Why Michael Barone has changed his mind about “comprehensive” reform.
42 thoughts on “Rethinking Immigration”
I know there’s a name for the logical fallacy of assuming current conditions will continue indefinitely, but it has obviously lacked publicity in the 21st century.
I’m of the same opinion as Ed Morrissey – use Obama’s illegal executive action against them. A lawsuit is nice but takes time. While busy with thyat, use the amnesty against the democrats:
Leave Obama’s travesty as it is and on Day One of the new Congress, pass a very strong Border Security Bill. Fences, personnel, technology all to begin now.
No ammendments, no ornaments – JUST that bill. Pass it in the House and Senate in 20 minutes and hand deliver it to Obama’s desk.
Let the nation see how Obama and Dem Congresscritters:
1) give away amnesty
2) refuse to secure the border.
3) kill the obvious creation of good paying jobs to build the fence.
What set of Dem congresscritters up for re-election in 2016 want to vote against that?
Next I would use Kurt Schlichter’s idea: Use the amnesty action to peel off 20% of the black voters by simply pointing out to them how they lose out on jobs to illegal aliens. Black unemployment is at ~11%. Show them that it’s the Democrat’s fault for that.
I would Censure Obama in Congress. A censure doesn’t mean a whole lot in terms of actual action but it’s a statement of position and at least shows the GOP has a spine.
In fact, were I in charge of the GOP come January, I would start sending a bill a day to the White House for signature:
1) Keystone pipeline
2) VA appropriations
3) Dept of Defense appropriations
etc.
Not a budget…a line for line appropriation of the legal functions of the Federal government as specified in the Constitution.
NO funds for amnesty.
Obama would have to sign those bills or let that department close down. Obama does not have the chance to veto a budget bill that doesn’t get funds for amnesty because he never sees one.
The House did claim they want a incremental approach to immigration reform with each following step based on how well the previous one is adhered to by President Executive Action. A border bill would show they were not just talking. And it would build trust that subsequent actions would be aimed at solving the long term problem rather than creating more illegal immigrants as Obama intended to do.
I like Instapundit’s idea of sending out the welcome wagon to the illegal immigrants. Democrats will be targeting these people in an effort to keep them apart from American society and to spread racial stereotypes and other SJW nonsense. The only way to counter this, is to get out there and show the illegal immigrants that the stereotypes that Democrats inculcate are not true. No one hates people from Central and South America.
The family’s of people Democrats claim to be racist monsters that want to kill everyone, are filled with examples of diverse heritage. This is America, we are all mutts, and Democrats effort to classify people they don’t like as “white” just strips them of their ethnicity and cultural heritage. Hispanics have had to deal with this themselves, where if they don’t have the proper pigment, Democrats wont allow them to be Hispanic.
Also, restoring funding to the military would cause Obama to s*** his pants in rage.
If you’re concerned about illegal immigration, and don’t have anything against foreigners as you say, the simplest, cheapest solution is to legalize immigration.
Saying “start with border control” is like saying start by closing down every illegal brewery and bathtub gin mill first. Then, maybe someday, you’ll talk about reforming Alcohol Prohibition.
It’s amazing how people assume that enforcing prohibition against migrants will be cheap or easy. The US government can’t stop drugs from coming across the border by the truck load, but it will be easier to find a farm worker who isn’t driving a truck full of drugs?
The War on Drugs is expensive enough. Can we afford a War on Immigrants, too?
“Can we afford a War on Immigrants, too?”
That strawman burns pretty well, Edward. Nobody wants a war on immigrants.
Phase E-Verify in everywhere, with escalating penalties for employers. How many illegal immigrants do you think will self-deport if they can’t find jobs? Welfare? Sorry, gotta be a citizen.
And of course, you assume there won’t be a flourishing industry of hackers offering black-market E-Verify.
And when the Democrats take over again, they will use the same system against gun owners, Tea Party members, and anyone else they choose to target. Or do you imagine they will show more respect for individual liberty than you do?
“If you’re concerned about illegal immigration, and don’t have anything against foreigners as you say, the simplest, cheapest solution is to legalize immigration.”
We do have legal immigration. My wife followed the rules. I guess that makes her and the millions of other legal immigrants chumps. Why follow the rules when you can come here illegally and demand free stuff?
We don’t have unlimited resources to take in an unlimited number of people. Just opening up the borders to anyone who wants to come here would be an unmitigated disaster.
We do have legal immigration. My wife followed the rules.
Yes, and people win the lottery, too. That doesn’t mean state lotteries are the solution to unemployment.
Immigration is legal — in some cases — mostly for “family reunification.” If you don’t have family connections or an employer with political pull, the wait can be very long — the waiting lists for “legal” Mexican immigrants are now estimated at 280 years.
Not every would-be immigrant is lucky enough to find an American willing to marry her/him — and fiancé visas are becoming harder to get, too.
So, technically, you are right — immigration is “legal.” The way alcohol was legal during prohibition. Or heroin is legal today. Contrary to popular belief, it is not an “illegal drug,” it’s a controlled substance. Any physician can prescribe heroin, as long as he has a government license for it — it’s just that the government won’t issue licenses (apart from very rare research studies).
Just to be clear, when I say “make immigration legal,” I don’t mean “legal” like heroin or alcohol during Prohibition. I mean legal like alcohol after the repeal of Prohibition.
(But I suspect you knew that and are just playing semantic games.)
We don’t have unlimited resources to take in an unlimited number of people.
You have swallowed the “Limits to Growth/Zero Population Growth” argument. People do not simply consume resources, they produce resources.
I suggest you read “The Ultimate Resource” by Julian Simon or “The Spirit of Enterprise” by George Gilder.
Resources are not just things you dig out of the ground and lock up in a bank vault. Resources are *created* and *developed* by human ingenuity. In other words, people.
Human creativity is the “ultimate resource” Simon wrote about.
The more people a nation has, the more resources it has at its disposal. Antarctica has fewer developed resources than any nation on Earth, because it has very few people.
Why is Las Vegas wealthier than Rhyolite (which was, at one time, the third-largest city in Nevada)? It’s not because Las Vegas has greater mineral wealth or is more convenient to population centers like LA. It’s because Vegas has a greater population. People left Rhyolite when the mines shut down, so it became a ghost town rather than a gambling town like Las Vegas or Reno.
Resources are limited *only* by human ingenuity. If you limit the number of people in your city/state/country, you are not “protecting” resources from “consumption,” you are limiting their production.
“Immigration is legal — in some cases — mostly for “family reunification.” If you don’t have family connections or an employer with political pull, the wait can be very long —….. ”
This is utterly wrong. All you need is a sponsor. Been that way for decades if not 100 years. In Salem Ma, there’s a vibrant Russian community which organized and arranged for sponsors to get people out of the USSR. Worked too.
Also employers do not need political pull. None. They simply have to be willing to handle the paperwork.
employers do not need political pull. None. They simply have to be willing to handle the paperwork.
Have you spoken to any actual employers, Gregg?
Microsoft built a satellite campus in Vancouver, because it couldn’t get enough worker visas. Most of the people working there are not from Canada, they’re from Asia. They’re living and working in Canada, paying Canadian taxes, and spending their money in Canadian shops, instead if American, because the US government will not allow Microsoft to bring them to Redmond.
Bill Gates and other Microsoft executives have testified about this problem before the US Congress. No one, even the most rabid immigration warriors in Congress, suggested that Microsoft was simply “unwilling to fill out of the paperwork.” Microsoft has a *huge* compliance department that does nothing except fill out government paperwork.
Do really think that millions of people risk their lives crossing the border illegally simply because they’re “unwilling to fill out the paperwork” or too lazy to find sponsors, Gregg? Seriously? Large numbers of people don’t go to such lengths to evade trivial requirements.
You have swallowed the “Limits to Growth/Zero Population Growth” argument. People do not simply consume resources, they produce resources.
People will skills produce value. People without skills are drains on the economy. What would happen if tens of millions of immigrants flooded the borders? Where would they be housed? We can build homes but who pays for them? We can send their kids to schools but who pays for the new buildings, teachers, books, etc.? How will they live? We have millions of unemployed Americans. Many of them are low skilled. If isn’t going to help their plight one bit to suddenly have millions more people competing for jobs and/or welfare benefits.
There are always limits. If you’d ever lived in an area that experienced rapid population growth, you would’ve seen how disruptive and inefficient rapid growth can be.
The “skills” argument is a red herring, Larry. The War On Immigrants is not solely about unskilled workers. Read the comments here about H-1 Visas. There’s as much prejudice against foreign PhDs as agricultural workers.
As for your suggestion that everyone should follow the same rules as your wife — do you really think that’s realistic? There are only so many American men who want to marry foreign women. And for foreign men, it’s even worse — from what I can tell, the market for mail-order husbands is pretty much nonexistent.
Why should legalizing immigration make your wife feel like a “chump”? Surely, marrying you wasn’t that bad of a deal? If other people are allowed to freely immigrate, how would that harm her? Is it simply a matter of jealousy, because people in the future would have more freedom than those in the past? Should the people who lived in Eastern Europe before the fall of Communism feel like “chumps” because conditions are better now?
My grandfather followed the “rules,” which required him to leave his first wife and family behind. I’m sure they felt like “chumps” — with far more reason than your wife.
The fact that some people got a raw deal in the past does *not* mean that everyone should continue to get a raw deal in the future, just to prevent some people from feeling like “chumps.”
I stood on line at the Department of a Public Safety for three days just to get a driver’s license, because of your “rules.” (I needed to prove I was a US citizen, and they wouldn’t accept any of the multiple forms of proof I offered them.) Would I feel like a “chump” if the rules were changed to make the process quick and easy? No, I would be glad that other people could avoid the same hassle in the future.
Free people view “the rules” (government regulations) as something to be endured, not something sacred.
It’s amazing how people assume that enforcing prohibition against migrants will be cheap or easy.
Maybe because other countries don’t seem to have a problem with it? Nor did America, until fairly recently.
Do you really, honestly, believe that what a 21st century, post-industrial, US economy really needs is… millions more unskilled Mexicans?
“21st Century post-industrial economy”?
You mean, the kind of Yuppies who buy fresh fruit and vegetables (which are picked by hand) and would never touch canned produce (harvested by machines)?
Yeah, I think that requires unskilled workers. Or, at least, workers willing to do repetitive, unskilled manual labor. Who would you suggest? PhDs?
And why do you presume those workers (and their children) are going to remain unskilled forever?
Not to mention all those who have advanced degrees like PhDs and still can’t get in — stereotyping all immigrants as unskilled Mexicans is like stereotyping all Southerners as illiterate rednecks.
What “other countries” have managed to completely seal their borders? The Great Wall of China failed to prevent immigration. Even the Soviet Union was unable to completely stop the flow of people across its borders. (Mostly outward, but there were exceptions. One illegal immigrant even managed to land a Cessna in Red Square!)
No country has completely sealed its border, because that would be silly. But most countries don’t have huge problems with illegal immigration, because:
1. They don’t hand out welfare to illegals.
2. They round them up and deport them.
3. They don’t let them bring their entire family in if legalized.
This is what America used to do, back when it didn’t have a huge problem with illegal immigration. It’s what most grown-up governments still do. Modern US governments just refuse to do what needs to be done.
As for hand-picking fruit for Yuppies, I can only assume you’re joking. In the unlikely event that you actually take that seriously, there are millions of unemployed Americans, and the Yuppies can pay the market price for their hand-picked fruit, so farmers can hire Americans to do those jobs.
Not to mention all those who have advanced degrees like PhDs and still can’t get in
They can’t get in because the US government favours unskilled Mexicans over people with skills. You support the very policy you’re complaining about.
I can’t imagine any other country in the world where such a ludicrous immigration policy would be tolerated. Even the UK is now in a political crapstorm over its braindead immigration policy which has many of the same failings as America’s. Before it ends, that may bring down both the major political parties in the country.
They don’t hand out welfare to illegals.
Then end welfare. But that wasn’t what you were arguing for. (The editors of the Wall Street Journal point out that open immigration would hasten the end of the welfare state. Is that what you’re protecting?)
This is what America used to do, back when it didn’t have a huge problem with illegal immigration.
I believe you’re mistaken. I can find no record of any such policies prior to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act. There was no illegal immigration, not because of repressive policies, but because immigration wasn’t illegal.
They don’t let them bring their entire family in if legalized.
So you would deport Larry’s wife? I’ll let the two of you argue about that. 🙂
It’s what most grown-up governments still do
Yes, most nations become progressively more repressive as they “grow up.” That greatly concerned the Founding Fathers, who attempted to create checks and balances to prevent it. With limited success, unfortunately.
What do you assume that the continuing erosion of freedom is a good thing?
You support the very policy you’re complaining about.
No, you support it. Like the Founding Fathers, I prefer a wise and frugal government, which restrains men from harming one another and leaves them otherwise free to regulate their own affairs of industry and improvement. Not a government which declares that no one set foot upon the ground without permission of the state.
Saying “start with border control” is like saying start by closing down every illegal brewery and bathtub gin mill first. Then, maybe someday, you’ll talk about reforming Alcohol Prohibition.
If you are going to use bad analogies, can we trust that you have no locks on your home or business?
“This land is your land; This land is my land; From California, to the New York Island”, said the socialist folk singer. Nope. Your land — what you bought or worked for — is your land. My land is my land. The two are mutually exclusive.
My home and my business are mine. Your home and your business is yours. I have no right to say who can stay in your home, or to put a lock on it, and you have no right to say who can stay in mine. Much less put a lock on the whole country in the mistaken belief that “this land is my land.”
Nope. Your land — what you bought or worked for — is your land. My land is my land. The two are mutually exclusive.
But you don’t plan to protect your border, so I don’t see the point where my land ends or yours begins. Does your land even have a boundary that you force others to respect? It doesn’t seem you recognize trespassers, so do you just sing songs to whomever walks on what you claim to be your land?
No, Leland, I did not say that. You made it up.
I have explained this to you many times in the past.
Once again — not every piece of land in the United States is equivalent to your house or your business.
You didn’t buy every acre of land in the United States. You didn’t work for all of it. You didn’t earn all of it. You don’t own all of it. The US border is not your property line. Your property is much, much smaller.
If you don’t want certain people on your property, that’s your business. If you don’t want them on someone else’s property, that’s none of your business. If you decide to “defend” someone else’s property from people who live there, that makes *you* the trespasser — not them.
This is your problem: you believe everything is “an analogy.” I didn’t use an analogy. I used real-world examples. An analogy is *like* a thing. An example *is* the thing.
Private property is not an “analogy” for private property. It is private property. When you say that arresting people at the border is the same as defending your house, *that* is an analogy — and a bad one, because the US border has nothing in common with your house.
So, you are saying that your/our land means that if a small segment of the population wants open borders, we have to allow it because it is really our land and by our, you mean yours.
So, you are saying…
Something I never said. As usual. 🙂
it is really our land
No, it isn’t. There’s no such thing as “our” land. Collective ownership is a myth. Land either belongs to you, or to me, or to someone else. It does not “belong to all of us.” That’s a Jedi mind trick collectivists a have played on you.
That Mexican restaurant down the street? That’s not your land. It belongs to the owner of the restaurant. That land along the border, where you want to build the Great Wall of America? You don’t own that, either. Some of it is government land. Much of it is private land. It belongs to scores of ranchers, many of whom don’t want to sell — but they will be forced to, if you get your way. Many will go out of business.
Being in the majority does not give you the right to dictate what other people can do with their lives and property. It may give you the power, but that’s another matter. That’s why we have a Constitution with a Bill of a Rights — to protect the individual from the Tyranny of the Majority. (I suppose I will now get the lecture about how that’s an obsolete document, written by stupid men who didn’t even have television. 🙂
As for the word “legal,” I don’t think you understand what that means. People don’t get imprisoned or deported for doing things that are legal — they get imprisoned or deported for doing things that are *illegal*.
And what’s with that tribble photo? Are you an illegal alien yourself? 🙂
“cheapest solution is to legalize immigration.”
We already have legal immigration.
Don’t gruber your way to open borders, if that is your position just say so.
obvious creation of good paying jobs to build the fence
It’s amazing how thoroughly the GOP has embraced socialist arguments. Whether it’s the Space Launch System or the Great Wall of America, taxing private enterprise to fund Big Government projects “creates jobs.”
That isn’t surprising, of course, given the GOP’s willingness to give up its principles of support for individual economic freedom in order to punish immigrants for voting (or allegedly voting for) Obama. (An eerie parallel to Obama’s own rhetoric about punishing his enemies.) In the process, they are ensuring that immigrants will vote Democratic for the foreseeable future — a fact which Democratic strategists no doubt realized from the start. But Republicans are so blinded by their hatred of Obama that they walked, and will continue to walk, right into that trap.
You are taking a black/white approach which always fails, and shows you might be more interested in being critical and finding fault than with seeing the reality of the situation:
You know very well that Conservatives are not above taxing the people for legitimate government tasks. Conservatives understand that when you do that, good paying jobs are created (sometimes only temporarily as in this case) and they recognize this is not a bad thing. This does not make them rampant socialists. Nor does it make them want to expand the concept endlessly because Conservatives know the concept is a drag on the economy; doesn’t scale well; is inefficient; opens up possibilities for graft, and destroys creativity. But Conservatives also know some of those tasks are better done by government and so those drawbacks are inevitable. For example:
Taxing the people to provide for the military is a good thing and creates good jobs.
Taxing the people to pay for taking the Census is a good thing and creates good jobs.
Taxing the people to pay for weights and measures, and minting money is a good thing and creates good jobs.
If you wanted to be taken seriously in this discussion, you would do better to ask whether or not the Great Wall of America is a legitimate Federal Government task. Or whether or not it can work (e.g there are problems like how do you place a wall in the middle of a river when that river is the border?).
Why you drag the SLS into this discussion I cannot say: I’m not in favor of it. Shooting wild like that just demeans anything you might have had to say.
Conservatives are not above taxing the people for legitimate government tasks. Conservatives understand that when you do that, good paying jobs are created
“Conservatives” who never read Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, or Ronald Reagan.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul may help Paul, but it does not generate a net increase in wealth. The fact that neither party understands that today is the great failing of American politics.
It is the private sector, not the government, which creates jobs. The most effective thing the government can do to aid job creation is to get out of the way.
Ronald Reagan was the last Republican President to understand that, and the last who was a political success rather than paving the way for a Democratic takeover of the White House. Those two facts are not uncorrelated.
““Conservatives” who never read Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, or Ronald Reagan.”
Actually I read them all and even more. You clearly haven’t. From your post, you seem to be saying you and Friedman would eliminate all taxes.
Are you saying that?
Are you unaware of the part in my post where I say that expansion of the concept beyond the minimum necessary to good order won’t work?
Did you read my post AT ALL?
From your post, you seem to be saying you and Friedman would eliminate all taxes.
Nearly all taxes, yes.
Most of the examples you cite as essential functions of government are not essential at all.
The Census, for example: Most of the questions asked in the modern Census are *not * authorized by the Constitution, and the government has no business collecting that information. To the extent that the government has a legitimate need for Census information, why couldn’t it be collected by a private organization like Google, Gallup, or Roper? What makes government employees uniquely qualified to take a census? (The Christmas Bird Count is an annual census of birds taken entirely by volunteers.)
The amount of money needed to run the truly essential functions of government would be a small fraction of current taxes.
Rivers are a comparatively minor concern — America is bordered by two oceans. Is the government going to wall off every inch of beach?
But technical concerns are not the real argument. The question is one of economics, in the larger sense — whether prosperity arises from freedom (as Ronald Reagan believed) or from government action (as Barack Obama and both political parties now believe).
The “Conservatives” you speak of are conservatives, or “Tories”, in the European sense. Ronald Reagan said that his brand of pro-freedom conservatives were really liberals, in the original sense of the word — like those who fought for Liberty in 1776, against the Tories (Conservatives) of the time.
There’s a fundamental difference between conservatives like Reagan, who wanted to shrink the size and scope of government, and these new “Conservatives” who want to expand it.
“The “Conservatives” you speak of are conservatives, or “Tories”, in the European sense. ”
Clearly you have no idea of what I mean when I say “Conservatives”. You seem to think I approve of guys like Boehner, Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell.
I sincerely doubt you have any idea of what I’m writing about.
“There’s a fundamental difference between conservatives like Reagan, who wanted to shrink the size and scope of government, and these new “Conservatives” who want to expand it.”
I don’t call them Conservatives. I call them Statists.
Next!
I don’t like Morrissey’s idea because it’s just another case of choosing cleverness over effectiveness.
The best comment I read about King Barry’s immigration power-play (and I wish I could remember who said/wrote it, so I could give proper credit) was, “Illegal immigrants do the work American citizens will no longer do–like voting Democratic.”
Barrone still believes the myth that there is a shortage of STEM workers in the US. There isn’t and the IEEE documented it quite well last year.
Yes. I simply cannot imagine why a company would go overseas to hire an immigrant and go through all the hassle of H1B, green cards etc when there are many U.S. citizen STEM workers looking for a job. Even cheaper wages doesn’t account for it because the wage difference is a small part of a person’s fully loaded cost.
I simply cannot imagine why a company would go overseas to hire an immigrant and go through all the hassle of H1B, green cards etc when there are many U.S. citizen STEM workers looking for a job.
Because STEM workers are not interchangeable like potatoes. You cannot simply replace a compiler optimization engineer with a CFD specialist or a neurosurgeon, or vice versa. For some highly technical jobs, there may be fewer than a dozen people in the entire world who are actually qualified — and not all those will be available or interested in a new job. In the extreme case, people have skills that are literally one of a kind. How easy do you think it is to replace an Elon Musk, for example?
Yes, but the number of STEM workers willing to put in 70 hours a week for low wages is limited, hence the cry for more H1B visas. They want to flood the market to lower the wages. American STEM employees see their wages depressed and job opportunities evaporate. Foreign workers get exploited for the opportunity to work in America. The Chamber of Commerce and Silicon Valley billionaires make out like bandits. Everything is proceeding as planned.
Thing is, Larry, that after a year or so those H1B want….
more money! They want higher wages and bennies.
If the idea of the Crony Capitalists is to keep replacing HiB’s with more H1B’s who want lower wages that’s a silly game.
They can’t be that stupid can they?
I don’t see why you’re having such a hard time understanding this. An H1B visa is issued for a particular worker to work for a particular company. If they lose their job, they have to leave the country.
Do you really not understand why someone might be willing to work much longer hours for lower pay than a citizen, if the alternative is having to pack up and go home? This happened to a couple of people I previously worked with, and they had a few weeks to close down their life in America and leave after they were laid off.
So, in most cases, the discussion would go like:
‘I want more money.’
‘Fine. You’re sacked.’
‘No, sorry, I didn’t mean it.’
‘Tough. I’ve got thousands more waiting to take your place.’
Besides, don’t most of the H1Bs now go to ‘consultancy’ companies who are just looking for more warm bodies they can rent out at $100 an hour?
If the surge from Mexico is over, why bother closing the border?
Given Obama’s executive action, more surges wait in the wings. Look towards next Spring.
Because, once Obama is out of the White House, there’s a chance the US economy could recover, and then the illegals would be heading over the border again.
I know there’s a name for the logical fallacy of assuming current conditions will continue indefinitely, but it has obviously lacked publicity in the 21st century.
I’m of the same opinion as Ed Morrissey – use Obama’s illegal executive action against them. A lawsuit is nice but takes time. While busy with thyat, use the amnesty against the democrats:
Leave Obama’s travesty as it is and on Day One of the new Congress, pass a very strong Border Security Bill. Fences, personnel, technology all to begin now.
No ammendments, no ornaments – JUST that bill. Pass it in the House and Senate in 20 minutes and hand deliver it to Obama’s desk.
Let the nation see how Obama and Dem Congresscritters:
1) give away amnesty
2) refuse to secure the border.
3) kill the obvious creation of good paying jobs to build the fence.
What set of Dem congresscritters up for re-election in 2016 want to vote against that?
Next I would use Kurt Schlichter’s idea: Use the amnesty action to peel off 20% of the black voters by simply pointing out to them how they lose out on jobs to illegal aliens. Black unemployment is at ~11%. Show them that it’s the Democrat’s fault for that.
I would Censure Obama in Congress. A censure doesn’t mean a whole lot in terms of actual action but it’s a statement of position and at least shows the GOP has a spine.
In fact, were I in charge of the GOP come January, I would start sending a bill a day to the White House for signature:
1) Keystone pipeline
2) VA appropriations
3) Dept of Defense appropriations
etc.
Not a budget…a line for line appropriation of the legal functions of the Federal government as specified in the Constitution.
NO funds for amnesty.
Obama would have to sign those bills or let that department close down. Obama does not have the chance to veto a budget bill that doesn’t get funds for amnesty because he never sees one.
The House did claim they want a incremental approach to immigration reform with each following step based on how well the previous one is adhered to by President Executive Action. A border bill would show they were not just talking. And it would build trust that subsequent actions would be aimed at solving the long term problem rather than creating more illegal immigrants as Obama intended to do.
I like Instapundit’s idea of sending out the welcome wagon to the illegal immigrants. Democrats will be targeting these people in an effort to keep them apart from American society and to spread racial stereotypes and other SJW nonsense. The only way to counter this, is to get out there and show the illegal immigrants that the stereotypes that Democrats inculcate are not true. No one hates people from Central and South America.
The family’s of people Democrats claim to be racist monsters that want to kill everyone, are filled with examples of diverse heritage. This is America, we are all mutts, and Democrats effort to classify people they don’t like as “white” just strips them of their ethnicity and cultural heritage. Hispanics have had to deal with this themselves, where if they don’t have the proper pigment, Democrats wont allow them to be Hispanic.
Also, restoring funding to the military would cause Obama to s*** his pants in rage.
If you’re concerned about illegal immigration, and don’t have anything against foreigners as you say, the simplest, cheapest solution is to legalize immigration.
Saying “start with border control” is like saying start by closing down every illegal brewery and bathtub gin mill first. Then, maybe someday, you’ll talk about reforming Alcohol Prohibition.
It’s amazing how people assume that enforcing prohibition against migrants will be cheap or easy. The US government can’t stop drugs from coming across the border by the truck load, but it will be easier to find a farm worker who isn’t driving a truck full of drugs?
The War on Drugs is expensive enough. Can we afford a War on Immigrants, too?
“Can we afford a War on Immigrants, too?”
That strawman burns pretty well, Edward. Nobody wants a war on immigrants.
Phase E-Verify in everywhere, with escalating penalties for employers. How many illegal immigrants do you think will self-deport if they can’t find jobs? Welfare? Sorry, gotta be a citizen.
And of course, you assume there won’t be a flourishing industry of hackers offering black-market E-Verify.
And when the Democrats take over again, they will use the same system against gun owners, Tea Party members, and anyone else they choose to target. Or do you imagine they will show more respect for individual liberty than you do?
“If you’re concerned about illegal immigration, and don’t have anything against foreigners as you say, the simplest, cheapest solution is to legalize immigration.”
We do have legal immigration. My wife followed the rules. I guess that makes her and the millions of other legal immigrants chumps. Why follow the rules when you can come here illegally and demand free stuff?
We don’t have unlimited resources to take in an unlimited number of people. Just opening up the borders to anyone who wants to come here would be an unmitigated disaster.
We do have legal immigration. My wife followed the rules.
Yes, and people win the lottery, too. That doesn’t mean state lotteries are the solution to unemployment.
Immigration is legal — in some cases — mostly for “family reunification.” If you don’t have family connections or an employer with political pull, the wait can be very long — the waiting lists for “legal” Mexican immigrants are now estimated at 280 years.
Not every would-be immigrant is lucky enough to find an American willing to marry her/him — and fiancé visas are becoming harder to get, too.
So, technically, you are right — immigration is “legal.” The way alcohol was legal during prohibition. Or heroin is legal today. Contrary to popular belief, it is not an “illegal drug,” it’s a controlled substance. Any physician can prescribe heroin, as long as he has a government license for it — it’s just that the government won’t issue licenses (apart from very rare research studies).
Just to be clear, when I say “make immigration legal,” I don’t mean “legal” like heroin or alcohol during Prohibition. I mean legal like alcohol after the repeal of Prohibition.
(But I suspect you knew that and are just playing semantic games.)
We don’t have unlimited resources to take in an unlimited number of people.
You have swallowed the “Limits to Growth/Zero Population Growth” argument. People do not simply consume resources, they produce resources.
I suggest you read “The Ultimate Resource” by Julian Simon or “The Spirit of Enterprise” by George Gilder.
Resources are not just things you dig out of the ground and lock up in a bank vault. Resources are *created* and *developed* by human ingenuity. In other words, people.
Human creativity is the “ultimate resource” Simon wrote about.
The more people a nation has, the more resources it has at its disposal. Antarctica has fewer developed resources than any nation on Earth, because it has very few people.
Why is Las Vegas wealthier than Rhyolite (which was, at one time, the third-largest city in Nevada)? It’s not because Las Vegas has greater mineral wealth or is more convenient to population centers like LA. It’s because Vegas has a greater population. People left Rhyolite when the mines shut down, so it became a ghost town rather than a gambling town like Las Vegas or Reno.
Resources are limited *only* by human ingenuity. If you limit the number of people in your city/state/country, you are not “protecting” resources from “consumption,” you are limiting their production.
“Immigration is legal — in some cases — mostly for “family reunification.” If you don’t have family connections or an employer with political pull, the wait can be very long —….. ”
This is utterly wrong. All you need is a sponsor. Been that way for decades if not 100 years. In Salem Ma, there’s a vibrant Russian community which organized and arranged for sponsors to get people out of the USSR. Worked too.
Also employers do not need political pull. None. They simply have to be willing to handle the paperwork.
employers do not need political pull. None. They simply have to be willing to handle the paperwork.
Have you spoken to any actual employers, Gregg?
Microsoft built a satellite campus in Vancouver, because it couldn’t get enough worker visas. Most of the people working there are not from Canada, they’re from Asia. They’re living and working in Canada, paying Canadian taxes, and spending their money in Canadian shops, instead if American, because the US government will not allow Microsoft to bring them to Redmond.
Bill Gates and other Microsoft executives have testified about this problem before the US Congress. No one, even the most rabid immigration warriors in Congress, suggested that Microsoft was simply “unwilling to fill out of the paperwork.” Microsoft has a *huge* compliance department that does nothing except fill out government paperwork.
Do really think that millions of people risk their lives crossing the border illegally simply because they’re “unwilling to fill out the paperwork” or too lazy to find sponsors, Gregg? Seriously? Large numbers of people don’t go to such lengths to evade trivial requirements.
You have swallowed the “Limits to Growth/Zero Population Growth” argument. People do not simply consume resources, they produce resources.
People will skills produce value. People without skills are drains on the economy. What would happen if tens of millions of immigrants flooded the borders? Where would they be housed? We can build homes but who pays for them? We can send their kids to schools but who pays for the new buildings, teachers, books, etc.? How will they live? We have millions of unemployed Americans. Many of them are low skilled. If isn’t going to help their plight one bit to suddenly have millions more people competing for jobs and/or welfare benefits.
There are always limits. If you’d ever lived in an area that experienced rapid population growth, you would’ve seen how disruptive and inefficient rapid growth can be.
The “skills” argument is a red herring, Larry. The War On Immigrants is not solely about unskilled workers. Read the comments here about H-1 Visas. There’s as much prejudice against foreign PhDs as agricultural workers.
As for your suggestion that everyone should follow the same rules as your wife — do you really think that’s realistic? There are only so many American men who want to marry foreign women. And for foreign men, it’s even worse — from what I can tell, the market for mail-order husbands is pretty much nonexistent.
Why should legalizing immigration make your wife feel like a “chump”? Surely, marrying you wasn’t that bad of a deal? If other people are allowed to freely immigrate, how would that harm her? Is it simply a matter of jealousy, because people in the future would have more freedom than those in the past? Should the people who lived in Eastern Europe before the fall of Communism feel like “chumps” because conditions are better now?
My grandfather followed the “rules,” which required him to leave his first wife and family behind. I’m sure they felt like “chumps” — with far more reason than your wife.
The fact that some people got a raw deal in the past does *not* mean that everyone should continue to get a raw deal in the future, just to prevent some people from feeling like “chumps.”
I stood on line at the Department of a Public Safety for three days just to get a driver’s license, because of your “rules.” (I needed to prove I was a US citizen, and they wouldn’t accept any of the multiple forms of proof I offered them.) Would I feel like a “chump” if the rules were changed to make the process quick and easy? No, I would be glad that other people could avoid the same hassle in the future.
Free people view “the rules” (government regulations) as something to be endured, not something sacred.
It’s amazing how people assume that enforcing prohibition against migrants will be cheap or easy.
Maybe because other countries don’t seem to have a problem with it? Nor did America, until fairly recently.
Do you really, honestly, believe that what a 21st century, post-industrial, US economy really needs is… millions more unskilled Mexicans?
“21st Century post-industrial economy”?
You mean, the kind of Yuppies who buy fresh fruit and vegetables (which are picked by hand) and would never touch canned produce (harvested by machines)?
Yeah, I think that requires unskilled workers. Or, at least, workers willing to do repetitive, unskilled manual labor. Who would you suggest? PhDs?
And why do you presume those workers (and their children) are going to remain unskilled forever?
Not to mention all those who have advanced degrees like PhDs and still can’t get in — stereotyping all immigrants as unskilled Mexicans is like stereotyping all Southerners as illiterate rednecks.
What “other countries” have managed to completely seal their borders? The Great Wall of China failed to prevent immigration. Even the Soviet Union was unable to completely stop the flow of people across its borders. (Mostly outward, but there were exceptions. One illegal immigrant even managed to land a Cessna in Red Square!)
No country has completely sealed its border, because that would be silly. But most countries don’t have huge problems with illegal immigration, because:
1. They don’t hand out welfare to illegals.
2. They round them up and deport them.
3. They don’t let them bring their entire family in if legalized.
This is what America used to do, back when it didn’t have a huge problem with illegal immigration. It’s what most grown-up governments still do. Modern US governments just refuse to do what needs to be done.
As for hand-picking fruit for Yuppies, I can only assume you’re joking. In the unlikely event that you actually take that seriously, there are millions of unemployed Americans, and the Yuppies can pay the market price for their hand-picked fruit, so farmers can hire Americans to do those jobs.
Not to mention all those who have advanced degrees like PhDs and still can’t get in
They can’t get in because the US government favours unskilled Mexicans over people with skills. You support the very policy you’re complaining about.
I can’t imagine any other country in the world where such a ludicrous immigration policy would be tolerated. Even the UK is now in a political crapstorm over its braindead immigration policy which has many of the same failings as America’s. Before it ends, that may bring down both the major political parties in the country.
They don’t hand out welfare to illegals.
Then end welfare. But that wasn’t what you were arguing for. (The editors of the Wall Street Journal point out that open immigration would hasten the end of the welfare state. Is that what you’re protecting?)
This is what America used to do, back when it didn’t have a huge problem with illegal immigration.
I believe you’re mistaken. I can find no record of any such policies prior to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act. There was no illegal immigration, not because of repressive policies, but because immigration wasn’t illegal.
They don’t let them bring their entire family in if legalized.
So you would deport Larry’s wife? I’ll let the two of you argue about that. 🙂
It’s what most grown-up governments still do
Yes, most nations become progressively more repressive as they “grow up.” That greatly concerned the Founding Fathers, who attempted to create checks and balances to prevent it. With limited success, unfortunately.
What do you assume that the continuing erosion of freedom is a good thing?
You support the very policy you’re complaining about.
No, you support it. Like the Founding Fathers, I prefer a wise and frugal government, which restrains men from harming one another and leaves them otherwise free to regulate their own affairs of industry and improvement. Not a government which declares that no one set foot upon the ground without permission of the state.
Saying “start with border control” is like saying start by closing down every illegal brewery and bathtub gin mill first. Then, maybe someday, you’ll talk about reforming Alcohol Prohibition.
If you are going to use bad analogies, can we trust that you have no locks on your home or business?
“This land is your land; This land is my land; From California, to the New York Island”, said the socialist folk singer. Nope. Your land — what you bought or worked for — is your land. My land is my land. The two are mutually exclusive.
My home and my business are mine. Your home and your business is yours. I have no right to say who can stay in your home, or to put a lock on it, and you have no right to say who can stay in mine. Much less put a lock on the whole country in the mistaken belief that “this land is my land.”
Nope. Your land — what you bought or worked for — is your land. My land is my land. The two are mutually exclusive.
But you don’t plan to protect your border, so I don’t see the point where my land ends or yours begins. Does your land even have a boundary that you force others to respect? It doesn’t seem you recognize trespassers, so do you just sing songs to whomever walks on what you claim to be your land?
No, Leland, I did not say that. You made it up.
I have explained this to you many times in the past.
Once again — not every piece of land in the United States is equivalent to your house or your business.
You didn’t buy every acre of land in the United States. You didn’t work for all of it. You didn’t earn all of it. You don’t own all of it. The US border is not your property line. Your property is much, much smaller.
If you don’t want certain people on your property, that’s your business. If you don’t want them on someone else’s property, that’s none of your business. If you decide to “defend” someone else’s property from people who live there, that makes *you* the trespasser — not them.
This is your problem: you believe everything is “an analogy.” I didn’t use an analogy. I used real-world examples. An analogy is *like* a thing. An example *is* the thing.
Private property is not an “analogy” for private property. It is private property. When you say that arresting people at the border is the same as defending your house, *that* is an analogy — and a bad one, because the US border has nothing in common with your house.
So, you are saying that your/our land means that if a small segment of the population wants open borders, we have to allow it because it is really our land and by our, you mean yours.
So, you are saying…
Something I never said. As usual. 🙂
it is really our land
No, it isn’t. There’s no such thing as “our” land. Collective ownership is a myth. Land either belongs to you, or to me, or to someone else. It does not “belong to all of us.” That’s a Jedi mind trick collectivists a have played on you.
That Mexican restaurant down the street? That’s not your land. It belongs to the owner of the restaurant. That land along the border, where you want to build the Great Wall of America? You don’t own that, either. Some of it is government land. Much of it is private land. It belongs to scores of ranchers, many of whom don’t want to sell — but they will be forced to, if you get your way. Many will go out of business.
Being in the majority does not give you the right to dictate what other people can do with their lives and property. It may give you the power, but that’s another matter. That’s why we have a Constitution with a Bill of a Rights — to protect the individual from the Tyranny of the Majority. (I suppose I will now get the lecture about how that’s an obsolete document, written by stupid men who didn’t even have television. 🙂
As for the word “legal,” I don’t think you understand what that means. People don’t get imprisoned or deported for doing things that are legal — they get imprisoned or deported for doing things that are *illegal*.
And what’s with that tribble photo? Are you an illegal alien yourself? 🙂
“cheapest solution is to legalize immigration.”
We already have legal immigration.
Don’t gruber your way to open borders, if that is your position just say so.
obvious creation of good paying jobs to build the fence
It’s amazing how thoroughly the GOP has embraced socialist arguments. Whether it’s the Space Launch System or the Great Wall of America, taxing private enterprise to fund Big Government projects “creates jobs.”
That isn’t surprising, of course, given the GOP’s willingness to give up its principles of support for individual economic freedom in order to punish immigrants for voting (or allegedly voting for) Obama. (An eerie parallel to Obama’s own rhetoric about punishing his enemies.) In the process, they are ensuring that immigrants will vote Democratic for the foreseeable future — a fact which Democratic strategists no doubt realized from the start. But Republicans are so blinded by their hatred of Obama that they walked, and will continue to walk, right into that trap.
You are taking a black/white approach which always fails, and shows you might be more interested in being critical and finding fault than with seeing the reality of the situation:
You know very well that Conservatives are not above taxing the people for legitimate government tasks. Conservatives understand that when you do that, good paying jobs are created (sometimes only temporarily as in this case) and they recognize this is not a bad thing. This does not make them rampant socialists. Nor does it make them want to expand the concept endlessly because Conservatives know the concept is a drag on the economy; doesn’t scale well; is inefficient; opens up possibilities for graft, and destroys creativity. But Conservatives also know some of those tasks are better done by government and so those drawbacks are inevitable. For example:
Taxing the people to provide for the military is a good thing and creates good jobs.
Taxing the people to pay for taking the Census is a good thing and creates good jobs.
Taxing the people to pay for weights and measures, and minting money is a good thing and creates good jobs.
If you wanted to be taken seriously in this discussion, you would do better to ask whether or not the Great Wall of America is a legitimate Federal Government task. Or whether or not it can work (e.g there are problems like how do you place a wall in the middle of a river when that river is the border?).
Why you drag the SLS into this discussion I cannot say: I’m not in favor of it. Shooting wild like that just demeans anything you might have had to say.
Conservatives are not above taxing the people for legitimate government tasks. Conservatives understand that when you do that, good paying jobs are created
“Conservatives” who never read Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, or Ronald Reagan.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul may help Paul, but it does not generate a net increase in wealth. The fact that neither party understands that today is the great failing of American politics.
It is the private sector, not the government, which creates jobs. The most effective thing the government can do to aid job creation is to get out of the way.
Ronald Reagan was the last Republican President to understand that, and the last who was a political success rather than paving the way for a Democratic takeover of the White House. Those two facts are not uncorrelated.
““Conservatives” who never read Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, or Ronald Reagan.”
Actually I read them all and even more. You clearly haven’t. From your post, you seem to be saying you and Friedman would eliminate all taxes.
Are you saying that?
Are you unaware of the part in my post where I say that expansion of the concept beyond the minimum necessary to good order won’t work?
Did you read my post AT ALL?
From your post, you seem to be saying you and Friedman would eliminate all taxes.
Nearly all taxes, yes.
Most of the examples you cite as essential functions of government are not essential at all.
The Census, for example: Most of the questions asked in the modern Census are *not * authorized by the Constitution, and the government has no business collecting that information. To the extent that the government has a legitimate need for Census information, why couldn’t it be collected by a private organization like Google, Gallup, or Roper? What makes government employees uniquely qualified to take a census? (The Christmas Bird Count is an annual census of birds taken entirely by volunteers.)
The amount of money needed to run the truly essential functions of government would be a small fraction of current taxes.
Rivers are a comparatively minor concern — America is bordered by two oceans. Is the government going to wall off every inch of beach?
But technical concerns are not the real argument. The question is one of economics, in the larger sense — whether prosperity arises from freedom (as Ronald Reagan believed) or from government action (as Barack Obama and both political parties now believe).
The “Conservatives” you speak of are conservatives, or “Tories”, in the European sense. Ronald Reagan said that his brand of pro-freedom conservatives were really liberals, in the original sense of the word — like those who fought for Liberty in 1776, against the Tories (Conservatives) of the time.
There’s a fundamental difference between conservatives like Reagan, who wanted to shrink the size and scope of government, and these new “Conservatives” who want to expand it.
“The “Conservatives” you speak of are conservatives, or “Tories”, in the European sense. ”
Clearly you have no idea of what I mean when I say “Conservatives”. You seem to think I approve of guys like Boehner, Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell.
I sincerely doubt you have any idea of what I’m writing about.
“There’s a fundamental difference between conservatives like Reagan, who wanted to shrink the size and scope of government, and these new “Conservatives” who want to expand it.”
I don’t call them Conservatives. I call them Statists.
Next!
I don’t like Morrissey’s idea because it’s just another case of choosing cleverness over effectiveness.
The best comment I read about King Barry’s immigration power-play (and I wish I could remember who said/wrote it, so I could give proper credit) was, “Illegal immigrants do the work American citizens will no longer do–like voting Democratic.”
Barrone still believes the myth that there is a shortage of STEM workers in the US. There isn’t and the IEEE documented it quite well last year.
Yes. I simply cannot imagine why a company would go overseas to hire an immigrant and go through all the hassle of H1B, green cards etc when there are many U.S. citizen STEM workers looking for a job. Even cheaper wages doesn’t account for it because the wage difference is a small part of a person’s fully loaded cost.
I simply cannot imagine why a company would go overseas to hire an immigrant and go through all the hassle of H1B, green cards etc when there are many U.S. citizen STEM workers looking for a job.
Because STEM workers are not interchangeable like potatoes. You cannot simply replace a compiler optimization engineer with a CFD specialist or a neurosurgeon, or vice versa. For some highly technical jobs, there may be fewer than a dozen people in the entire world who are actually qualified — and not all those will be available or interested in a new job. In the extreme case, people have skills that are literally one of a kind. How easy do you think it is to replace an Elon Musk, for example?
Yes, but the number of STEM workers willing to put in 70 hours a week for low wages is limited, hence the cry for more H1B visas. They want to flood the market to lower the wages. American STEM employees see their wages depressed and job opportunities evaporate. Foreign workers get exploited for the opportunity to work in America. The Chamber of Commerce and Silicon Valley billionaires make out like bandits. Everything is proceeding as planned.
Thing is, Larry, that after a year or so those H1B want….
more money! They want higher wages and bennies.
If the idea of the Crony Capitalists is to keep replacing HiB’s with more H1B’s who want lower wages that’s a silly game.
They can’t be that stupid can they?
I don’t see why you’re having such a hard time understanding this. An H1B visa is issued for a particular worker to work for a particular company. If they lose their job, they have to leave the country.
Do you really not understand why someone might be willing to work much longer hours for lower pay than a citizen, if the alternative is having to pack up and go home? This happened to a couple of people I previously worked with, and they had a few weeks to close down their life in America and leave after they were laid off.
So, in most cases, the discussion would go like:
‘I want more money.’
‘Fine. You’re sacked.’
‘No, sorry, I didn’t mean it.’
‘Tough. I’ve got thousands more waiting to take your place.’
Besides, don’t most of the H1Bs now go to ‘consultancy’ companies who are just looking for more warm bodies they can rent out at $100 an hour?
If the surge from Mexico is over, why bother closing the border?
Given Obama’s executive action, more surges wait in the wings. Look towards next Spring.
Because, once Obama is out of the White House, there’s a chance the US economy could recover, and then the illegals would be heading over the border again.