The Immigration Debate

It's a debate that never ends. Border security and illegal immigration have been front and center due to the new Arizona law. I've been putting a lot of thought into how I wanted to present this post. I could just pick a side and engage in the same argument you see in countless other blogs and protests but I wanted to present a different type of argument regarding this age old issue. By the end of reading this only you can decide for yourself whether or not I've succeeded.

I can't blame the illegals for wanting to come here and for taking such risks in many cases to get here. Would you rather live in Mexico than the U.S? Our dismal economy has actually caused some illegals to leave for economic reasons. Yet Obama and his supporters continue to try and convince us that the economy has been saved due to his stimulus etc. It sure doesn't seem like it.

What we need is a more streamlined process to come here legally. If becoming a legal resident of the U.S. was an easier process and you didn't have to wait in line as long then there would be less of a reason to risk coming here illegally. We could then work on sound policies that encourage the many immigrants we want here to do so the right way.

On the one side you have those who wish to do nothing to crackdown on illegal immigration and create an amnesty program. That argument tends to come from the more left-wing Liberal side simply because they want to turn all of the illegal immigrants into loyal Liberal voters.

This is not surprising given the fact that Hispanics/Latinos are now a larger minority group than African Americans, this was true even in 2005. That divide continues to grow as Hispanics currently have the highest fertility rate in the country.

From The Washington Post: 12/21/07

"Hispanics have the highest fertility rate -- about 2.9 -- followed by blacks (2.1), Asians (1.9) and whites (1.86). But Hispanics do not represent enough of the population to fully explain the trend, and the fertility rate of U.S. whites is still higher than that of other developed countries."

While this story comes from December 21, 2007 the statistics haven't changed much as the above demographics statistics show. The other factor lies with abortions.

"While white women obtain 60% of all abortions, their abortion rate is well below that of minority women. Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are roughly 2 times as likely."

That fact comes from this site, but I've checked many sites through google and all present the same statistics quoted above.

Now, how does all of this tie into the immigration debate? It's simple. Liberals already have a lock on a vast majority of the black vote due to a misrepresentation of history and a continuing lie from the left which tries to paint all Republicans and especially all Conservatives as racist. The black community has been led to believe that it's the Republicans holding them down. That's pretty funny considering all of the highest crime, highest poverty, African American communities are completely run by Liberals. Perhaps they'll also find this interesting.

The immigration debate of today is a ploy by the left to try and secure the Hispanic vote for Democrat's much in the way government has been used to shift the African American vote into a virtual lock for Democrats. Many illegal immigrants are forced to work for practically slave wages and the only reason businesses get away with poor treatment of them is because they are illegal.

They use the argument that illegal immigrants do the jobs Americans "just won't do". Well let's see where illegals tend to work:

Service occupations 31.0%
Construction 19.0%
Production, installation, repair 15.0%
Sales and administration 12.0%
Management, business and professional 10.0%
Transportation, moving 8.0%
Farming, other 4.0%

Those statistics come from those right wingers over at MSNBC!! Isn't one of the usual argument's that we'll pay far more for fruits and vegetables if we enforce illegal immigration laws? That argument is usually framed to convince you that most illegal immigrants work on farms. Apparently that isn't the case.

Now for the other side of this argument. Those who support the government cracking down on illegal immigration and therefore support the law in AZ. There's no debating that there's a problem on the border regarding the current drug wars and gang related violent incidents. It's also true that many of the victims are in fact illegals themselves. The violence on the border exists but it's not as widespread as you think.

Perhaps you've heard of Ronald Reagan's amnesty bill signed by him on November 6, 1986. Some have used that as justification for a new amnesty but many factors of the 1986 bill are ignored.

Here are Reagan's comments about signing the bill. There are of course some highlights to the statement:

"New INA section 245A(d)(2) states that no alien would qualify for the lawful temporary or permanent residence status provided in that section if ``likely to become a public charge.'' This disqualification could be waived by the Attorney General under certain circumstances. A likelihood that an applicant would become a public charge would exist, for example, if the applicant had failed to demonstrate either a history of employment in the United States of a kind that would provide sufficient means without public cash assistance for the support of the alien and his likely dependents who are not United States citizens or the possession of independent means sufficient by itself for such support for an indefinite period."

In other words, if you are on welfare or any other government assistance you do not qualify for the amnesty this bill provides.

"Distance has not discouraged illegal immigration to the United States from all around the globe. The problem of illegal immigration should not, therefore, be seen as a problem between the United States and its neighbors. Our objective is only to establish a reasonable, fair, orderly, and secure system of immigration into this country and not to discriminate in any way against particular nations or people."

What this means is that illegal immigration isn't specifically a problem between the U.S. and Mexico. The fact that we know terrorists want to infiltrate the U.S. through the borders is proof of that. This is also clearly stating the fact that this isn't a way to discriminate against any one race or ethnicity, like Hispanics.

A good article from Matt Hayes published on June 10, 2004 compares Reagan's reforms to GOP reforms at the time of the article.

"In tandem with the amnesty, Reagan campaigned for employer sanctions for hiring illegal aliens, sanctions so stringent that many at the time regarded them as draconian."

You see the similarities of today? Punishing businesses that hire illegals = draconian.

"Reagan reasoned that if an employer were fined for hiring an illegal alien (as much as $1 million in the worst cases), any payroll savings achieved by the hiring would be wiped out by the fine. In effect, it would be more expensive to hire illegal aliens than to hire Americans or lawful permanent residents."

So, no amnesty for illegals on government subsidies like welfare, and fines for businesses that create an incentive to offer a better wage to a legal immigrant or American. This would encourage more people to come here legally and discourage those who came here illegally. So what went wrong?

"While Reagan’s 1986 immigration reforms can at least be called rational, they were a failure."

"This is attributed to Sen. Ted Kennedy’s eventual gutting of the enforcement mechanism for Reagan's employer sanctions, and successive administrations refusing to give our Border Patrol the resources it needs to achieve its mission."

So much for the argument about Ronald Reagan's amnesty.

While we have added more Border Patrol agents in recent years they are routinely demonized for doing their jobs by one side and criticized for not doing enough by the other.

In an effort to look like he actually wanted to do something regarding the problem with illegal immigration President Bush began a "virtual fence" program that was initially supported by President Obama as well. The program is a failure.

"The Obama administration will halt new work on a "virtual fence" on the U.S.-Mexican border, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Tuesday, diverting $50 million in planned economic stimulus funds for the project to other purposes."

"In a four-sentence statement, Napolitano said the department will immediately redeploy $50 million of stimulus funds to other technology, including mobile surveillance devices, sensors, radios and laptop computers."

Sounds great right? The problem is that we all know the Obama administration is no more serious about actually stopping illegal immigration than Bush was. We know this because of the way President Obama has been criticizing the new AZ law. This criticism comes even as Rasmussen finds that nationwide voters favor local law enforcement verifying immigration status by a 60% - 31% margin. In Arizona voters favor the new law by a 70% margin. So just like health care the President is criticizing a majority of the people.

In the end it comes down to all of us. It's time to ignore the fringes from both sides. Many who are to the extreme on one side are going to cry racism and try to stir emotions up and try to look like the sympathetic saviors of mankind. Some on the other extreme are going to hold more of a round em up and throw em out position painting all illegals like members of the drug cartels. I believe that if we step back and take a look at the big picture while ignoring the fringes then we can have a real debate and come up with a real solution.

If there's anything we've learned after decades of debate on this issue it's that a solution sure as hell isn't going to come from Washington anytime soon.

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