Purplehood wrote:Hoi Polloi wrote:I read at one place some time back that there were accusations of the Arizona bill being applied in a way which was specifically targeting Hispanics. That the police were systemically going into Hispanic neighborhoods in coordinated raids and stopping people on minor traffic issues for the sole reason of then being able to check their immigration papers. The counterargument was how successful they were in finding illegal immigrants in doing so.
As long as they drive into the suburbs and do the same thing on occasion, I see no problem with it. They would probably pickup more undocumented Canadians than you think...
[rant]
Canadians, Brits, Rooskies, you name it. I read somewhere that a goodly portion of those who are here illegally are non-hispanics who came here legally on some kind of temporary visa, and then let their visas expire without returning to their native countries.
As to raiding people in Hispanic neighborhoods in Arizona, that is part liberal media hyperbole, and part truth. However, such raids were being conducted by Sheriff Arpaio
before Arizona had passed their controversial law, and the federal justice department and courts did not interfere. They only got their unmentionables in a twist
after the law passed. Frankly, I have no problem with it.
Here is the problem with "comprehensive" immigration reform: It puts the cart before the horse. Manifestly, illegal immigrants from south of our border are the biggest and most pressing problem. Any
intelligent response demands that the border be secured - by whatever means - but
REALLY secured; not just in words. This is the highest order of priority, because it has implications that go beyond merely illegal immigration. It also concerns national security, and trying to stop the importation of drugs.
It is not racist to say that Hispanics who are here illegally, having crossed the southern border illegally, are generally a bigger source of pressures on our economy, social services, and legal system, than are Canadians or French who are here illegally. That's just a fact, and anyone not willing to recognize it is simply living in denial. Yes, those others need to be dealt with, but the
highest priority has to be dealing with those who cross our border illegally every-single-day.
Order of priority HAS to be:
- Secure the border.
- Identify illegals (whatever their national origin).
- Humanely arrive at a legal disposition of the immigration status of those so identified.
- Make it a crime punishable by imprisonment to knowingly hire an illegal alien - whether for a temporary job like painting your house, or as a staff accountant or a petroleum engineer.
"Comprehensive" solutions is how we got Obamacare. They are an abomination, and politicians who propose them ought to be taken out back of the Capitol building and shot. The absolute
RIGHT of The People to be free from tyranny by their own government
demands that each of those three items deserves its own separate debate in Congress, with some kind of issue specific legislation coming out of that debate — and none of them can be intelligently debated without addressing the issue of border security
FIRST. When you pass legislation to secure the
entire border - not just a couple of hundred miles of it in California and Arizona -
THEN you can move on to debate
how illegals currently here are to be identified. And only
after you have passed a bill on how to identify illegals, can you then go on to debate and pass a bill on how to arrive at a humane disposition for those already here.
And by the way, "humane" disposition
must include deportation for anyone with an arrest record, or a record of depending entirely on social services aid for their existence. Humane disposition must include getting rid of "legacy" status for babies born here to parents who are here illegally. You don't reward criminal behavior by granting citizenship to people who broke our laws so their baby could be born here, and then have the audacity to rely on taxpayer generosity to subsidize their illegal residency. Humanity demands that you don't separate families. Therefore, the only solution is to deport the entire family.
But a humane disposition also means that you have to take into account an individual illegal immigrant's positive contributions to our society. Did they become self-sufficient when they got here, or did they become a net drain on the economy? Did they keep their earned dollars inside the U.S., or did they send their earned dollars outside of the country, removing them from benefitting
our economy? For that to be determined, there has to be some kind of pathway to legal residency offered to qualifying illegals. That is the humane thing to do. But for it to work, the standards have to be clearly defined, and stringently enforced. I would attach in such a bill the liability to the federal employee of loss of employment for whomever fails to exercise due diligence in making that determination. You don't get to cheat the American taxpayer with impunity when they pay your salary. And by the way, humane disposition is applicable across the racial/ethnic spectrum, regardless of country of origin, or point of illegal entry into the U.S. A Swiss ex-pat who overstays his welcome must be subject to the exact same standards as the Hispanic who sneaks across the Mexican border.
Furthermore, humane disposition cannot be open-ended. Once legislation is passed on how to dispose of
identified illegals, and a suitable period has been passed during which illegals can be either voluntarily or involuntarily identified, there has to be an end date - after which anyone caught residing here illegally will face automatic deportation, without a hearing. Period.
And by the way, until loud obnoxious immigrant rights groups equally vociferously condemn Mexico for what Mexico is doing along her southern border, they can just shut the heck up. I don't care what they have to say until then.
[/rant]
...not that I hold any strong opinions on the matter one way or the other....
