have today the Republicans are nothing but noisy hypocrites. Aside from Tancredo, none of them care about immigration, and Tancredo isn't getting any traction, so we can conclude that Republicans are quite happy with the immigration status quo, just as they are happy with the abortion status quo.

Illegal immigration became a problem/issue when one of the many scandals was being reported in all media (ex. Mark Rich, Abu Grahib, Cheney's hunting accident, etc.) The Mexicans moving above the border may have bothered officials and citizens directly affected by their effect upon their school systems and social services, but for the most part, these locales were isolated and limited to very few.

W and the Republican dittoites announced that it was an important issue. And it has become one, all over the nation. Had they slipped in from
Canada, spoke English and been a few shades lighter in color, the populace of the US would have yawned.

But it's true, Americans love to feel self-righteous about some group that is hurting them. And there are plenty individuals and organizations who will cite some indirect manner in which these immigrants are hurting them.

The truth is that immigrants from below the border are simply working long hours, at below minimum wage jobs that allow small and struggling business to stay alive. The immigrants are performing jobs that virtually no one born in this country would take.

It's really none of our business. I invite the only people who should have the right to allow or reject people from entering the US to make that decision; Native Americans/Indians. Let the tribes decide, Arapaho, Creek, Osage, Ute ................

Ms. Williams: what a crock.

people who have the right to work in this country

Q: What gives you the power to determine who does and who does not have the right to work?

A: Eurotrash genocidal power, fueled by racist hate.

The ironic thing about this is that if you listen to the mayors and law enforcement people working in most of the towns on or near the border, the honest ones will admit that illegal immigrants are no more of a law enforcement issue than PWT, and everyone knows that the local economies wouldn't run without them.

It seems that most of the irrational fear and hatred of illegal immigrants comes from smaller northern (in relation to the border) towns who haven't had immigrant populations since the 19th Century.

Ah, the Heartland!

theAmericanist, Ms. Williams got it exactly right. At some point, it was decided that illegal immigration was "important" and that this is what we should get whipped up about, and we decided to follow along. Yesterday, people couldn't shut up about how welfare was the #1 most important issue. Or Iraq. Or Ward Churchill. Or whatever it is that angry, obnoxious relatives are going to be bitching about this Christmas based on what O'Reilly told them to bitch about.

And in all my years in Boston, I never heard people bitching about the Irish people taking money under the table while working as bartenders.

we want the undocumented immigrants too. we just have an immigration system that is so backlogged and full of problems and actively anti-immigration that even employers, employers that would love to higher immigrants -- can't find away to bring them here. cf. microsoft moving offices to Vancouver after immigration reform didn't pass. immigrants, like they always have, follow the jobs. in the past, we made it easy to do this. that's how my great grandparents came here from austria and ireland -- they just showed up. and were processed easily. in every way, the exact system that undocumented immigrants use today: showing up. (although many others come here for school and find that they can't find jobs documented jobs afterwards. or they fall in love with a same-sex person and that person has no way to sponsor them.) why are we seeing such a backlash against immigrants of all stripes now? because suddenly they are needed in places that we haven't had immigrants in over a 100 years: the midwest farm states with low unemployment and booming economies, the southern states that have lured businesses away from northern cities to low unemployment and booking economies. and so for decades it was okay to have undocumented immigrants in the city. couple this with declining manufacturing and the resurgence of northern cities as playgrounds for the wealthy and tourists. immigrants have dispersed and followed the jobs -- and that seems to freak people out who have gotten comfortable in their monolingual, monocultural backwoods.

Let's STOP accusing people of avoiding issues, without actually proposing how to SOLVE them.

Does that mean you are going to stop posting entirely? Because I haven't seen you propose anything of substance to solve anything yet, despite your frequent accusations of avoiding, misunderstanding, misstating, etc., issues directed at almost every other poster here.

LEGAL immigrants are people we want. That's why they are legal.

Well, no.

Legal immigrants are the people the law has allowed to immigrate. Whether that law does, in fact, the central issue of the immigration debate.

Foreigners living illegally in America are people we do NOT want. That's why they are illegal.

Well, no, again, you make the same mistake. And its odd that you would given the number of times you have complained about Congress failing to honor its "promises" regarding, e.g., families of permanent residents, and you yourself have characterized the people that are forbidden to immigrate as a consequence of that failure as people we do want. Because when these people do immigrate now, they are illegal.

With some exceptions, the Rule to tell the difference is that LEGAL immigrants are invited -- by name -- by individual Americans and employers.

There are rather vast exceptions that render your so-called "Rule" meaningless. Literally millions of people who are invited are not legal simply because of the limits, both overall and per nation, in the law. And lots of those people, particularly in the family statuses that are limited and from countries where the waiting list in the status they qualify for is near or over a decade long, come anyway.

We need to deal with the fatally broken law before dealing with the lawbreakers. Fix the law so that the people who are legally permitted to immigrate are, in fact rather than merely in abstract aspirational theory, the people we want, and the people who are forbidden to do so are, likewise in fact, the people we don't want, and it becomes a whole lot easier to enforce the law, because there won't be resistance from every corner to doing just that.

The first key to doing that is to align the supply of slots with the demand, so that the people who are invited as the law permits, and are personally eligible to be admitted, don't face the highest barrier when lots of people from their country are likewise interested in and qualified for immigration. If the country from which it was physically easiest to enter the US illegally were not also the country from which it was most difficult for any qualified applicant to immigrate legally, we wouldn't have nearly as big a problem with illegal immigration. A frustrated would-be immigrant from Mozambique faces bigger hurdles than one from Mexico.

The next step is to align the limiting mechanisms with the reasons for the limits. There are people who are not allowed to come here, even if invited, because they are personally undesirable. They are, and should be, simply prohibited entry. Fine.

There are also people who are wanted individually, but who, if they come in too great of numbers, may impose costs on the system that are undesirable even though each immigrant personally is not. Currently, the law addresses this group with hard quotas. Realigning the quotas, as discussed above, can help with some problems, but it isn't enough to fix the law. To fix it, you allow people to immigrate beyond the quotas, but charge an individual fee. Now, we have different immigration categories now, and we recognize a heirarchy of preferences that are reflected in the alotment of quotas in various categories, etc. And there is no reason not to continue to reflect those categories in the fee structure for supernumerary immigrants. Doing so reinforces the same issues addressed by existing preference categories, addresses the costs associated with the level of immigration, reduces the incentive to immigrate outside the law, and removes the political basis for much of the relunctance within the US to enforcement of immigration laws. Under this system, those who were illegal would, in fact, be those who we did not want, and those who were legal would, in fact, be those who we did want; at least, the alignment of those categories would be a lot tighter than they are today.

Whether that law does, in fact, the central issue of the immigration debate.

s/b

Whether that law does, in fact, represent what we want is the central issue of the immigration debate.

Carolyn Williams: Illegal immigration became a problem/issue when one of the many scandals was being reported in all media

Illegal immigration was an issue over 20 years ago, when we had our last "reform". Since then the situation has only gotten worse.

The Mexicans moving above the border may have bothered officials and citizens directly affected by their effect upon their school systems and social services, but for the most part, these locales were isolated and limited to very few.

12 million illegal aliens is a lot more than an "isolated and limited" problem.

BTW, what makes you think all illegal aliens are Mexican? Please take your generalizations elsewhere.

And it has become one, all over the nation. Had they slipped in from Canada, spoke English and been a few shades lighter in color, the populace of the US would have yawned.

Illegal Irish immigrants speak English and are whiter than the average American. Twenty years ago they were as much a problem as illegal Mexican, Central American or Asian aliens. That's only changed because the Irish economy has improved.

As to your idea that opposition to the US governments tolerance of illegal aliens is necessarily racially motivated, please take your bigotry elsewhere.

But it's true, Americans love to feel self-righteous about some group that is hurting them.

In this case it's justified. The group that's hurting them is the US government and the people who pay them to have de facto cheap labor policies.

The truth is that immigrants from below the border are simply working long hours, at below minimum wage jobs ... The [illegal] immigrants are performing jobs that virtually no one born in this country would take.

Of course no one in this country would (or should) take them - they pay below minimum wage. This has nothing to do with the work and everything to do with the pay. For less than minimum wage you couldn't hire stock brokers or lawyers either.

It's interesting that you parrot George W. Bush's line about illegal aliens taking jobs that no Americans would - are you also a foe of American labor?

I invite the only people who should have the right to allow or reject people from entering the US to make that decision; Native Americans/Indians. Let the tribes decide, Arapaho, Creek, Osage, Ute ...

Fine by me, as long as we're consistent and allow them to decide whether the US should exist at all. Until they decide that it shouldn't, we should accept that the US is a sovereign country with a right to determine what immigration policies benefit its citizens and to enforce those policies.

Hippies.
Feminists.
Blacks.
Criminals.
Flagburners.
Gays.
Arabs.
Moslems.
Liberals.
Secular humanists.
Illegal immigrants.

I'm sure I've forgotten a few. Every two years there's gotta be someone to hate, fear, and dehumanize. Just go back and read the old newspapers. When hating, fearing, and dehumanizing one group doesn't get you enough votes anymore, find someone new. Rinse and repeat. 1968. 1970. 1972. 1974. 1976. And on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on... Until everyone hates everyone else, and the whole country collapses.

Two generations later, you can always graciously apologize for the damage you've done.

The Republican party wasn't always this way. But it started working for them in 1968, and they haven't looked back. Ask Kevin Phillips. Ask the late Lee Atwater. Criminy, even ask Ken Mehlman.

I keep noting that Dice is too dumb to argue with.

Others who want to kick this around, here is the core of it: if as progressives we won't make distinctions (e.g., between those we want and those we don't), we cannot make sense.

The public clearly craves a debate about immigration that makes sense. So here are the basics:

Prior to 1965, our immigration laws were essentially negative in character. That is, if we hadn't come up with a reason to keep someone out, they could come in. So naturally, we accumulated a very long list of reasons to keep people out. Some made sense, like being barred cuz a foreigner was carrying a contagious disease. Some did not, like the goofy idea that immigration should not alter America's demographics. (This was the country of origin quota system -- if the previous census determined that 15% of Americans' roots were Italian, then no more than 15% of whatever # of immigrants were allowed in for the next decade could be from Italy: families and jobs be damned.)

Since 1965, the system has been affirmative: Americans invite immigrants for family and jobs. (Refugees and asylees are different.) Citizens invite spouses, kids, parents and siblings; legal permanent residents invite spouses and kids; employers sponsor workers for green cards.

But Congress promises more than it delivers. It tries to "manage" the system by backlogs measures in millions waiting decades, and then rather than writing rules that work, tries to make exceptions. But no system with more exceptions than rules CAN work.

Progressives have fallen into the trap, partly exemplified by Dice and Williams, that what American want, as expressed in our laws, is illegitimate. That's bullshit, and we should say so every time any knucklehead brings it up.

They have adopted the framing invented by immigration's opponents, that there is no significant difference between legal and illegal, that in fact "immigration" is ABOUT "illegal" because, after all, our laws are immoral.

Fuck that.

It is impossible to build a PRO-immigration consensus on that ANTI-immigration premise.

So -- do we, as progressives, want to do better, or not?

The only sensible place to start is the distinction between legal and illegal, between those we want, and those we don't. (Stopping the NEXT illegal immigrant, the one who comes tomorrow, is far more important than what we do about the one who came yesterday. The public is tired of promises. Who can believe us when we use language like "undocumented", for folks with fistfuls of fake fake documents? Progressives should not be afraid to be blunt.)

If we can't do that, we're useless: since We, the People can't say "no", our "yes" will be increasingly meaningless.

Simple summary: Enforce employer sanctions with private sector verification, and fix legal immigration FIRST.

Yea or nay?

This is a very dangerous tact for Republicans. Nationally illegal immigration is down the issue list. Most people are primarily concerned with the economy, the war, global warming and terrorism. Damn, sorry, I forgot Bush has so poisoned the well on those issues Republicans can't even begin to compete.

You have to give Bush credit for at least recognizing that half assed Lou Dobbs style measures on immigration will destroy the long term future of the Republican party.

This looks to be a bad year and maybe the beginning of the end for Republicans.

theAmericanist, you want to solve illegal immigration? Well you might start by insisting Mexico take care of their own. Get some of those billionaires living high and wide in Mexico to start paying reasonable taxes. Insist they pay their workers a living wage. How about American/Canadian style environmental laws? How about some sort of real social security system? How about insisting the Mexicans treat their middle and working class with genuine respect and that their leadership work hard to build up the Mexican economy.

Don't kid yourself Americanist, the Mexicans are coming to America for the same reason your ancestors did. They want a better chance than is possible in their own country. In this case we are talking about Mexico the very model Republicans hold up as being their ideal "free market" society.

"people who have the right to work in this country"

Q: What gives you the power to determine who does and who does not have the right to work?

A: Eurotrash genocidal power, fueled by racist hate. Posted by: Bob G

What a crock! No one has the power to determine who has or doesn't have any rights, at least not here.

"A government of laws, and not of men."-John Adams

“The Rule of Law is fundamental to our existence as a civilized nation. The Rule of Law is not a goal which we merely aspire to achieve; it is the floor below which we must not sink."-Guess Who

Why are there millions of IllegalAliens in the U.S.? Did they suddenly drop from the skies one day?

No, they're here because our politicians allowed them to come here. And, they did that because they're on the take in one way or another.

So, by constructing a StrawmanArgument, Kevin Drum is covering for massive PoliticalCorruption. Rather than speaking out against PoliticalCorruption, he's enabling more of it.

The Bush administration and others have made it easy for banks to profit from money earned illegally, and even the FederalReserve wants a slice of money that was earned illegally.

And, all Kevin Drum can do is play childish games.

Another factor involved is the actions of the MexicanGovernment: they've been able to obtain a great deal of PoliticalPower inside the U.S., and they're using that to push their agenda. They've even explicitly stated that they're going to be using U.S. non-profits to push their goals. Which shouldn't be that difficult, since they already have direct or indirect links to several well-known non-profits.

Why, they've even got an indirect link to a few "progressive" bloggers.

This whole issue gets really complicated when, unlike Kevin Drum, you actually know what you're talking about.

[Note: WM might edit or delete this comment without notice as they have several of my comments in the past.]

Corpus notices that whole 'sun rising in the East' thing seems like a pattern: "Mexicans are coming to America for the same reason your ancestors did.." No kidding.

So what? Creating a permanent foreign underclass cuz we won't enforce the law isn't the sorta thing we should SUPPORT, is it?

Immigration OUGHT to be a wedge issue progressives can use against conservatives, defining BOTH sides so we get a majority on OUR side.

It has historically always polled the pattern of 'great cleavage but little salience'. Little salience: if people are asked cold what's the their 3, 5, 10, even 20 issues, it's not there except for a couple small and unpersuadeable minorities who are irreconcilable: open border advocates and Know-Nothing nativists. But for nearly 30 years, polls show if you ask what people think about immigration, you immediately get sharp and strong opinions: cleavage.

That's the situation we are in now. Rasmussen finds that for Republican primary voters, immigration even outranks Iraq; Quinnipiac finds astonishing differences in 'tudes toward legal and illegal in Pennsylvania and Ohio, surely two vital states next year; Greenberg, Penn, and all the rest consistently show this is a killer issue for '08.

So we need to pull our collective head out of our... sand.

IMNSHO, what I'm describing is HOW progressives should define ourselves on immigration: the Ellis Island model. CITIZENSHIP -- which depends on the rule of law.

"What is good in immigration, is good for Americanization; what is bad in immigration, is bad for Americanization."

Yea or nay?

Native Americans/Indians. Let the tribes decide

Indigenous inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere have had their status for living in their world usurped by European immigrants. The first European immigrants to the Northern part of the Western Hemisphere, Jamestown and Plymouth, were also the first illegal immigrants. They received no legal status from the inhabitants already living where they wanted to settle. These European immigrants then created an illegitimate government that made the indigenous people non-citizens and created frontiers where none existed before.

Now the descendants of the European immigrants want to continue the usurpation of the original inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere that their ancestors started, and deny indigenous people their right to migrate and work. The European immigrant descendants want to use their illegitimate government to declare indigenous human beings to the Western Hemisphere alien and illegal occupants. Attempting to dehumanize people and prevent natural migration usually ends very badly.

At the end of WW I, Europe was filled with millions of displaced refugees. A similar reaction 'Americans' are making now took place, and many of these people were stripped of legal resident status and harassed the way European Americans harass indigenous Western Hemisphere immigrants today. Fortunately for the those European refugees, they had America to come to. Unfortunately, their children and grandchildren have become like the rabid nationalists they escaped, who now want to enforce the same kind of discrimination that drove their ancestors to America. Europe's treatment of its own indigenous people, who were displaced by war, was partly responsible for an even more horrific war, which contributed a new word to our vocabulary: genocide.

The new American attitude of treating people as illegal and alien can only end very badly. As badly as what happened in Europe in the 1930's and '40's. As badly as the fate of the Mohicans.

OT:
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, ..."

It seems that most of the irrational fear and hatred of illegal immigrants comes from smaller northern (in relation to the border) towns who haven't had immigrant populations since the 19th Century.

Ah, the Heartland!

Not true. Prince William County, Va., where I live, is in the forefront of this, and a lot of Hispanics have moved here (in fact, both of the county's AM radio stations have converted to Spanish-speaking formats, as these days, most Anglos listen to FM). Much of the immigrant-bashing is good old-fashioned backward southern fundamentalist Protestant xenophobia. (Prince William, perhaps because of Quantico and the Marine presence, is considerably more conservative than Fairfax, Arlington or other areas of northern Virginia.)

Brojo, perhaps you've heard of Planet Earth?

On THIS planet, peoples have invaded, absorbed, exterminated and replaced each other since long before any of it was recorded. The Japanese replaced the Ainu; the Zulus drove a dozen nations before them when they invaded southern Africa; the Celts came from central Asia, crossed middle Europe and wound up in Ireland before they leaped to the Americas. So why do you single out what Europeans diseases did to the first peoples rather than, f'r instance, what the Six Nations did to the nations that spoke Algonquin?

Cuz you can't handle the truth of it, which is that Europeans came to this country and created an engine of liberty and prosperity that depends on an inclusive vision of citizenship that you reject. You LOVE the history of disease, atrocity and genocide: what you truly object to is the record of American inclusion and progress.

Native Americans have been US citizens since the 1920s, if they weren't already (long story, that), so enough with the bogus 'give the country back to Powhatan' crap, willya?

"But it's true, Americans love to feel self-righteous about some group that is hurting them."

In this case it's justified. The group that's hurting them is the US government and the people who pay them to have de facto cheap labor policies.

And yet, Repubicans refuse to focus their anger at the enablers (R-congresscritters) and the law breakers (major labor-based corporations). The Bush Admin's official policy on illegal immigration is that if illegals get more than 2 miles across the border, let them go. Will the Republican base vote for a change in Washington....?

I always have favored the Dems, even if I don?t vote for them.

They always have to detest someone, don't they?

Sure, but all brown-people hate is not the same. Now, if you can meld illegal immigration with tarrism, then you've got the real two-fer - or is it two-fear?

“The Rule of Law is fundamental to our existence as a civilized nation.

Tell that to the Bush administration. Funny how you never seem too bothered with their lawbreaking. Scratch that, it's not funny.

Recently I met a friend of my brother's, who owns a lawn service business in Northern Virginia. He complains constantly about illegal aliens and is a devoted follower of Rush Limbaugh. The irony is that he himself is the son of an immigrant (Iranian) and employes a staff of illegal aliens to operate his lawn service (he doesn't actually mow the lawns himself, of course). He knows he would go out of business without the illegals, but he still loves to bash them anyway!
My only explanation for this amazingly hypocrital attitude is that he really wants to be part of the culturally conservative lifesyle as exemplified by the Republican party and so he goes along willingly with whatever the right-wingers are spouting off about.
To my mind he is the equivalent of a closeted gay person working for Pat Robertson or the like, and somehow justifiying it because he was raised to be fundamentalist and just can't give it up.

scudbucket doesn't know what it's talking about. See the response to LindsayGraham and see JohnMcCain's presidential chances. See also various things like bankofamericaboycott.com

In any case, if his posts on this topic weren't enough of a clue, Kevin Drum has admitted to me that he isn't that familiar with these issues. So, his "argument" up above is coming from a position of ignorance.

Meanwhile, the Dem Party might want to consider what's going to happen if (after she gets the nomination) a few people start asking HillaryClinton this question. Of course, the MSM is never going to ask that question, but I'm refering to regular citizens, over 14,000 of whom have already watched the video. Given those numbers I have to believe that eventually someone is going to try to ask her that or similar questions, with her responses uploaded back to Youtube. With enough things like that, I don't think too many people are going to trust the Democrats on this or other issues.

As for Obama, don't worry, I've got him covered too, with almost 14,000 views for this one:

youtube.com/watch?v=EiullH5jU1A

Another reality check point: It's not simply that citizenship depends on the rule of law.

It is also true that people who obey the law and make a commitment to the United States, who get on the path to citizenship, should be treated better than those who don't.

THIS is another place where progressives should make a difference between us and conservatives: but we don't.

A f'r instance: three different guys come here, get jobs, then get married to their high school sweethearts and, naturally, want to bring her here to start a new American family.

First guy comes ILLEGALLY. So he brings his wife illegally. Barring death in the desert or another smuggler atrocity, they do fine: forged documents, etc. Dice and Williams and Brojo figure this must be what "immigration" is all about: they're wrong.

Second guy comes legally, as a temporary worker. He refuses to make a commitment to America by getting a green card. He gets married. His wife can come here WITHIN A MONTH, legally.

Third guy comes legally. Makes a commitment to the US by getting a green card. In five years, he plans to become a US citizen -- and during those five years, he cannot leave America for long. He gets married to his sweetheart from back home. But HIS wife can't come for 5-7 years.

Kyl said during the Senate debate that was fine with him; Clinton fought for these folks, and lost.

Has Kevin ever spoken up about it? Anybody on the progressive side ever said so anybody'd notice, gee, this is the REAL defense of marriage?

Are there are as many progressives who jump up and down to say that it is WRONG that the guy who breaks the law, and the one who has NOT made a commitment to the US, get treated better than the guy who obeys the law and seeks to become a citizen, as there are Dice's and Williams's and Brojo's bitching about how mean it is that guy #1's choice to break the law has consequences?

Thus, the reality check: people who obey the law and make a commitment to the United States, who get on the path to citizenship, should be treated better than those who don't.

Yea or nay?

“The Rule of Law is fundamental to our existence as a civilized nation.

Tell that to the Bush administration. Funny how you never seem too bothered with their lawbreaking. Scratch that, it's not funny.
Posted by: ckelly

[Closing paragraphs] The Rule of Law is fundamental to our existence as a civilized nation. The Rule of Law is not a goal which we merely aspire to achieve; it is the floor below which we must not sink. For the Rule of Law to function effectively, however, it must provide actual rules that can be followed. In this instance, the relevant rule—the law—has long been clear: Waterboarding detainees amounts to illegal torture in all circumstances. To suggest otherwise—or even to give credence to such a suggestion—represents both an affront to the law and to the core values of our nation.

We respectfully urge you to consider these principles in connection with the nomination of Judge Mukasey.

Sincerely,

Rear Admiral Donald J. Guter, United States Navy (Ret.) Judge Advocate General of the Navy, 2000-02

Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, United States Navy (Ret.) Judge Advocate General of the Navy, 1997-2000

Major General John L. Fugh, United States Army (Ret.) Judge Advocate General of the Army, 1991-93

Brigadier General David M. Brahms, United States Marine Corps (Ret.) Staff Judge Advocate to the Commandant, 1985-88

Funny how some folks think they know what doesn't bother someone else. No, scratch that, it's not funny.

scudbucket doesn't know what it's talking about.

My point pertained to voters, not candidates, but more generally, the problem facing the Republican party is that (for better or worse) it's funded by and panders to big business, which also happen to be the biggest beneficiaries of cheap labor (legal or otherwise), union busting, labor and industry deregulation, etc., and the primary shapers of those policies. Running on a 'get tough on illegal immigrant' platform is antithetical to the fundamental purpose of the current GOP: enrich large corporations. That's not to say, however, that there are no traditional (economically) conservative planks in a particular candidates platform.

I suppose there's no real chance of penetrating the echo chamber, but there goes.

Republicans don't hate anyone, at least any more than members of other political parties hate anyone. The LA Times piece is a smear job, intended to demonize anyone who thinks immigration should be an orderly process.

We shouldn't reward bad behavior. We shouldn't grant a blanket amnesty to those who circumvented the rules when they immigrated to the U.S. You can argue that we're not open to enough legal immigration (a position most Republicans agree with), but you can't do that while arguing in favor of lax border control.

Drum agrees that we shouldn't reward the bad behavior of the mortgage companies with a bailout, can he not see the same principle applies to illegal immigration?

Start by locking up the CEO's of the companies that employ undocumented workers. So long as there is an economic incentive to cross the border illegally, people will do so. So long as there is an economic incentive to hire undocumented workers, companies will do so.

Standard NeoCoNazi ploy, such xenophobia -- as was entirely true for their ideological predecessors. Of course, the Third Reich directed its own manipulative hostility towards these people, among others:

New Poll Reveals How Unrepresentative Neocon Jewish Groups Are
by Glenn Greenwald [Salon.com]

A new survey of American Jewish opinion, released by the American Jewish Committee, demonstrates several important propositions: (1) right-wing neocons (the Bill Kristol/Commentary/ AIPAC/Marty Peretz faction) who relentlessly claim to speak for Israel and for Jews generally hold views that are shared only by a small minority of American Jews; (2) viewpoints that are routinely demonized as reflective of animus towards Israel or even anti-Semitism are ones that are held by large majorities of American Jews; and (3) most American Jews oppose U.S. military action in the Middle East -- including both in Iraq and against Iran.

It is beyond dispute that American Jews overwhelmingly oppose core neoconservative foreign policy principles. Hence, in large numbers, they disapprove of the way the U.S. is handling its "campaign against terrorism" (59-31); overwhelmingly believe the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq (67-27); believe that things are going "somewhat badly" or "very badly" in Iraq (76-23); and believe that the "surge" has either made things worse or has had no impact (68-30).

When asked whether they would support or oppose the United States taking military action against Iran, a large majority -- 57-35% -- say they would oppose such action, even if it were being undertaken "to prevent [Iran] from developing nuclear weapons." While Jews hold views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which are quite pessimistic about the prospects for Israel's ability to achieve a lasting peace with its "Arab neighbors," even there, a plurality (46-43) supports the establishment of a Palestinian state. ...

[Emphasis in original; links throughout.]
.

That's where the private sector role in worksite verification comes in.

There is a weird reflex on the part of a certain strain in progressivism to imagine that immigration reform is like the civil rights movement: it's not.

The best way to fight discrimination is to treat everybody exactly the same. So when you or I or Lao Baixing or anybody gets a job, we have to provide a Social Security # for tax purposes. the way to stop illegal immigration is to verify that the name matches the # and that the pair is authorized to work in the US.

The hard part is imposter fraud -- I might show Blue Girl's driver's license with my picture on it. So it's NOT about a "national ID card", it's not about the document at all.

And let's face it, nobody can trust the DHS, the agency that gave us the reaction to Katrina, to handle 150 million hires a year.

And yet -- when my wallet was stolen on a Saturday afternoon, Mastercard called me Sunday morning long before I knew it was gone. Their computers had caught that my card was being used to buy cartons of cigarettes at 7-11s, two things I had never done before: "Excuse me, Mr. Americanist, but do you know where your credit card is?" (One of those questions that tells you the answer isn't what you'd have thought it was before you were asked.)

The point is -- people don't RESIST privacy and identify theft protections when they are provided by the private sector: we PAY for it, and are glad about it.

Good employers (and that's most of 'em) don't want to break the law. That's bad business. They're not the enemy. Just like with the guy who obeys the law and makes a commitment to the US, we want to make it EASY for employers who obey the law.

Trouble is -- look at the "progressive" reaction to enforcement. It's "discrimination" when people who are here illegally get caught working with false documents. That Mexican gangs steal the identities of US citizens born in Puerto Rico is somehow translated by "progressives" into discrimination against Hispanics.

One more time: if we won't make distinctions, we can't make sense.

>i>Republicans don't hate anyone

Yes, of course. All the rhetoric (and actions) are evidence of deep compassion. The sort of compassion evinced by Golda Mier when she said she could never forgive the Palestinians for forcing her to bomb them back to the stone age. I'm sure Tancredo felt the same moral reluctance when he called for indiscriminate bombing of Muslim mosques.

scudbucket still doesn't know what it's talking about. There's a split in the GOP between the leaders - who do support cheap labor - and the rest - who oppose illegal activity.

And, being linked to big business isn't only a GOP issue, not by a long shot.

Take a look at the corps who donate to the NationalCouncilOfLaRaza. Then, there's the recent suit brought by the ACLU, together with the U.S. ChamberOfCommerce and the AFLCIO.

And, an ACLU chapter has even joined forces with TysonsChicken.

But, the links don't stop there: the ACLU has an indirect link to the MexicanGovernment, as do several other nonprofits; see the link in my first comment.

Unfortunately, this will have to be the last response to scudbucket, because I want to give others a chance.

1. Tancredo didn't say what scudbucket pretends. He only said we should do that in a worst case scenario after nukes have gone off in several U.S. cities. It's called MAD; look it up.

2. Those who support IllegalImmigration are not in any way "compassionate". To be frank, those who do that are one degree or other of crooks, or they're useful idiots. Taking 14% of a country's working population and trying to take more is not "compassionate", nor is encouraging people to try to cross the desert "compassionate", nor is enriching crooks "compassionate". Try and think it through.

AnnoyingLDC,
My point is that a Republican voter is a bit hamstrung if he wants to remain within the current GOP fold and vote R on election day but also desires an end to illegal immigration (the reasons stated above). If your point is that the problem generalizes, so be it. I was specifically referring to Republican voters because GOP candidates are the ones promoting draconian political solutions and trying to make it into a campaign issue. Otherwise, I'm not sure what your point is.

Both parties play the detestation game -- illegal immigrants for the Republicans, George Bush for the Dems. Illegal immigration will still be a problem in November, so detestation of it will help rally Republican votes. But, George Bush won't be running in November, so detestation of Bush will not be as helpful to rally the Dems.

ALDC
Those who support IllegalImmigration are not in any way "compassionate".

Now you're arguing a strawman: no progressive supports illegal immigration. The laws ought to be enforced, or changed to accomodate some pressing national need. Blanket amnesty is an option for those already here, but there are other solutions which allow illegals to become legal. Tancredo, as I recall, wants forced deportation, which raises relevant and important moral issues, but is also economically and pragmatically infeasible.

I keep noting that Dice is too dumb to argue with.

As always, you are much better at insult than argument.

Others who want to kick this around, here is the core of it: if as progressives we won't make distinctions (e.g., between those we want and those we don't), we cannot make sense.

Agreed. Which is why you fail to make sense when you fail to make distinction between what the law is (i.e., what immigrants are presently allowed) and what the law should be (i.e., what immigrants it would be best for us to allow, or, phrased a different way, which immigrants are, in fact, "wanted".)

This is an critical distinction, and one which you frequently (though not quite consistently, as you occasional go off on extended rants about Congress failing to live up to its commitments, which rants rely on recognizing that a distinction does exist here) not only fail to make, but explicitly reject.

The public clearly craves a debate about immigration that makes sense.

No, the public does not crave a debate at all. The individual members of the public crave solutions to immediate financial and other problems in their own lives. The immigration debate is, largely, simply what they are sold as a distraction from those problems, in order to direct their frustration at a vulnerable group to distract them from the people really benefitting the most from the conditions with which large portions of the public are frustrated.

Prior to 1965, our immigration laws were essentially negative in character. That is, if we hadn't come up with a reason to keep someone out, they could come in. So naturally, we accumulated a very long list of reasons to keep people out. Some made sense, like being barred cuz a foreigner was carrying a contagious disease. Some did not, like the goofy idea that immigration should not alter America's demographics. (This was the country of origin quota system -- if the previous census determined that 15% of Americans' roots were Italian, then no more than 15% of whatever # of immigrants were allowed in for the next decade could be from Italy: families and jobs be damned.)

Since 1965, the system has been affirmative: Americans invite immigrants for family and jobs. (Refugees and asylees are different.) Citizens invite spouses, kids, parents and siblings; legal permanent residents invite spouses and kids; employers sponsor workers for green cards.

This isn't really all that true. While it is true that the present system uses a variety of preference categories, most of which are based on personal sponsorship of some sort, it is not a reverse from the kind of negative rules that existed in the pre-1965 system. Negative disqualifications and the kinds of limits (though different in precise implementation) found in the 1965 system remain an important feature of the status quo system (and remain a mix of sensible and non-sensible rules.) The affirmative requirements don't replace them, they are layered on top of them.

But Congress promises more than it delivers. It tries to "manage" the system by backlogs measures in millions waiting decades, and then rather than writing rules that work, tries to make exceptions. But no system with more exceptions than rules CAN work.

It is impossible for a system to have more rules than exceptions since every exception is, itself, a rule; and without changing any substance, you can recast any exception as a basic rule and any basic rule as an exception to some other rule -- their is a strict equivalence between them. You make a cute slogan, but it is meaningless.

The problem is not the number of rules vs. the number of exceptions.

The problem is the specific content and effect of the rules.

Progressives have fallen into the trap, partly exemplified by Dice and Williams, that what American want, as expressed in our laws, is illegitimate.

No progressive I know believes that. What I have said is that our laws do not express and, more importantly, do not produce what, in fact, we want. But its amazing that in the space of two paragraphs you've gone from criticizing what Congress does, and the rules and exceptions it creates (collectively, "the law"), for failing to reflect what is wanted, to stating that the law does, in fact, reflect what is desired.

Unlike you, I have a simple, coherent position: the the status quo law reflects important concerns, and in outline expresses approximately what we want in the area of immigration. But there are serious problems resulting from the details of the current law, which make it do a poor job of addressing the important concerns which underlie it, and which make it a poor reflection, ultimately, of what is desired.

They have adopted the framing invented by immigration's opponents, that there is no significant difference between legal and illegal

Who here has argued that? You've specifically said that I "partly exemplify" this group (which is something of an incoherent idea itself), yet I've certainly never claimed that there is "no signficant difference between legal and illegal".

I have said that the first step to dealing with the problem of illegal immigration is to make sure that "illegal" is "unwanted" by retuning what is allowed by the current system.

The only sensible place to start is the distinction between legal and illegal, between those we want, and those we don't.

I agree. My primary criticism of your position is that it fails to start there, and skips right over it. You simply take it for granted, rather than making it the starting place of fixing the problem.

Stopping the NEXT illegal immigrant, the one who comes tomorrow, is far more important than what we do about the one who came yesterday.

What is really important, I would argue, is:
1) Stopping unwanted immigration,
2) Allowing wanted immigration,
3) Managing the cost and efficiency of #1 and #2

Defining what will be "legal" and "illegal" is a means to serve all three of those ends, and the current definitions are acceptable only to the extent they are consistent with those goals.

You can't make any progress in addressing the problem of illegal immigration without addressing the alignment of what is legal with the public interest.

The public is tired of promises.

And yet, that's all you offer. Promises to do better enforcing the existing, broken laws that every "reform" has promised to enforce better (often with a lot more substance than you offer), and yet failed to really address the problem.

Yeah, we need to fix legal immigration first — as I've been arguing here, with specifics, for years. The difference between my position and yours is that mine addresses the reasons the promises of greater enforcement have failed that exist in the structure of the immigration system. You criticize promises, and offer nothing but empty promises. You criticize the failure to make important distinctions, but fail to distinguish between what is currently legal and what is desired. You praise the status quo law as reflecting the desires of the nation, and yet criticize Congress for its laws that you claim fail to do what is desired. Your position is incoherent, and without substance.

There is a reason that immigrants are the hated people of the moment.

George Bush is a horrible President, and he has done everything that Right Wing Conservatives have wanted him to do except one thing: Crack down on immigration.

Conservatives need to distance themselves from Bush because he is an albatross, so they point to the one issue on which they differ from him.

Why are wages not rising despite low taxes, deficit spending, and an overall lack of regulation? If you're a Republican, the only possible explanation is that those immigrants are keeping us down.

Trouble is -- look at the "progressive" reaction to enforcement. It's "discrimination" when people who are here illegally get caught working with false documents.

Please point to any "progressive" here who has characterized people getting caught, in general, as "discrimination". Make sure to exclude any cases where the "progressive" was referring to selective enforcement as discriminatory, or was referring to the policies (such as the numerical limits not aligned with demand) which make a particular act of immigration illegal in the first place "illegal" as discriminatory, and to point specifically to a case that actually is what you claimed above rather than something else.

Because it seems to me that this, like virtually all of your characterizations (especially on this issue) of what "progressives" are arguing is just another argument you made up.

Brojo, perhaps you've heard of Planet Earth?

Mother Earth does not want to be divided up into nation states so that racists can exclude people they deem unworthy of citizenship. We are all members of this Earth. Let us treat each and everyone as a citizen and stop all of this bickering about who is what and where they should live before we again impose the wholesale slaughter of our ancestors.

Europeans came to this country and created an engine of liberty and prosperity that depends on an inclusive vision of citizenship that you reject.

By the European immigrant children's own standards, the first Europeans illegally immigrated to the Western Hemisphere. Then they created illegitimate law that you want to use to exclude the very people who were living in this part of the world long before Europeans knew it existed.

European Americans do have a lot in common with Aztecs and Incans. Like the other tribes who joined with the Spaniards to rid themselves of their indigenous oppressors, I ally with one worlders to rid Mother Earth of racist Chauvanists.

Also, I stand by my comments upthread. If you are against amnesty, either explain what you are going to do with the over ten million illegal immigrants in our country or state that you are for the status quo.

If you say that you are in favor of throwing CEOs in jail, then you are talking about a bill/poison pill that will never pass, so that goes as a vote for the status quo. You might as well propose giving everybody 72 virgins.

As it's said, acceptance is the first step:

Are Americans Really "Better Than That?"
by Ray McGovern

Have you noticed the shameful silence of our institutional churches, synagogues, and mosques? True, on occasion a professor of moral theology will speak out. Professor William Schweiker of the Chicago Divinity School, for example, has heaped scorn on the scenario of the lone knower of the facts whose torture is thought to be able to save millions of lives. He notes that such is "the stuff of bad spy movies and bad exam questions in ethics courses." ...

This Happened Before

With very few exceptions, the institutional churches in Nazi Germany kept a shameful silence, denying believers the moral authority and leadership so needed to stand up to Gestapo torturers. Indeed, many of the bishops-like military leaders, and jurists-swore a personal oath to Hitler. For his part, the Nazi leader moved quite quickly to ensure that there was a pastor-whether Evangelical or Catholic-in every parish in Germany. He saw this as a source of support and stability for his regime. And, sadly, it was.

While the Nazis were systematically torturing and even murdering defenseless victims, they kept repeating assurances that not a single hair of anyone's head would be harmed. (Shades of the familiar refrain "we do not torture.") And the propaganda machine under Joseph Goebbels made a fine art of what President Bush calls the need to "catapult the propaganda." ...
.

Both parties play the detestation game -- illegal immigrants for the Republicans, George Bush for the Dems.

Yawn...."ex-liberal" is just phoning in his bad-faith false equivalencies these days. I guess George W. Bush ruination of the GOP's decades-long branding effort as "strong on defense," and in particular the collapse of the necons' effort to bamboozle the nation yet again into war with one of Israel's regional rivals -- but not the general moral depravity of the modern conservative movement, in which he participates enthusiastically -- has really demoralized him into these halfhearted, even-less-convincing-than-usual efforts. Poor baby.

Also, I stand by my comments upthread. If you are against amnesty, either explain what you are going to do with the over ten million illegal immigrants in our country or state that you are for the status quo.

It seems to me that any amnesty or other adjustment policy toward current illegals ought to be discussed only as a component of a broader policy that offers some reasonable hope of dealing with the ongoing problem, and needs to be evaluated in the context of the overall policy. And it seems to me, also, that the outlines of the general policy need to be largely settled on their own merits, and any adjustment policy needs to be calibrated to fit into it, rather than settling on the adjustment policy and then looking for a broader solution.

Its true that handling the current population is a more immediately pressing problem, but the more general policy has the greater long-term importance, and the wrong adjustment policy could have severe consequences for the longer-term policy.

If your broader policy is one of the many "more of the same" policies being offered (such as theAmericanist's), the adjustment policy isn't going to matter a whole lot outside of the very short term, since all the same long-term problems that currently exist will remain.

As noted many times before, Dice isn't worth engaging: he's clueless, ignorant and stooopid about it. (shrug)

Reino poses a false choice: "If you are against amnesty, either explain what you are going to do with the over ten million illegal immigrants in our country or state that you are for the status quo."

The NEXT foreigner who sneaks into the country, or who overstays a legal visa, is much more important than the LAST one. This is both politically and substantively vital to understand.

Substantively: like immigration itself, illegal immigration is an ongoing thing. It's active, not static. The premise of the failed 1986 Act (based on the Hesburgh recommendations in 1981) was to wipe the slate clean and start over -- a general amnesty, so we wouldn't waste time correcting past errors, and from THEN on, no more illegal immigration cuz we'd have employer sanctions.

It didn't work cuz of the failure to verify that people getting jobs were legal. But the basic tradeoff made sense, and still does.

Like I've said in other contexts, it's much easier to go forward in the right way if you don't spend all your time looking in the rear view mirror: deterring illegal immigration is NOT about the ones that are already here. (Psst -- they're already HERE, so they weren't deterred.)

When those who illegally look for work TOMORROW can't be hired at legit businesses, so even those who've sneaked in already can't leave under the table cash economy jobs for higher-paying legit ones: we'll have won the fight against illegal immigration. Next!

Enforcing the law effectively obliterates the status quo, with or without amnesty.

So much for the substance.

Politically, the key is CREDIBILITY. The public isn't stoooopid. (In this, as in many other characteristics, the public is different from Dice.) A primary reason the comprehensive package cratered in the Senate is simply that literally no one believed in it, including its authors. A premise of the 1986 amnesty was that it was a one-shot deal, something we would never, ever do again -- nor ever HAVE to, because by golly, we were gonna fix it this time.

You can't do that TWICE, and have anybody believe you, as proponents of "earned legalization" discovered. It was like they were still trying to sell New Coke.

So enforcing the law is the key to credibility -- and credibility, is the key to generosity.

Those of us who believe in a generous immigration policy have to be more credible than we have been so far. Posing false choices, as Reino does: amnesty or mass deportations? -- doesn't help our credibility.

Restrictionists (notably Mark Krikorian) call for a policy of "attrition" rather than removal -- 'we don't have to deport 12 million illegal aliens', they say, 'because once they realize they can't legit jobs they will leave'. That's half a point, but it's still more than most progressives can do, buying into the false choice Reino poses.

Senator Specter has an even more half-assed idea -- a "blue card", as opposed to a green card: legal permanent residency that is NOT a path to citizenship. The idea is that illegal workers would be 'legalized', but not eligible for naturalization: ever.

I think both of those are bogus, BUT the point is that the public doesn't buy ANY of this hooey. And they shouldn't. WAAY too many years of promises without performance.

We've simply got to enforce the law against illegal hiring. The key to that is verification. The key to THAT, is the private sector.

And that's where credibility comes from. Without it, nothing else is really possible.

Framing the whole thing in terms of "amnesty" is simply misconceived -- as off base as debating Dice.

Mother Earth does not disown exclusionary clowns.

She is very forgiving.

The NEXT foreigner who sneaks into the country

How did your ancestors sneak into the country?

Like I've said in other contexts, it's much easier to go forward in the right way if you don't spend all your time looking in the rear view mirror: deterring illegal immigration is NOT about the ones that are already here.

Deterring illegal immigration, of course, isn't.

Dealing with the problem of illegal immigration, OTOH, is very much about the ones that are already here, since, even if your reform has no effect on new illegal immigration (and especially if you do manage to do something effective about it), those already here at the effective date of the reform will outnumber those who become unlawfully present after the reform for quite some time.

You certainly have to figure out the broader approach in order to discuss sensibly what to do with those already here, since you don't want to undercut the longer-term policy with the immediate policy. But most of your short-term effects on the actual problems due to illegal immigration will be from the shorter-term policy.

Which is why (on both the side supporting them and that opposing them) amnesty and other short-term policies generate a lot of heat, even though in the long term they are the least important part of the policy approach: they are the part whose effect will be felt must immediately.

The premise of the failed 1986 Act (based on the Hesburgh recommendations in 1981) was to wipe the slate clean and start over -- a general amnesty, so we wouldn't waste time correcting past errors, and from THEN on, no more illegal immigration cuz we'd have employer sanctions.

It didn't work cuz of the failure to verify that people getting jobs were legal.

It didn't work for lots of reasons; trying to lay all the failure there misses the point. Plenty of people don't come over with jobs, they come over because they are family of people already legally present and they don't wait through the infinitely long lists. They have someone to support them, and better employer sanctions wouldn't have any effect on them whatsoever.

It also failed to be a complete amnesty in practice, and failed in a number of other ways, as well.

But the basic tradeoff made sense, and still does.

The "basic tradeoff" the 1986 "reform" proposed doesn't address any of the fundamental problems with the status quo system that present barriers to it acheiving its purposes, that encourage illegal immigration, or that make large numbers of citizens unwilling to support the system in specific cases even when they agree with it in outline, and which therefore frustrate enforcement. And any subsequent "reform" on the same model with those same failings will, likewise, fail utterly to address the problem.

When those who illegally look for work TOMORROW can't be hired at legit businesses, so even those who've sneaked in already can't leave under the table cash economy jobs for higher-paying legit ones: we'll have won the fight against illegal immigration.

Not so long as (1) we have long waiting lists for legal immigration for people whose motivation is family-related rather than economic, and who therefore have substantially the same motivation to immigrate even if the incentives for economic immigrants are lessened, and (2) the under-the-table, cash-economy jobs are still far better than what immigrants would earn in the formal economy in their own country, leaving a strong economic incentive for illegal immigration even in the absence of quasi-legitimate (though still fraudulent) employment.

Enforcing the law effectively obliterates the status quo, with or without amnesty.

Effectively enforcing the whole of the immigration law, by definition, would eliminate unlawful presence entirely. That's trivially true. However, you haven't proposed anything that even offers a remote hope of effective enforcement, just vague platitudes about private sector employment verification and empty promises of general enforcement without any policy changes that would actually address the substantial barriers to effective enforcement.

Politically, the key is CREDIBILITY. The public isn't stoooopid.

And yet you expect to sell them on a plan whose only substantive proposal is "private-sector verification" of the kind used in Florida's felony disenfranchisement program?

So enforcing the law is the key to credibility -- and credibility, is the key to generosity.

The key to credibility is to offer something that shows at least some sign of understanding the substantive problems and addressing them; what you proposes shows that you don't understand most of the problems with enforcement, and aren't all that interested in doing much more than handwaving at the one part (the otherwise-legitimate-employer side) that you do recognize.

Those of us who believe in a generous immigration policy have to be more credible than we have been so far.

Well, I wouldn't necessarily include other people who believe in more generous immigration policy in there with you, but you certainly need to be more credible than you have been thus far.

Posing false choices, as Reino does: amnesty or mass deportations? -- doesn't help our credibility.

Could you for once try to present someone else's position without lying? Reino doesn't state that the only options or amnesty or mass deportations, Reino did state that those who oppose amnesty ought to explain what they would do as far as those who are here, even if that means admitting they would continue the status quo treatment (which is not "mass deportations".)

WAAY too many years of promises without performance.

And yet, that's all you offer: promises of success with a plan that addresses only a small part of the problem, and presents no reasonable basis for believing it will address even that part well.

We've simply got to enforce the law against illegal hiring.

Certainly, any law that we have should be enforced. But that one law is not the sum and substance of what needs to be enforced better to deal with the problem of illegal immigration, nor is any practical measure of better enforcement ever going to be, absent substantive policy changes outside of the enforcement area, going to do a whole lot.

The key to that is verification. The key to THAT, is the private sector.

The public sector does the job of verifying documentation for permission to immigrate. It does the job of verifying documentation supporting identity for, e.g., driver's licenses. There is absolutely no reason that it can't do the job for workplace verification. And outsourcing this kind of thing (e.g., Florida's felon disenfranchisement program) has not exactly been something that has inspired much confidence.

OTOH, when a lobbyist is so interested in the private sector performing a function like this, its usually because they are lobbying for someone in the private sector hoping to make a lot of money doing something like this. Is that what's going on here?

It's really none of our business. I invite the only people who should have the right to allow or reject people from entering the US to make that decision; Native Americans/Indians. Let the tribes decide, Arapaho, Creek, Osage, Ute ................

Since the vast majority of people crossing the southern USA border without papers are of indigenous descent, so-called illegal immigration from there should be viewed as repatriation.

If someone wants to get their hate-on vis a vis illegal immigrants, direct it against all the illegal eastern euro immigrants.

Repatriation...an excellent point of view.

Thanks

Pro-illegal means pro-corruption. What does "illegal" mean, lib boys and girls?

What character the libs have!

OK, one more. scudbucket is still wrong, because, while most "progressives" will rush to claim they oppose illegal immigration, those same people take every step they can to enable it. Such as by calling those who support our laws names, filing lawsuits (with the ChamberOfCommerce), and so on.

I don't have the time to answer cmdicely's Bible-length comments, but I'll point out that the idea that illegal aliens are a "vulnerable group" is absurd. I explain why that's absurd here.

As for what to do, simply start enforcing the laws. We can get to that point by discrediting those who support or enable illegal immigration in any way, especially political candidates:

youtube.com/watch?v=Q_l4Lawj14A
youtube.com/watch?v=EiullH5jU1A

Disputo: Since the vast majority of people crossing the southern USA border without papers are of indigenous descent, so-called illegal immigration from there should be viewed as repatriation.

Your lumping the people of indigenous descent into a single group is a result of your W