As ANTIs & Lawmakers continue to demonize, chastise & Scapegoat all Latinos for Illegal Immigration issues, the Hispanic Caucus has stepped forward & said, "WE ARE MAD AS HELL AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!" We Need Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) once & for all!!May 17, 2008, 11:33PM
The lawmakers say comprehensive immigration bills are needed, soon
By RICHARD S. DUNHAMCopyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Rep. Joe Baca, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, is steamed. Latinos have become a political "punching bag" this year, the California Democrat complained recently, attacked by "the misinformed" and "the misguided." ..The target of Baca's ire is the House Democratic leadership. Baca and other Latino lawmakers on Capitol Hill are angry at their fellow Democrats — and they say they're not going to take it anymore. They've held a press conference on the steps of a House office building to denounce their leadership's willingness to cater to immigration critics by holding hearings on enforcement measures proposed by endangered Democratic moderates.
They've threatened to block progress on immigration proposals backed by business interests and pushed by key Democrats, such as special visas for high-tech workers or agricultural help, unless leaders also move forward with comprehensive immigration legislation. They've even accused their leadership of betraying bedrock Democratic principles.
"Today, my party wants to do what's easy, not what's right," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.
'The frustration ... is real'In a bid for anti-immigrant votes, Gutierrez says, his party is "betraying the Democrats' traditional fight for justice."
Lawmakers in the 20-member Hispanic Caucus know they are not going to get their political wish this year: another shot at comprehensive immigration (CIR) legislation, something that died in the Senate last year. But they are frustrated that their party has not been aggressive at pushing back against the heated rhetoric of the Right.
"The frustration that you sense is real," said Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, a caucus vice chairman."We allowed the opponents of comprehensive immigration reform to frame the debate."
Latino lawmakers are most upset about a proposal by conservative Democrat Heath Shuler, D-N.C., to step up border enforcement and tighten requirements forcing employers to verify the legal status of their workers. Republicans are trying to force House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who opposes Shuler's "Secure America through Verification and Enforcement" Act, to bring the measure to the House floor for a vote through a petition signed by 218 lawmakers. Several dozen Democratic moderates, including Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, have angered the Hispanic caucus by signing the petition. In addition, Lampson has proposed legislation to double penalties against smugglers who bring criminals into the U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, said he and other Hispanic lawmakers are tired of the Democratic leadership scheduling hearings on "piecemeal legislation" while ignoring comprehensive reform.
"We continue to have to deal with pointless political stunts and fear-mongering," Hinojosa said.
The political consequences of a Hispanic rebellion — if it occurs — could be significant.
If alienated Latinos stay home from the polls in November, it could cost Democrats dearly in closely contested local elections in Texas, Arizona and other states. And if Hispanics conclude that their party is no different on immigration than Republican presidential candidate John McCain — a longtime supporter of comprehensive reform— it could tip the balance to the GOP in presidential contests in swing states such as New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. To neutralize McCain's appeal to Latino voters, said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a San Antonio-based think tank, Democrats need to make an effort this year to pass some sort of immigration measure that deals with issues other than enforcement.
"It doesn't have to be the whole enchilada," said Gonzalez. "It can be a down payment on immigration reform."
By RICHARD S. DUNHAMCopyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Rep. Joe Baca, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, is steamed. Latinos have become a political "punching bag" this year, the California Democrat complained recently, attacked by "the misinformed" and "the misguided." ..The target of Baca's ire is the House Democratic leadership. Baca and other Latino lawmakers on Capitol Hill are angry at their fellow Democrats — and they say they're not going to take it anymore. They've held a press conference on the steps of a House office building to denounce their leadership's willingness to cater to immigration critics by holding hearings on enforcement measures proposed by endangered Democratic moderates.
They've threatened to block progress on immigration proposals backed by business interests and pushed by key Democrats, such as special visas for high-tech workers or agricultural help, unless leaders also move forward with comprehensive immigration legislation. They've even accused their leadership of betraying bedrock Democratic principles.
"Today, my party wants to do what's easy, not what's right," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.
'The frustration ... is real'In a bid for anti-immigrant votes, Gutierrez says, his party is "betraying the Democrats' traditional fight for justice."
Lawmakers in the 20-member Hispanic Caucus know they are not going to get their political wish this year: another shot at comprehensive immigration (CIR) legislation, something that died in the Senate last year. But they are frustrated that their party has not been aggressive at pushing back against the heated rhetoric of the Right.
"The frustration that you sense is real," said Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, a caucus vice chairman."We allowed the opponents of comprehensive immigration reform to frame the debate."
Latino lawmakers are most upset about a proposal by conservative Democrat Heath Shuler, D-N.C., to step up border enforcement and tighten requirements forcing employers to verify the legal status of their workers. Republicans are trying to force House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who opposes Shuler's "Secure America through Verification and Enforcement" Act, to bring the measure to the House floor for a vote through a petition signed by 218 lawmakers. Several dozen Democratic moderates, including Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, have angered the Hispanic caucus by signing the petition. In addition, Lampson has proposed legislation to double penalties against smugglers who bring criminals into the U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, said he and other Hispanic lawmakers are tired of the Democratic leadership scheduling hearings on "piecemeal legislation" while ignoring comprehensive reform.
"We continue to have to deal with pointless political stunts and fear-mongering," Hinojosa said.
The political consequences of a Hispanic rebellion — if it occurs — could be significant.
If alienated Latinos stay home from the polls in November, it could cost Democrats dearly in closely contested local elections in Texas, Arizona and other states. And if Hispanics conclude that their party is no different on immigration than Republican presidential candidate John McCain — a longtime supporter of comprehensive reform— it could tip the balance to the GOP in presidential contests in swing states such as New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. To neutralize McCain's appeal to Latino voters, said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a San Antonio-based think tank, Democrats need to make an effort this year to pass some sort of immigration measure that deals with issues other than enforcement.
"It doesn't have to be the whole enchilada," said Gonzalez. "It can be a down payment on immigration reform."
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120 comments:
I've always felt that the Democratic Party is a party of hypocrites. With the Republican Party, one knows where one stands. I'm sorry to say that I can't say the same for the Democrats. They tell us everything they think we want to hear but when it comes to formulating national policy, we are ignored.
Panderos,
Welcome to my blog. I hope you come back often!! You seem like a cool enough guy!
I know what you mean. Who represents us? I dont know.
All I know is our Immigration policies are broken and we are in dire need of Comprehensive Immigration Reform!
The way I see it, every illegal alien-held job is one less job for an American. There is no possible counter argument to that. Illegals only doing the work Americans won’t do is ridiculous. Americans don’t do construction jobs like tile work, flooring, framing, roofing, plumbing and gardening? Americans won’t work in factories, meat packing plants, fabrication shops, etc? And this notion that illegal Mexican immigrants want to eventually become U.S. citizens is equally nutty. What evidence is there of that? They make substantially more money, send it home, buy a hacienda and retire much better than they would if they had stayed home and worked in Mexico.
Illegal aliens cost the American taxpayer untold billions of dollars every year. Yes, we are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. It was legal immigrants and native born citizens that built America. The immigrants who first migrated here hundreds of years ago did so legally, and never thought of doing something illegal to gain citizenship. That’s the difference between then and now.
So if you like overpopulation, congestion, urban sprawl, pollution, environmental damage, crumbling infrastructure due to overuse, diminishing resources, higher taxes, millions of fewer jobs for Americans, higher unemployment rates, less tax revenue for the U.S. Treasury and state governments due to under-the-table payrolls, more crime, gangs, graffiti, drive-by shootings and increased home invasions, more expensive health care and utility bills due to deadbeats, re-introduction of diseases previously eradicated, less available housing, unlicensed and uninsured drivers on the road, overcrowded and woefully inadequate schools with poorly educated students, food stamp-welfare-assisted housing budgets blown. in-state college tuition for illegals, more drugs, overflowing jails, fraudulent documents and identity theft, more drunk drivers, higher rents due to low supply, the balkanization of our communities, a large and growing population with loyalty to other nations, an onslaught on our national culture and identity leading to an overall decline in our quality of life and pressing “one” for English, then you should be happy with the status quo.
Zeezil, Zeezil,
I am glad you alipacers are visiting us ´Real People´. You need to talk with REAL PEOPLE instead of like minded talking to their own. We need to engage in civil discussion and then maybe ALL OF US AMERICANS, of Every Ethnicity, can solve our Immigration Issues.
Let´s put the real issues on the table.
1. We need to secure borders
2. We need to sanction the exploitive employers. (Why aren´t we putting any of them in prison Zeezil? Even the Meatpackers in Iowa?)
3. We need to fix our current Immigration policies and stop the backlogs of forms, the archaic policies that require anyone waiting in line to wait 10 - 20 years for the LEGAL process, stop the bribes!!!
Come on Zeezil.
Come on Board with Us!
Let´s work out and resolve the REAL ISSUES not the bogus ones most of your ANTIs speak of! Together we can team together and Resolve these Broken Immigration Policies!
What say you??
dee, so all of the issues mentioned by him are bogus? Are you kidding me? They are real!
You call your side REAL people? What the hell does that make us?
I already posted awhile back an article whereby an employer was convicted of knowlingly hiring illegal aliens. These things have to be investigated and you know how slow the wheels of justice turn. If found guilty the employers (as in the meat packing employer) will go to jail! Why do you only want the employers punished but not the illegal employees? That isn't fair or just!
Our immigration laws aren't broken. They just haven't been enforced since 1986 as promised.
This backlog you speak of has nothing to do with those sneaking across our border so why even bring that up?
When are you going to stand up for the rule of law and become a true American rather than a eternal Mexican?
My congressman, Dennis Moore, is a co-author of the bill. I found that out after I had written him a letter letting him have it with both barrels and he sent me a reply explaining his bill. He's a democrat.
I begin to see a pattern emerging. A lot of democrats have been elected in the past few years on the promise of immigration enforcement. And now, we're beginning to see action. I'm actually quite stunned. The thing I like is they are putting the burden on the employers which is where I think it should be. A lot of republicans don't like this because they are in the pocket for the Chamber of Commerce, etc. and that really pisses me off.
I swear I don't know what I am anymore...I guess I'm an independent.
More people coming to this country is a good thing. Do you know why China and India are becoming more powerful? It's because they have more people than anyone else.
Nelson, you don't really believe what you just said, do you?? If you do, then were all in trouble, if you are what our schools are putting out. Unbelievable.
Nelson, get a clue:
If immigration and births continue at their present rates, the U.S. is on course to a population that will come close to the one billion people mark at the end of the century. That’s three times our current population, in only a few generations.
While good American citizens agonize about the problems of environmental degradation, famine, and erseas, poverty overseas, opportunists in our own country push us in the same undesirable direction because we have refused to insist on appropriate action to limit our growth here at home.
When an American Presidential says we should “match willing foreign workers with willing American employers” – and when agribusiness and multinational business leaders applaud – the result is that building contractors, farmers, food processors, hotel operators, and the foreign workers they hire determine America’s ultimate population, not you and fellow citizens.
When Congress passes legislation offering amnesty to illegal aliens, and increasing the number of “anchor babies”, “family reunifications,” “temporary workers”, and “refugees” – and when courts expand those rewards – the result is that “coyotes” and human smugglers, criminal groups, along with refugee contractors, midlevel State Department employees, and Non-Governmental Organizations determine America’s ultimate population, not you and your fellow citizens.
When a major American-based, internationally distributed newspaper like the Wall Street Journal declares “We believe in open borders” – and when other multimedia conglomerates “give the nod” to that idea on their editorial pages – the result is the economic and political goals of foreign governments, multinational corporations and ethnic advocacy groups determine America’s ultimate population, not you and your neighbors.
When environmental organizations insist that “population growth is a global problem requiring global solutions” – and when wealthy donors and major foundations say “Amen” – what they are demanding is that cheap labor be “king” and that five billion people living outside America and surviving on a few dollars a day decide what America’s ultimate population should be, not you and your family.
For too many years America has let its ultimate population be determined by all the groups mentioned above – most with a clear financial or political interest in continuing our accelerating population growth for their benefit, not ours.
Nelson, I did read an article recently about the Myth of Overpopulation:
"Myth 1: The world is overcrowded and population growth is adding overwhelming numbers of humans to a small planet.
In fact, people do live in crowded conditions, and always have. We cluster together in cities and villages in order to exchange goods and services with one another. But while we crowd together for economic reasons in our great metropolitan areas, most of the world is empty, as we can see when we fly over it. It has been estimated by Paul Ehrlich and others that human beings actually occupy no more than 1 to 3 percent of the earth's land surface.
If you allotted 1250 square feet to each person, all the people in the world would fit into the state of TEXAS. Try the math yourself: 7,438,152,268,800 square feet in Texas, divided by the world population of 5,860,000,000, equals 1269 square feet per person. The population density of this giant city would be about 21,000 — somewhat more than San Francisco and less than the Bronx.
Another fact: World population growth is rapidly declining. United Nations figures show that the 79 countries that comprise 40 percent of the world's population now have fertility rates too low to prevent population decline. The rate in Asia fell from 2.4 in 1965-70 to 1.5 in 1990-95. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the rate fell from 2.75 in 1960-65 to 1.70 in 1990-95. In Europe, the rate fell to 0.16 — that is, effectively zero — in 1990-95. And the annual rate of change in world population fell from 2 percent in 1965-70 to less than 1.5 percent in 1990-95."
Zeezil,
Rubenstein and Roy Beck are ANTI extremists. Their statistics are their speculations and are not credible.
Here are the facts about Rubenstein, the author of the report:
1. Rubenstein is a man who has written for years for a racist anti-immigration website called VDARE
2. He also writes for the white supremacist National Policy Institute.
3. describes the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling outlawing school segregation as “arguably the worse decision in the Court’s 216 year history.”
4. He claims later civil rights legislation was unconstitutional.
You still attack character instead of points. There character has nothing to do with the points they make. Argue the points!!
Dee:
You sound like an extremist with an agenda that is completely unsupported by any facts and data. Of course, that's been the mantra of the open border illegal alien huggers all along...no facts or data that support their anarchist and unlawful stance...so just paint the opposition as racist bigots. Dee, get a clue...your sorry and false accusation are untrue and only reflect upon yourself.
Here's another clue...read the 72 page report and then, perhaps, you could speak informed and intelligently on the topic.
Again, here is the link:
http://www.esrresearch.com/Rubensteinreport.pdf
What dee fails to understand is what the "carrying capacity" of a nation is. We may have plenty of open land but we don't have the natural resources and social infrastructure to support a population beyond this carrying capacity. I posted this once before and I will again for those with tunnel vision for this nation and planet.
www.susps.org
Just goes to show how ethnic interest plays out in politics. And in this case, America cannot go about its business and deal with its concerns without the Hispanic agitation for open borders, amnesty, and the Hispanification of America --- aka comprehensive immigration "reform".
Yeah, Dee...economist Edwin Rubenstein is just a big racist, bigot and xenophobe. Even the PEW Hispanic Research Center has validated his past reports. So now, all of a sudden, his latest research is racist?
The open borders ethnic lobbyists can't debate a topic nor substantiate their positions, so they scream racism and xenophobia. I guess they think that'll work for them.
Actually Zeezil, I am a middle of the road PRO.
Your side tends to put extremist names and frequently misuse terms (e.g. amnesty). Your radical terms in your statement including “IE Hugger”, “Anarchists” is meant to invoke anger and takes the person off topic.
I make no accusations, I merely pointed out the facts.
Liquid,
As I stated, Rubenstein is disreputable. His connections with the White Nationals and Tanton (FAIR) and VDARE sites is inrefutable.
However, to your point, here is my largest issue. His document is based on the COST of Immigration. Not illegal immigration, but Immigration. So many other economists dispute his theories, including Bernanke and even Borjas.
Here is one example. There are tons of articles on the net that say more. Let me know if you want me to post them.
"The falsely praised THE FISCAL COST OF IMMIGRATION by Edwin Rubenstein doesn’t even mention “patents” or “entrepreneurship” anywhere in his study. This oversight (I don’t want to accuse Edwin Rubenstein of intentionally misleading his readers) casts real doubt on the sincerity of this report.
Focusing on skilled immigration, Professor Jennifer Hunt in this study states:
“Twenty-six percent of U.S.-based Nobel Prize recipients from 1990-2000 were immigrants (Peri 2007), as were twenty-five percent of founders of public venture-backed U.S. companies in 1990-2005 (Anderson and Platzer n.d.), compared to a foreign-born population of 12% in 2000” (Hunt, 1),
and that:
“Immigrants account for 24% of patents, twice their share in the population” (Hunt, 3),
and:
“A one percentage point rise in the share of immigrant college graduates in the population increases patents per capita by 8-22% . . . the state-level results mean that the 1990-2000 increase in the population share of this group from 2.2 to 3.5% increased patents by 10-29% . . . I find that immigrants have more than double the impact on innovation that natives do” (Hunt, 4).
Immigrants are more inventive than natives. Period. "
Here is another:
THE FISCAL COST OF IMMIGRATION by Edwin Rubenstein is a fatally flawed study which uses poor methodology. Rubenstein claims that tax revenue was lower than expected because of immigrant competition driving down wages. That claim assumes two things: 1. Wages have decreased and 2. Immigrants decreased them. Neither of those assertions is true. As Professors Russ Roberts and Don Boudreaux at George Mason University are fond of pointing out on cafehayek, statistics which purport to show a decrease in wages since the 1970s do not include factors such as overestimation of inflation, increased paid vacation time, healthcare benefits, dental care, and employer matching savings plans. Considering those factors, wages have risen substantially since the 1970s.
Far from decreasing wages, immigrants have INCREASED the wages of 92% of Americans between 1970 and 2000. The 8% of Americans negatively impacted by immigration are those who failed to earn a high-school degree. RETHINKING THE GAINS FROM IMMIGRATION: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM THE U.S. by Ottaviano and Peri clearly and concisely reports these facts. Far from hurting our economy and decreasing tax revenue, immigrants fill the government’s coffers.
zeezil,
As I mentioned in these two blog posts, the Rubenstein study that you refer to is hopelessly flawed.
http://www.openmarket.org/2008/05/14/immigration-is-good-for-the-economy-1/#respond
http://www.openmarket.org/2008/05/14/immigrantion-is-good-for-the-economy-2-inventions/#comments
You didn't even acknowledge Rubenstien's poor methodology or his ignorance of patents filed by immigrants and foreigners, which file 24% of patents.
Your tales of resource depletion and a lack of resources not allowing more immigrants to move here is wrong. Compared to 1920, America has many more resources:
• have greater than ten times more miles of paved roads;
• have more than twice as many physicians;
• have 50 percent more dentists;
• have almost three times as many teachers;
• have 540 percent more police officers;
• have twice as many firefighters;
• produce 2.4 times more oil—as known reserves of oil grow;
• produce 2.67 times more cubic feet of lumber—as America’s supply of lumber stands grows;
• have conquered most of the infectious diseases that were major killers in the past.
You can get that information from this website:
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/boudreaux/articles/2002/immigrants.html
I was talking about Byrd, not Rubenstein. Here is a bit of info for you too....
Guess who Byrd endorsed for Presidency??!!
Obamanation!!
zeesil,
Just so you know, studies show that Hispanic immigrants' involvement in crime is less than that of U.S. citizens.
http://www.aila.net/content/default.aspx?docid=24201.
"The incarceration rate for the native-born (3.5 percent) was five times higher than the rate for immigrants (0.7 percent) in 2000."
Just some facts about the "drive-bys" you claim happen in immigrant neighborhoods. And don't get me started on the extremely flawed penal system in the United States. Policy changes have caused a continuous increase of incarceration rates in the past thirty years despite a decrease of violent crimes. The United States currently has the highest rates of incarceration in the world and most of these are for less serious offenses. Not to mention that the prison system has a disproportionate impact on minority communities. I think we should solve our problem of economic resources being wasted on a prison system we can no longer afford and doesn't have any positive economic output first.
Are you talking about Hispanic immigrants or Hispanic illegal aliens?
Anonymus:
A huge statistic is missed here, that if quantified would boost the crime numbers and costs of illegal aliens immensely. That is, many jurisdictions don't determine the immigration status of a perpetrator of a crime (don't even ask) and many others are sanctuary cities that are forbidden from asking the immigration status of crime perpetrators. Furthermore, for those that have been ID'ed as illegal aliens, many are released back into the community or deported before being imprisoned, therefore their presence is never counted in the percentages of illegal aliens in our jails.
Bottom line, the numbers of illegal aliens quoted as committing crimes and in prison are woefully underestimated.
A more realistic statistic would be to report on the number of "foreign born" committing crimes. That, though would be a misleading stat because a number of foreign-born have had their immigration status adjusted to a legal visa still in effect or even citizenship.
But, the central question that hasn't been asked...why do we tolerate even ONE crime by an illegal alien? These crimes are totally preventable by not allowing these perps into the country in the first place by having a border wall, securing the borders and enforcing our currently existing immigration laws.
If the illegality of illegal immigration and the tremendous cost burden to American taxpayers, our economy, our society and our culture doesn’t infuriate you, then look over just a few studies that put illegal alien crime in focus:
(1) Violating the immigration law is a CRIME
(2) Forging documents is a FELONY CRIME
(3) Passing forged documents is a FELONY CRIME
(4) Stealing ID is a FELONY CRIME
(5) Using stolen ID is a FELONY CRIME
A US GAO study found in a study population of 55,322 illegal aliens incarcerated, on average, each had been arrested 8 times for a total arrest figure of at least 459,614 times. If that isn't astounding enough, these 55,322 illegals in the study population had been arrested for committing 700,000 criminal offenses, which averages 13 crimes per illegal alien. So, each illegal alien incarcerated had been arrested 8 times and had committed at least 13 crimes.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, in 2005, 25% of prisoners in federal prisons were illegal aliens, and 4% were legal aliens. This proportion has not gone down; if anything, it has gone up markedly. Tom DeWeese, President of the American Policy Institute states that today, illegal aliens make up twenty nine percent of the U.S. prison population. Bill O'Reilly is on record more recently stating that illegal aliens account for 32% of the federal and state prison population.
The US Justice Department reported that in 2003, alone, 270,000 illegal immigrants had served prison time. The Federation for American Immigration Reform reports: "In March 2000, Congress made public Department of Justice statistics showing that, over the previous five years, the INS had released over 35,000 criminal aliens instead of deporting them. Over 11,000 of those released went on to commit serious crimes, over 1,800 of which were violent ones; including 98 homicides, 142 sexual assaults, and 44 kidnappings. In 2001, thanks to a decision by the Supreme Court, the INS was forced to release into our society over 3,000 criminal aliens who collectively had been convicted of 125 homicides, 387 sex offenses, and 772 assault charges." http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/27/114208.shtml?s=ic
According to the well-respected U.S. Center for Immigration Studies (www.cis.org), incarcerated convicted illegal aliens make up 29 percent of federal, state and local prisons at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. This number doubles when the costs for apprehension, the justice system, public defenders, interpreters, prosecutors and the courts add to the total.
Illegals represent about 8 percent of Arizona's population and the Arizona Department of Corrections reports that Mexican nationals make up 12 percent of the state's 37,200-inmate prison population.
Undocumented aliens, mostly from Mexico and Central America, now total 1953 inmates in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s jail system. That number represents 21 percent of the overall inmate population of men and women housed in the nation’s third largest jail system. Sheriff Joe Arpaio says that is just small part of the story about those incarcerated in his jails. He says that recent figures show that serious crime (class four felonies and above) are committed substantially by illegal aliens. During two recent surveys, between 27 and 53 percent of all suspects booked into the jail on serious felonies had immigration holds placed on them. The vast majority of those with holds were in the United States illegally. According to the Sheriff’s figures, illegal alien inmate population numbers have grown steadily in Arizona and other border states over the last several years. In March 2005, the illegal alien population in Arpaio’s jails totaled approximately 700. (Borderfire Report 2/28/08 )
A new study shows one in five inmates in North Carolina metropolitan jails were not born in this country. The Sheriff’s Association believes a large number of those inmates are here illegally as well. (News 14 Carolina 2/21/08 )
Members of Utah’s Congressional delegation contacted DHS Secretary Chertoff requesting an additional 22 ICE agents for deportations and to investigate crimes perpetrated by undocumented immigrants. "Our jails are full. The crime rates continue to increase, and we can no longer let this problem escalate," reads one of the letters, signed by Utah's two senators and three representatives. Numerous illegal aliens are committing crimes in Utah communities with virtual impunity," The state now has 25 such agents. (Salt Lake Tribune, 03/05/2008 )
The Federation for Immigration Reform contends that while illegal immigrants made up 3 percent of the total U.S. population in 2003 they made up 5 percent of the total prison population. http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_illegalsandcrime
The Violent Crimes Institute conducted a study in 2006 that determined there were more than 100 sex offenders crossing our southern border daily. Data indicates that there are approximately 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each, totaling over one million sex crimes.
Illegal aliens are killing more Americans than the Iraq war, says a report from Family Security Matters that estimates some 2,158 murders are committed every year by illegal aliens in the U.S. The group says that number is more than 15 percent of all the murders reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. and about three times the representation of illegal aliens in the general population.
The report from FSM estimates that the 267,000 illegal aliens currently incarcerated in the nation are responsible for nearly 1,300,000 crimes, ranging from drug arrests to rape and murder. Such statistics debunk the claim that illegal immigration is a victimless crime. http://www.gopusa.com/news/2007/february/0222_illegals_report.shtml
Crimes committed by alien criminals costs U.S. taxpayers $1.6 billion in prison costs alone. The figure doesn’t include the cost of lost property, medical bills of the victims, lost work time for injury recovery, higher insurance costs, etc. –Tom DeWeese, President of American Policy Institute.
In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens. The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave: City Journal, winter 2004 http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_the_illegal_alien.html
One thing that is never even mentioned by the champions of the illegal aliens nor is factored into any crime studies is the fact that ALL illegal aliens have a 3 – 5 crimes committed head start on American citizens (see the 5 point list above).
Do you ever hear an acknowledgement from the illegal alien facilitators of the more than 50,000 Americans that have been killed by illegal aliens through murder, manslaughter and drunk driving just since 9/11/01? Of course not, that doesn't fit within their pre-determined conclusion that illegals are only hard working economically displaced ‘migrants’ that regardless of the laws they break by entering, remaining and operating in America, are only here for a better life at the expense of no one. Excuse me for being cynical but I’ve seen the data, read the studies, considered the facts and seen the reality. If you haven’t done the same, I urge you to do so without delay.
Furthermore, legalizing an illegal alien’s presence in America by rewarding their illegal behavior through amnesty is not the way to build a good system of law and order. It only invites more criminal activity and non-compliance with our laws.
The central question for everyone, including the facilitators, illegal alien advocates, the ‘no human being is illegal’ compassion crowd, every legislator and RESPONSIBLE MEDIA REPORTERS is this…Why should even ONE American suffer a crime OF ANY SORT at the hands of an illegal alien? With border security and zero tolerance for illegal immigration, these crimes against our citizens are essentially 100% preventable.
I urge you to view this video that puts the tragedy of illegal alien crime victims into perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpomTIkv0V8&feature=PlayList&p=4EED1264205A2408&index=3
Isn’t it about time that we engage in Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement rather than allow amnesty with Comprehensive Immigration Reform?
The application of science and technology to global problems is a key component of providing a decent standard of living for a majority of the human race. Science and technology have an especially important role to play in developing countries in helping them to manage their resources effectively and to participate fully in worldwide initiatives for common benefit. Capabilities in science and technology must be strengthened in LDCs as a matter of urgency through joint initiatives from the developed and developing worlds. But science and technology alone are not enough. Global policies are urgently needed to promote more rapid economic development throughout the world, more environmentally benign patterns of human activity, and a more rapid stabilization of world population/.
The future of our planet is in the balance. Sustainable development can be achieved, but only if irreversible degradation of the environment can be halted in time. The next 30 years may be crucial. [emphasis added]
http://www.nas.edu/
The Hispanic Caucus must be part of that red-faced angry group you used to refer to all of the time. The shoe seems to be on the other foot now.
It is indeed a strange phenomenon when a misguided minority thinks it should dictate policy for all of us. They apparently can't wait to turn the U.S. into just another Latin American country with all the ills of the originals -- poverty, overpopulation, corruption, crime, and disease. Why are they so myopic? They should be making common cause with all other citizens to solve this problem with secure borders buttressed with vigorous internal enforcement using work status E-verification. One can only explain their behavior by an inordinate lust for power at any cost.
"Let´s put the real issues on the table.
1. We need to secure borders
2. We need to sanction the exploitive employers. (Why aren´t we putting any of them in prison Zeezil? Even the Meatpackers in Iowa?)
3. We need to fix our current Immigration policies and stop the backlogs of forms, the archaic policies that require anyone waiting in line to wait 10 - 20 years for the LEGAL process, stop the bribes!!!"
4. Let's apply the sanctions and jail terms equally to employers and illegal aliens -- that's fair isn't it?
5. The borders cannot be secured unless we have a vigorous internal enforcement program based on E-verification of workstatus and jail terms for repeat offenders, of which there are many.
6. We need a national policy to stabilize our population before it is too late.
(China and India are not succeeding because of their huge anthill like population but in spite of them because we have shipped all our jobs and treasure to them.)
7. Stop the bribes but don't open the floodgates. We need fewer rather than more immigrants if you value your quality of life and standard of living. Whatever you can say about India and China, the improvement in the standard of living is still limited to the few, not the the vast millions of impoverished masses.
We don't have to rely on the writings of anyone Dee finds suspect because she disagrees with them. Try the eminent demographer Joel Cohen's writings is credentials are impeccable:
", I personally am very concerned by the vast inequitable and largely avoidable burdens of hunger, disease, violence, ignorance and poverty borne by too many billions of people. But I will not try to persuade you that the world will end in the next ten years unless everybody changes to a diet of soybeans and contraceptive pills, or that a universal diet of soybeans and contraceptive pills would eliminate hunger, disease, violence, ignorance and poverty…. But I will try to persuade you that the world [ and hence the U.S.}cannot easily and comfortably accommodate an unlimited number of people at any desirable level of material, mental and civic well-being.”
Zeezil,
You keep repeating the same rhetoric you have posted from other blogs. You are not responding to the questions asked. Please participate in this debate.
First, Rubensteins study pertains to Legal Immigration and Immigrants, NOT to illegal immigration.
Second it does not take into consideration all the benefits of immigration. There the data is skewed and biased.
These are very important points.
Third, Rubensteins motivations are questionable given his background. In fact, most credible economists (eg. Bernanke, Borjas, etc.) do not agree with his stats.
----
Please address the issues of this blog topic - Comprehensive Immigration Reform. The backlog in the current processes, what we can do to resolve the backlog, etc.
Ulty,
Yes. I think the Hispanic Caucus is angry, and rightfully so.
The racial profiling of Latino citizens, the sweeps impacting so many immigrant children, the anger in the debate has finally reached a critical point and WE cannot take this status quo anymore. We need CIR!
Ulty,
I am with you on the 7 points, especially 1 - 4 and 7.
I am ok on 5 but a little leary about losing civil liberties for all.
"Please address the issues of this blog topic - Comprehensive Immigration Reform. The backlog in the current processes, what we can do to resolve the backlog, etc."
If I may ...
Stop all immigration; cancel all pending applications; stop issuing visas; send current visa holders home. Abolish birthright citizenship and make it retroactive to 1960. Fine businesses at least $15,000 per illegal worker. Informers, illegal or legal, will get 1/3 of the proceeds. Thus, the program (administered by ICE) will be self-funding. Offer financial incentives to help illegals repatriate to their country of origin.
Dee:
A KEY STATEMENT in my description of the Rubenstein study, that you conveniently overlooked is this:
"Legal immigrants were not separated out from illegal immigrants for the fiscal impact study, but if they had been, the fiscal cost per ILLEGAL immigrant would be even more shocking than the figures quoted above."
Here's some more data and studies for you to claim racism and xenophobia:
Have you heard the saying, when California sneezes, the rest of the country catches the flu? Generally what starts in California eventually spreads to the rest of the country. That is, unless a state takes measures to resist it. Unless every state realistically tackles illegal immigration by instituting Comprehensive Immigration ENFORCEMENT, which California has refused to do, this is what you can expect:
As of 2006, California contained greater than 25% of the total illegal alien population within the U.S. Many of these illegals concentrate in Los Angeles. New statistics from the Department of Public Social Services reveal that illegal aliens and their families in Los Angeles County collected over $37 million in welfare and food stamp allocations in November 2007 – up $3 million dollars from September. Twenty five percent of the all welfare and food stamps benefits are going directly to the children of illegal aliens. Illegals collected over $20 million in welfare assistance for November 2007 and over $16 million in monthly food stamp allocations for a projected annual cost of $444 million. "This new information shows an alarming increase in the devastating impact Illegal immigration continues to have on Los Angeles County taxpayers," said Antonovich, LA County Supervisor. "With $220 million for public safety, $400 million for healthcare, and $444 million in welfare allocations, the total cost for illegal immigrants to County taxpayers far exceeds $1 billion a year – not including the millions of dollars for education."
Just keep in mind that the $37 million a month is for only one county in one state and is only welfare and foodstamp benefits. It doesn't include hospital care, education, fraud, wage depression, crime, depreciation of housing values, the portion of bad loans given to illegal aliens by banks, insurance costs and the myriad of other burdensome expenses that illegal aliens put on the backs of American citizens. There are 29 sanctuary cities in California and because of that there should be little wonder why so many illegal aliens stay in this state. They basically operate with impunity and even if they get arrested for a serious crime there is little chance of them being deported. They can sign up for welfare and food stamps with no questions asked and the hospitals provide them with free care as long as there are still emergency rooms that can’t turn them away for lack of funds. All things considered, California has rolled out the welcome mat for them.
Is there any wonder that California is right now in a fiscal crisis emergency with a budget deficit greater than $14 billion and growing? Reliable estimates calculate illegal aliens cost the state $10.5 billion each year! So what’s Schwarzenegger’s solution? A 10 percent across-the-board reduction in state agency funding,, transferring $2 billion in spending to the next fiscal year and increasing taxes. Why not cut all public services to those not in the U.S. legally? Just a simple thought on my part that would go a long way to putting California back on its feet. A bell should be ringing in you head about right now that tells you this is what is coming throughout America if you refuse to act locally and demand that your political leaders act against illegal immigration.
The Congressional Budget Office in December 2007 (CBO: The Impact of Unauthorized Immigrants on the Budgets of State and Local Governments) stated the tax revenues that unauthorized immigrants generate for state and local governments do not offset the total cost of services provided to those immigrants. Illegal immigrants are a NET COST LOSS and a burden to the budgets of all states. This cost is largely borne by the states and citizen taxpayers. Federal payments allocated by Washington fall far short in reimbursing state and local government expenditures.
A report in April 2008 by economist Edwin Rubenstein titled the FISCAL COST OF IMMIGRATION, indicated:
- The impact on 15 Federal Departments surveyed was: $346 billion in fiscal related costs in FY 2007.
- Each immigrant cost taxpayers more than $9,000 per year.
- An immigrant household, consisting of two adults and two children, cost taxpayers $36,000 per year. Legal immigrants were not separated out from illegal immigrants for the fiscal impact study, but if they had been, the fiscal cost per ILLEGAL immigrant would be even more shocking than the figures quoted above.
The annual cost for uncompensated emergency care to Mexican Border States (California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas) is $200 million. California taxpayers paid $79 million for illegal alien health care. Texas paid $74 million. –Tom DeWeese, President of American Policy Center.
The average annual cost per child for education is $7,161, totaling $109 billion to educate illegal aliens annually. The average cost of bilingual education is $1,200 per illegal student. U.S. schools annually educate 1.1 million illegal children. -Tom DeWeese, President of American Policy Center.
A major cost factor in the conduct of school operations relates to the vast number of children of illegal immigrants in our classroom and the special-training dictates for many of those students being taught in their native language — some 82 languages in San Diego County, 112 languages in Los Angeles County. – North County Times, March 2008. In New York City alone, more than 200 languages are spoken in the public schools. –NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.
Education is California's single largest public expenditure and commands 42% of that state’s $150 BILLION budget. The State of California's Legislative Analyst's Office reports that of the state's 6.4 million K through 12 public school students, one out of four is not fluent in English. Of that number, 85% are Spanish speaking (illegal immigrants). Additionally, one out of nine of these (illegal immigrant) students require special education programs.
These children of Spanish speaking foreign (illegal) immigrants increase California's K-12 enrollment by 21.3%, nearly 1.4 million (illegal immigrant) students. At $11,584 each, which is the state’s 2007-2008 budgeted allocation per student, the cost of educating these (illegal alien) students is $15.8 BILLION. Add in the $1.3 BILLION for special programs to accommodate non-English speaking (illegal alien) students, and the cost increases to $17.1 BILLION. The state's current budget deficit is projected to be $16 BILLION.
http://www.capsweb.org/content.php?id=301&menu_id=8
$108.2 million is spent each year by U.S. border counties in the four state region to pay for law enforcement, criminal justice and emergency healthcare services to illegal immigrants, states a February 2008 report from the United States/Mexico Border Counties Coalition (USMBCC). Current federal reimbursement returns only 11.5 cents on the dollar to counties for handling criminal illegal immigrant services.
From 1999 through 2006, the 24 counties along the U.S.-Mexico border spent a cumulative $1.23 billion on services to process criminal undocumented immigrants through the law enforcement and criminal justice system. In fiscal year 2006 alone, the cost was $192 million. Yet, the federal government has only reimbursed these 24 counties $4.7 million for detaining criminal undocumented immigrants for fiscal year 2006 (and $54.8 million since 1999). These are staggering costs considering the rural nature and poverty level of most of these border counties. The costs to process undocumented immigrants come at the expense of basic, vital services to county residents. (Undocumented Immigrants in U.S. Border Counties: The Costs of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Services; U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition February 2008)
The average illegal immigrant family uses $2,700/year more in services than it pays in taxes. In 2002, this amounted to a $10.4 billion drain on the federal budget. Some of the greatest federal costs included: Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion). According to the CIS report, since most of the illegal aliens currently in the workforce do not have a high school diploma, they only qualify for low paying jobs. That translates into low federal tax payments. Should illegal aliens ever receive an amnesty, it is estimated that net deficit costs would triple to $7,700 per household due to eligibility to all federal, state and local services. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalrelease.html
Furthermore; nationwide, 40% of households headed by an illegal alien receive welfare benefits and 56% have no health insurance. Standard & Poor’s reports that education of illegal alien children costs the states and federal government $11 billion dollars per year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hduG9Dw0oYg
Heritage Foundation research shows in FY 2004, at the state and local level, the average low skill immigrant household received $14,145 in benefits and services and paid only $5,309 in taxes (those that actually paid taxes). The average low skill immigrant households imposed a net fiscal burden on state and local government of $8,836 per year. That is approximately $9000 for EACH immigrant household of which at least 50% are illegal aliens.
In California, each illegal immigrant will take $50,000 in services from the state beyond what he will contribute in taxes during his lifetime. -The Immigration Solution; Manhattan Institute, 2007
Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation calculates that each immigrant who is a high school dropout, as most Mexican immigrants are, will end up costing taxpayers $85,000 over his lifetime.
Taxpayers in our country pay more than $100 billion every year on health care and other services for illegal immigrants, including education, law enforcement costs, and housing. – Congressman Dean Heller-Jan. 2008 http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20080127/OPINION/729401847
A Harvard University study released in January 2008 found that illegal aliens depressed wages in Arizona by $1.4 billion dollars. Hardest hit were low skilled legal workers whose wages fell by 5%. Wage suppression of American workers is a consistent effect throughout the country due to the employment of illegal aliens. http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/0109biz-illlegalscost0110-ON.html
40% of the decline in employment of black men is due to immigration. Foreign workers are taking American's jobs and depressing wages. And while Americans from all backgrounds are being harmed, lower to middle income African American workers are being disproportionately affected. –Dr. Frank Morris, former Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation; February 2008.
The World Bank reports (Worldwide Remittance Flow to Developing Nations Report) for 2006, $68.1 billion dollars were sent by migrant workers (more than 50% illegal aliens) mostly from the U.S. to Latin America. Mexico received 24.4 billion, South America 24.4, Central America 11 billion and the Caribbean 8.4 billion. This is a direct transfer of a huge portion of our economy to the third world; largely by a group of people (illegal aliens) who are not even authorized to work in our country much less have an established presence here.
The U.S. government estimates that since 2003, Mexican drug trafficking organizations have repatriated $22 billion to Mexico from the U.S., which is 20% of all money sent to Mexico from it’s citizens residing, legally and illegally here during this interval. Drug money remittances have accelerated since 2002 when the U.S. government allowed banks to accept the Mexican Matricula Consular ID card. This has enabled these crime groups to engage in money laundering. (U.S. State Department report; March 2008)
Questions you should be asking include "Why is even $1 of taxpayer money being consumed providing services and paying for the huge cost burden of illegal aliens in every state of America? Why are we allowing business and corporations to import cheap foreign labor (both legal and illegal) to drive down wages and put Americans out of work? Why are we importing a foreign workforce that transfers a significant amount of money from our economy to foreign nations?"
"If I may ...
Stop all immigration; cancel all pending applications; stop issuing visas; send current visa holders home. Abolish birthright citizenship and make it retroactive to 1960. Fine businesses at least $15,000 per illegal worker. Informers, illegal or legal, will get 1/3 of the proceeds. Thus, the program (administered by ICE) will be self-funding. Offer financial incentives to help illegals repatriate to their country of origin."
hran,
Thia advocated policy will have the effect of destroying tens of thousands of businesses, making Americans much poorer, shrink government revenues, massively increase the federal debt, be unconstitutional, require enormous surveillance and police interference, and create an enormous black market.
Is that what you want?
Zeezil, do you actually think that dee cares about the statistics? The Hispanic takevoer in this country is all that matters to the pro-illegals like her. The means justify the end to them. Their "agenda" trumps everything.
zeezil;
I'd like to see Dee try to respond to the copious facts you listed.
Amnesty supporters would respond by just making all the illegal immigrants legal. But would that solve the problems you mentioned? I doubt it. The problem is Hispanic immigration, period.
And as a voting block, Hispanics present a problem. Dee is a prime example. Despite being "American" her ethnic interests outweigh (by far) the welfare of the state.
Zeezil,
You've betrayed an enormous amount of ignorance on this blog. I will list several of your statements below and refute them.
1. "The way I see it, every illegal alien-held job is one less job for an American."
Wrong. The economy is not a static pie which must then be divided amongst the rest of us. You displayed an age-old economic fallacy which is very common.
2. "The immigrants who first migrated here hundreds of years ago did so legally, and never thought of doing something illegal to gain citizenship. That’s the difference between then and now."
Up until 1924, with some notable exception like the Chinese Exclusion Act, immigration was not limited. Anyone who was not insane or a criminal could effortlessly immigrate. All it took was to get off the boat in a port and register your name. Now, it can take 10-20 years to become a citizen. People with PhDs typically have to wait 7 years to get a green card. A black market existed precisely because immigration is so restricted. That is simple economics.
3. "So if you like overpopulation, congestion, urban sprawl, pollution, environmental damage,"
You've just betrayed yourself as a radical environmentalist, which isn't surprising if you're from CIS or NumbersUSA or any of these other groups founded by radical population control advocated like John Tanton. People are the most valuable resource, like Julian Simon proved. Humans aren't just mouths to feed, as you think, but build, create, invent, and discover processes which improve our lives. Why is it that increasing human population is followed everywhere by an increasing living standard? People are our most valuable resource and we need more of them.
4. "Our national immigration policies have to work for the United States. "
Immigration is not, nor should it be, a charitable policy. As the 1997 New Americans Study from the NAS pointed out, the government counts immigrant families and their cost to the state for social services until they are 18 years old. That doesn't make any sense. You have to count someone's lifetime costs and tax revenue. If you were to count anyone's costs and tax revenue paid by the time they are 18, everyone would be a drain on the system. Of course, not everyone can be a drain on the system and this comparison is irrelevant. This is why it is helpful to have an education in economics and statistics when analyzing these studies.
5. "If immigration and births continue at their present rates, the U.S. is on course to a population that will come close to the one billion people mark at the end of the century. That’s three times our current population, in only a few generations."
Good. People are our most valuable resource, not just consumers like you think.
6. "When a major American-based, internationally distributed newspaper like the Wall Street Journal declares “We believe in open borders” – and when other multimedia conglomerates “give the nod” to that idea on their editorial pages – the result is the economic and political goals of foreign governments, multinational corporations and ethnic advocacy groups determine America’s ultimate population, not you and your neighbors."
There is not logical reason why I should be able to tell you that you can't hire someone from another country. I don't own your business, I don't own your profits, I don't know anything about you, so why should I be able to limit your choice to be as profitable and successful as you want? If the labor can't come here, businesses and capital will seek it out overseas and Microsoft, Google, and others have done.
7. "For too many years America has let its ultimate population be determined by all the groups mentioned above – most with a clear financial or political interest in continuing our accelerating population growth for their benefit, not ours."
Again, you betray your radical population control tendencies. I don't want a one-child policy like John Tanton and the others you admire. It's my choice to have as many children as I want and to hire as many foreigners as I want to work for my (potential) business.
8. "But, the central question that hasn't been asked...why do we tolerate even ONE crime by an illegal alien? These crimes are totally preventable by not allowing these perps into the country in the first place by having a border wall, securing the borders and enforcing our currently existing immigration laws."
All of the data collected by real researchers, not hacks like those at CIS (with the exception of George Borjas), shows that there is no link between immigration and crime. Immigrants commit far fewer crimes that natives. Period. You say that several of them are not reported? Fine, but until you have an idea of how many you can't make a claim that they commit more than natives. Here's some reading on the subject:
"Why are Immigrants' Incarceration Rates so Low? Evidence on Selective Immigration, Deterrence, and Deportation"
Kristin F. Butcher, Anne Morrison Piehl
NBER Working Paper No. 13229
Issued in July 2007
http://www.nber.org/papers/w13229
Also, closing the border and spending billions more on immigration enforcement will solve the problem in the same way it took all the drugs off of our streets? Grow up, zeezil, just because you pass a law or want it to come true doesn't mean it will. You have to contend with reality. There is no way, short of instilling a massive police state (and that probable won't even work) to get rid of ALL the immigrants. It's just a childish mentality.
Reality has a way of making the law irrelevant. I can tell you don't understand this.
Increasing immigration IMPROVES our national security.
The U.S. government is still dealing with a massive backlog of intercepted terrorist communications (read here, here, and here) and is unable to translate them. Part of that problem is that many of the qualified speakers cannot obtain a security clearance for very good reasons. But another part of the problem is the dearth of speakers.
Allowing trustworthy immigrants who speak these languages to move to the U.S. will give more choices to U.S. intelligence agencies. There are millions of Christians in Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, and Jordan who not only speak Arabic, but who are also well-acquainted with Middle Eastern culture. These individuals fear Islamic jihad and many would probably welcome a chance to immigrate to the U.S. if the door was open to them. This is a large pool of people who can greatly aid us in the War On Terror, but aren’t allowed to because of our restrictive immigration policies.
Read more about this here:
http://www.openmarket.org/2008/05/16/immigration-helps-the-cia/#respond
alex n:
"... destroying tens of thousands of businesses, making Americans much poorer, shrink government revenues, massively increase the federal debt, be unconstitutional, require enormous surveillance and police interference, and create an enormous black market."
You assertions here and your other posts will take some time to refute.
For the moment: do you have any evidence for your doom scenario? America did fine before 1965 without massive amounts of foreign labor. Europe has a standard of living amongst the highest in the world; again, without the cheap "labor of color".
There are many problems with your statements; but I will have to hold my tongue for now, as I have to go back to work so that I can support your essential brown work force with my tax dollars.
Alex,
Here is a map which shows the top 10 countries in the world with the highest standards of living.
Except for the U.S. and Canada, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE COUNTRIES has a small population.
Notice also that Japan is included in this list and Japan allows very little immigration into their country.
This proves to me that those who want us to live like the Chinese and Indians and justify it by saying the increased population is needed for our economy are full of crap.
It IS possible to have a nice country, a prosperous one, without having an out-of-control population.
The Hispanics just want all of "their people" in here to Hispanicize this country and they think we are stupid enough to believe that without adding another 100,000,000 people to our population our economy will go down the tubes.
If a huge population is required, then why is Norway and Sweden No. 1 and 2 with the highest standards of living? These are hardly countries with huge populations. Neither is Belgium or Findland!
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-quality-of-life-map.html
"You've just betrayed yourself as a radical environmentalist, which isn't surprising if you're from CIS or NumbersUSA or any of these other groups founded by radical population control advocated like John Tanton. People are the most valuable resource, like Julian Simon proved. Humans aren't just mouths to feed, as you think, but build, create, invent, and discover processes which improve our lives. Why is it that increasing human population is followed everywhere by an increasing living standard? People are our most valuable resource and we need more of them."
An intelligent person does not have to rely on any particular person to conclude that population-driven economic growth is unsustainable. That is not a radical environmentalist point of view. It is a simple fact for those of you who are in a persistent state of denial.
I like the simple mathematical concept of a limit that one learns in beginning calculus and which no one has been able to refute or even quarrel with. The limit of finite resources per capita as population grows without bounds is zero. Therefore the question merely becomes, "How far down that road do you want to go?" Something for you to contemplate when you are sitting in traffic on a congested freeway or if you have a commute time ever morning of a hour or more.
"Why is it that increasing human population is followed everywhere by an increasing living standard?"
This is patently false. Otherwise why would China have adopted a 1 child per couple policy a few years ago and why is India and Sub-Saharan African struggling to reduce the fertility rates of their women before it is too late. The burgeoning economies in China and India have arisen only recently because we have shipped our treasure and our jobs there. It has nothing to do with their population growth rates or total populations. Ask a poor farmer in Africa how the impact of a large family affects the well-being of his family when the same plot of land has to be shared with the expanded family.
Population-driven economic growth is a false doctrine spread by those who profit from it at the express of the quality of life and standard of living of everyone else.
"The falsely praised THE FISCAL COST OF IMMIGRATION by Edwin Rubenstein doesn’t even mention “patents” or “entrepreneurship” anywhere in his study."
Rubenstein would probably be the first to agree that such studies are extremely difficult and even with unlimited time and resources to do them would not deter the naysayers when the studies were done.
You mention patents and entrepreneurship. How about the number of people living in poverty? How about the standard of living for everyone and the quality of life as it is affected by illegal aliens and excessive legal immigraton. For everyone like the founder of Intel, there are a thousand like Lucky Luciano, the Mafioso of yesteryear, and the unwashed masses of the impoverished many.
I personally would like to see nothing better than a definitive study of cost vs. benefits but every one who attempts one seems to have an ax to grind and is the limited by the inherent difficulties some of which I cited above and the other adverse imponderables that no one knows how to quantify like the Mexicanization of America and its ultimate transformation into just another overpopulated, impoverished Latin American country -- the where will those who seek a better life go.
Shortsightedness is the biggest problem not the limitations of the various cost/benefit studies.
Someone in the past pointed out that the entire population of the U.S. could be accommodated in the State of Texas. Maybe so but who would want to live there then and where would the food come from to feed them?
They don't call economics the dismal science for no reason>
"If you allotted 1250 square feet to each person, all the people in the world would fit into the state of TEXAS. Try the math yourself: 7,438,152,268,800 square feet in Texas, divided by the world population of 5,860,000,000, equals 1269 square feet per person. The population density of this giant city would be about 21,000 — somewhat more than San Francisco and less than the Bronx."
Yes, and they would dying like flies just as they are in some parts of the world. Why? Because a city like San Francisco require a huge logistic tail to grow and distribute the necessities of life.
It's easy to conjecture about the world's population from the vantage point of a smug suburban home and neighborhood, less so from the barrios of Mexico,the slums of India, the 9th Ward of New Orleans ,or the Sudan. Come on folks, get real! We have too many people now and certainly don't need anymore. If we limit net in migration to those few who have ideas and patents, who speak English, and who can be counted on to not be among those increasing the poverty level in the U.S., that is the direction our immigration policies should take without regard to race, creed , religious affiliation unless they are inimical to our national survival (Some Muslims fit this category, maybe more than we are willing to admit to ourselves.)
"Immigrants account for 24% of patents, twice their share in the population (Hunt, 3),"
How many of these patents were granted to illegal aliens and immigrants from Latin America. What percentage of Nobel Prizes in science, medicine, physics, and chemistry have been awarded to Latin Americans? Perhaps our expert on these matters would like to explore that question.
"Actually I have been very careful to point out that technically it is not amnesty if there is any penalty associated with the forgiveness of a transgression, even if it is just a slap on the wrist or penalties for which there is no enforcement mechanism and no real intention to enforce those penalties. In effect, therefore, there are no penalties and therefore amnesty is a apt description of what we can expect from the CIR charade.
Moreover, amnesty badly needs a second official definition that says amnesty is anything that allows transgressors to remain and work in this country instead of correcting their border violations by returning to their homeland with their brood. Whether or not this is the technical or legal definition is beside the point. The point is this is the commonly understood definition of amnesty and it should be recognized as such rather than criticized as an ad hominem term.
Addressing the backlog is easy if there is a will: the policy should be if your skills are not needed in this country, if your application is number 200,001 don't ask, If you have more than two children, don't ask, if you have less than two children but plan to have more, you must certify what you will do to limit your fertility to the replacement level, You must have a job waiting for you with a commitment in writing. You must speak English (you know it is taught in foreign schools), otherwise don't ask.
We have more people than we need already. We must limit new entrants to our precise needs with a focus on the best and brightest regardless of race or country of origin.
We also need a commitment to assimilation.
"Allowing trustworthy immigrants who speak these languages to move to the U.S. will give more choices to U.S. intelligence agencies. There are millions of Christians in Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, and Jordan who not only speak Arabic, but who are also well-acquainted with Middle Eastern culture. These individuals fear Islamic jihad and many would probably welcome a chance to immigrate to the U.S. if the door was open to them. This is a large pool of people who can greatly aid us in the War On Terror, but aren’t allowed to because of our restrictive immigration policies."
This is of course a two way street. They not only have to have mastered their own language but English as well to be of any use to us. I'm sure the government is on top of this problem and is doing the best it can to recruit those who are not security risks or potential moles and who have the bilingual language skills needed to assure that translations are accurate and complete. That's not an easy task under the best of circumstances. Given the overriding national security concerns, we have to be very careful who we put in sensitive intelligence positions.
"A one percentage point rise in the share of immigrant college graduates in the population increases patents per capita by 8-22% . . . the state-level results mean that the 1990-2000 increase in the population share of this group from 2.2 to 3.5% increased patents by 10-29% . . . I find that immigrants have more than double the impact on innovation that natives do” (Hunt, 4).
Immigrants are more inventive than natives."
Nothing Hunt writes suggests that as a result we should open the floodgates to all manner of illegal alien and legal immigrant. She, I'm sure, would agree that the more you invite in the quicker diminishing returns will set in and the number of patents per capita immigrant and illegal alien would begin to decline. We should take the cream not the scum. I think 200,000 of the cream would serve us quite well in all categories except temporary farm workers, tourists, and students.
"Your tales of resource depletion and a lack of resources not allowing more immigrants to move here is wrong. Compared to 1920, America has many more resources:
• have greater than ten times more miles of paved roads;
• have more than twice as many physicians;
• have 50 percent more dentists;
• have almost three times as many teachers;
• have 540 percent more police officers;
• have twice as many firefighters;
• produce 2.4 times more oil—as known reserves of oil grow;
• produce 2.67 times more cubic feet of lumber—as America’s supply of lumber stands grows;
• have conquered most of the infectious diseases that were major killers in the past."
Perhaps you could restate all of these stats on a per capita basis.
Oil production has been in c decline in the U.S. since the 1970s . Can the peak in world oil production be far behind?
Here in the Southwest, water is a critical resource. The cities are gobbling up water rights to serve their burgeoning population leaving the ground fallow that formerly produced food needed for those additional people.
Many old stands of lumber have been clear cut; in South America huge swaths of rain forest are cleared every year for lumber and to gain more land to feed more people.
Doctors, firemen, and police are not natural resources.
The quote above is a nonsensical argument.
A Duke University-Manhattan Institute study newly released suggests that immigrants to the U.S. are assimilating to American culture faster than their predecessors did a century ago.
From the article in the Houston Chron—
But, there is an exception—
Mexicans — by far the most numerous nationality — lag significantly behind other big immigrant groups, possibly because a lack of legal status keeps many Mexican immigrants from advancing.
"The bottom line is, there are some encouraging things and some things to be concerned about, but the nation’s capacity to integrate new immigrants is strong," said the study’s author, Jacob L. Vigdor.
This if for those who have been insisting that Mexicans were assimilating. My opinion on this subject is that their failure to assimilate is more a function of their sheer numbers than their legal status. They are finding that the more there are of them the less need there is to assimilate, hence our march toward another Latin American country which none of us will like except those who can afford to segregate themselves from the unwashed masses.
Alex,
Wonderful answers! Thank you. I am keeping a file on your responses for future references.
I am so glad I found you and you are participating on my blog!
You are Amazing!!
Right, dee! Alex is so amazing that every anti in here was able to shoot a million holes in his remarks. lol
Pat,
Obviously you did not read nor interpret the responses.
Dee, You did not read Ultima's rebuttals. Anyone who supports your drive for brown supremacy is "OK".
Alex,
You seem to be ignorant of basic science with regard to natural resources. Have you ever been to China or India? These countries are horribly overpopulated and polluted, filled with people burdened with crushing poverty. Why do you think they want to come to the West so badly? The "resources" of a country are not unlimited (apparently this escapes your attention). There is a limited amount of wilderness, arable land, coal, oil, forest, fresh water, and mineral resources in the U.S. To assuage concern over these very real environmental limitations, you note an increase in the number of dentists.
There are two kinds of immigration, low skilled and high tech. With regard to the low skilled Hispanic immigration, those in favor of it envision a labor caste system. The white owners, the elites, utilize non-white (mostly Mestizo) labor to maximize their profits. You sound like an elitist who favors a sort of social Darwinism; the state has no right to interfere with profit, no matter who gets squashed.
Sure, this Mestizo-based hacienda economy is good for the owners in the fields of agriculture, construction, and food service. But as the Hispanic population grows, so will socialism and taxation: is that what you want?
I assume that the larger the Mestizo population, the more the U.S. will resemble Latin American countries. Are they economic powerhouses? You said that people are a country's greatest resource: I agree. And there is no compelling reason not to expect that Hispanics and Africans make countries that resemble the nations of Latin America or Africa.
Essentially your arguments fail because of your lack of understanding of people, their ethnic interests and characteristics. You concentrate on things rather than people; on economic markers that ignore actual quality of life.
Alex,
Aside from issues of environment, economics and crime, there is the issue of the right to preserve one's ethnic group. I want to preserve ethnic Americans, my own group. Your scheme for unlimited non-white immigration (shared by Dee) means we will be drowned in a sea of seething third-worlders. This amounts to genocide through demographics.
hran,
"For the moment: do you have any evidence for your doom scenario? "
It's not a doom scenario I'm peddling. The United States will survive and do fine with immigration or without. The issue is that we will do significantly with immigration. I think the other side of the debate is more guilty of this.
"America did fine before 1965 without massive amounts of foreign labor. Europe has a standard of living amongst the highest in the world; again, without the cheap 'labor of color'."
America did not do fine before 1965 without massive amounts of foreign labor. From 1776-1924, with the exception of some laws, immigration was fairly unrestricted. During the times of highest growth, 1850s-1910, America experienced tremendous immigration. My point is that we can do better with more immigrants.
Also, please don't bring color into this, it doesn't matter to me. I'm "brown" as you call it and it doesn't matter in the least to me whether immigrants come here form Ireland, Mexico, or China.
"There are many problems with your statements; but I will have to hold my tongue for now, as I have to go back to work so that I can support your essential brown work force with my tax dollars."
You spend most of your time working to support Social Security and Medicare for wealthy old people as well as social programs for undeserving individuals. A cursory look at the Federal budget will reveal that fact to you. Also, I am in favor of eliminating all welfare, social services, publicly funded health care, and privatizing public schools. As far as I'm concerned, nobody is entitled to your money but yourself, whether they are Americans or immigrants.
Patriot,
"Except for the U.S. and Canada, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE COUNTRIES has a small population."
Yea, but the U.S. isn't a small country and is rich despite that fact.
"Notice also that Japan is included in this list and Japan allows very little immigration into their country."
Wrong, Japan allows no immigration. They allow temporary workers. Japan is also stricken with a rapidly declining population which bodes very negatively for their country.
"This proves to me that those who want us to live like the Chinese and Indians and justify it by saying the increased population is needed for our economy are full of crap."
That but of reasoning might cause you to fail a Macroeconomics class, no offense. The Chinese and Indian economies are growing quickly. China at over 10% per annum and India at roughly 8%. I can see that population control advocates may say that China's growth is because of it's 1 child policy. Funny thing is their growth didn't start until they began to transition toward capitalism. Same thing for India, except India has a growing population and a rapidly growing economy. 30 years ago people were worried about Japan taking over the world, now people are worried about China, in 20 years they will be worrying about India and Brazil. Same old story, different country.
"It IS possible to have a nice country, a prosperous one, without having an out-of-control population."
Of course it's possible, it's just not desirable. Below is a map of the ten poorest countries in the world.
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-poorest-countries-map.html
Four of them, Mali, Niger, Congo, and DR Congo have lower population densities than the US. The other six: Guinea Bissau, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Malawi, and
Burundi have higher population densities. ALL of them have a population lower than the US.
"The Hispanics just want all of "their people" in here to Hispanicize this country and they think we are stupid enough to believe that without adding another 100,000,000 people to our population our economy will go down the tubes."
You have supplied no information to back this up. The two most populous countries in the world, India and China, are developing rapidly because of capitalism. If we keep a relatively free economy, we can absorb billions of more people into the US and experience significant increases in the living standard for everyone.
"If a huge population is required, then why is Norway and Sweden No. 1 and 2 with the highest standards of living? These are hardly countries with huge populations. Neither is Belgium or Findland!"
A huge population makes it much easier and growth much better. Norway is able to sustain its social programs because it's floating on a sea of oil. Sweden admits more refugees than most other nations in the world and is having significant economic problems because of its social net. Its future social liabilities are so massive that they will never be able to pay for them. Those are not countries to aspire to.
"I like the simple mathematical concept of a limit that one learns in beginning calculus and which no one has been able to refute or even quarrel with. The limit of finite resources per capita as population grows without bounds is zero. Therefore the question merely becomes, "How far down that road do you want to go?" Something for you to contemplate when you are sitting in traffic on a congested freeway or if you have a commute time ever morning of a hour or more."
Ah, the arrogance of the central planner. You're absolutely right about the limit which one learns, usually, in pre-calculus. The problem here, which is constantly encountered with quarreling with radical environmentalists is that YOU don't know how many resources are left in the Earth. To demonstrate this, the amount of oil reserves known to exist right now has never been greater. Several times throughout our history we have been warned that resources are going to run out and we can't grow forever. A simple look at the quantity of all resources known to exist in reserve will open your eyes to this simple fact. Also, look at the amount that businessmen are able to squeeze out of every unit of resource. An equivalent acre of land today produces, according to some estimates, 10 ten times more today than it did in the middle ages.
When you find out how many resources are in EXISTENCE and then how quickly we will use them in the FUTURE, you let me know. Until then, hold off judgment until all the facts are in.
Alex,
"Also, I am in favor of eliminating all welfare, social services, publicly funded health care, and privatizing public schools."
Fair enough. I was referring to the large amount of state taxes in California (my state) that go towards education (53.3 billion) Health and welfare (29.7 billion) and corrections (9.8 billion). These areas are adversely affected by the percentage of Mestizos and blacks in the population.
"Also, please don't bring color into this ..."
Sorry, but that is part of my argument. Race is real and it does matter. By ignoring it, or saying it doesn't matter, you are ignoring reality.
"From 1776-1924, with the exception of some laws, immigration was fairly unrestricted. During the times of highest growth, 1850s-1910, America experienced tremendous immigration."
The difference: those immigrants were European. Since you see no difference between races, this is not significant to you. However, it does matter. Europeans can assimilate and become ethnic Americans. Non-whites cannot. Non-Europeans can do fine service for the American Empire; they can be citizens, but not ethnic Americans. Your arguments suggest that there is no American ethnic group; or that it has no significance.
Furthermore, you do not address the issue of trying to govern a country that is composed of multiple ethnic groups fighting for state resources and otherwise promoting their interests at the expense of other groups. This leads to anarcho-tyranny because of the need to enforce order amongst the squabbling groups.
Ultima,
"The burgeoning economies in China and India have arisen only recently because we have shipped our treasure and our jobs there."
More economic fallacies. There is not a set number of jobs that is divided up amongst us. There is a natural churn of job creation and job destruction in a market economy. Firms seek to find people who can do the job well for the lowest price while workers seek the highest wage. Yet despite this "terrible outsourcing" and "dangerous importing" and these other mercantilist populist Lou Dobbesesq rantings, the average wage for an American including benefits has increased by 22% since 1979 (www.bls.gov/data). Since 1979, real output in the US per hour from non-farm business has increased by 40%. The dire economic consequences of immigration are NOT occurring. In fact, we are getting substantially wealthier in an age of increased immigration.
I'll pick up with the rest of your comments tomorrow. My job is dealing with immigration and technology policy, so I need to get back to that. I look forward to it!
Alex,
I am so honored that you are visiting my blog and providing us your insights. Thank you!
alex, in the government link you provided where you stated that wages and benefits have increased for Americans by 22% since 1979. is this a net increase that factored in inflation and the cost of living today? I doubt it and if not, your percentage stat is bogus.
AG Bill has been pulled from the Iraq War Funding Bill. It was killed by a member of the Hispanic Caucus.
"But the Senate's rules left some non-spending add-ons like the immigrant labor provisions vulnerable, by allowing any senator to knock them out on a procedural move.
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., objected to the immigrant farm labor provision, added to the measure at a hearing last week by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho. It would allow almost 1.4 million immigrant farm workers to stay in the United States for up to five years to ease a shortage of farm workers that has left some crops rotting in the fields.
Menendez' move also killed a measure by Sens. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., to extend an expired program to allow seasonal workers to return to the country using H-2B visas.
A spokesman said Menendez acted because the two immigration provisions were tilted in favor of businesses while doing too little to help immigrant workers."
Senate loads up war funding bill with other things
Pat,
Please do not dispute Alex´s data unless you have factual links to dispute them. We are honored to have Alex join us. We should all feel good about his participation on our blog!
Alex is a member of CEI (cei.org), the Competitive Enterprise Institute which is one of the most prestigious think tanks in the country. In fact, he is one of their experts. He is a policy analyst and his areas of expertise include Immigration and Economics.
I think this is a good thing for our blog. We have very, very intelligent members on both sides of this debate and I think we have an opportunity for both civil discussion and to find common ground for workable solutions!!
dee, don't tell me what I have to provide in here as proof for my statements. Who do you think you are?
"In fact, we are getting substantially wealthier in an age of increased immigration."
I guess that explains our multi-trillion dollar national debt.
Alex,
The thing is that you really didn't offer any refutations of the points I made! For example, you said, "It is possible to have a prosperous country without a huge population; it is just not desirable." WTH!? Why, if you can have a nice, prosperous country with a smaller population which puts less stress on your resources would it be undesirable?? So, really you gave a non-answer.
Same with your answers about Norway and Sweden. You are 100% right about Norway floating on a sea of oil. They use their oil revenues to support their social programs. It occurs to me: why can't Mexico do the same? They could AT THE VERY LEAST fund the public education of their population through the 12th grade through their oil revenues! Or do they have too many people (overpopulation) to provide for their citizens? And about Sweden: again, you are correct. BUT--Sweden was doing great until they began to allow an onslaught of poor, uneducated Muslims into their country who have large families and go on the dole. So, their social programs are indeed stressed NOW as well as their culture under attack. They were just FINE BEFORE they started allowing massive Muslim immigration. Sweden is a democratic Socialist society which ONLY WORKS with a relatively homogenous population.
And then the part about Japan. You said, "Wrong. They have no immigration." Well, duh. I suppose I could have used the absolute term "no immigration" instead of the more moderate "little immigration." But, the idea is the same--Japan does quite nicely without inundating their country with immigrants from all over the world! And they have an ingenious way of dealing with the lack of increase in their population--they mechanize. They are using robots to help in the long-term care of their elderly.
Really, you said a lot without really saying anything!
Here's a link regarding the robotic nursing home care in Japan. But, this is just one example. Japan uses technology instead of unskilled labor--THAT'S the point.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/1288241.html
It has been proven that societies which have access to poor, stoop labor do not have the incentive to develop more efficient methods through technology.
It's like the mechanical tomato pickers. After the bracero program ended, farmers were forced to develop other methods. So, they invested in research to develop mechanical harvesters. And lo and behold, our innovative engineers invented the mechanical tomato harvester. After that came other types of harvesters. Necessity is the mother of invention.
We do NOT need to flood our country with billions of immigrants for God's sakes to remain prosperous and have a high standard of living! I noticed that you did not provide a good argument when I pointed out that 7 out of the top 10 countries (I am deducting the U.S., Canada, and Australia from the list) have very small populations. You brought up the fact that Norway is prosperous because of the oil supply. I concede the point that they do use their oil revenues to supplement their social programs; however, Norway has a quasi-Socialist system much like Sweden's. They have social programs coming out the wazoo! We are not asking for a quasi-Socialist nanny state! We are quite capable of maintaining a comfortable standard of living without importing millions upon millions of uneducated and unskilled immigrants whose families eventually become net USERS of social services and, in fact, when given a chance to vote, vote to EXPAND THE NANNY STATE!
You posted a list of the 10 poorest countries in the world with the comment that they also had populations smaller than the U.S. Again--what is your point? We are not saying that these countries with the highest standards of living are as such BECAUSE of their small populations. We are merely pointing out that it is obviously possible to have a high standard of living with a sustainable and controlled population!
IMO one of the problems with Latin America is overpopulation. These people have more children than what they can afford to feed, clothe, and educate which just leads to a never-ending cycle of poverty. Take a look at any barrio in the U.S. and see that they are recreating those same conditions right here! Please tell me how this is in the long-term best interests of the U.S.???
You stated that you would do away with the welfare state; but, that CLEARLY is not going to happen! We are sliding ever more towards BIGGER GOVERNMENT. The more uneducated and unskilled immigrants we import into our country, the MORE Socialism we will have.
I simply do not see the sense in having anything except for controlled immigration of educated and innovative individuals who have initiative and will not end up depending on social services to supplement their families. If we do need a certain amout of unskilled labor, such as in agriculture, we can use a well organized guest worker program such as the one used in Canada.
Pat,
As I´ve often said, I am glad you are a member of my blog. The one thing I enjoy most about you is, you have a unique perspective. Facts do not matter for you. And, those in the audience know I could NOT make you up.
What Pat stated is dead on. There is nothing factually missing. Dee, you fail to argue his points. I applaud you Pat, very well put.
After reading the CEI.org web site and the articles and posts related to Alex there, one can only come up to the conclusion that Alex is a capitalist, open market, globalist, in which employees are nothing more than mere commodity. The only ones making the "Money" are those at the top.
As every one should know there are "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" and there is the classic text, "How to Lie with Statistics". Perhaps Alex could be a little more precise about the location of the numbers he is using to calculate his 22% increase in wages instead of the vague reference to the tons of bls data available on the site he referenced. Has he plotted the year by year increase against legal and illegal immigration numbers including chain immigrations over the same period? Has he done a regression analysis or is he just a policy wonk?
The Federal minimum wage was $4.39 in 1955 and $4.41 in 2007, stated in 1996 constant dollars. I believe this represents a pretty close to a zero increase per year.
"America did not do fine before 1965 without massive amounts of foreign labor. From 1776-1924, with the exception of some laws, immigration was fairly unrestricted. During the times of highest growth, 1850s-1910, America experienced tremendous immigration. My point is that we can do better with more immigrants."
As I have often written, things were different in the beginning when a largely unsettled continent lay before the Founding Fathers and their successors. Even up to the early 20th century, our natural resources appeared to be unlimited. Now we know full well they are not.The argument that we have yet to discover or know the limits of finite natural resources has the same hollow ring to it as the one that says when the Earth is full we'll populate the moon or the rest of the universe.
We are now at a population of over 300 million with the prospect that it will at least double again by the end of this century. It is nonsensical to argue that will make things better for all of us. That argument ends up with our standard of living at equilibrium with that of the third world.
I noticed that Alex has so far been unable to explain why people from China, India, Haiti, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other over populated regions of the world are so anxious to get here if overpopulation is such a boon to average wealth. I believe Alex should rethink his central thesis that more is better. China is proof that it isn't with its 1 child per couple rule. Perhaps Alex could explain to China that this is a huge mistake.
"Ah, the arrogance of the central planner. You're absolutely right about the limit which one learns, usually, in pre-calculus. The problem here, which is constantly encountered with quarreling with radical environmentalists is that YOU don't know how many resources are left in the Earth. To demonstrate this, the amount of oil reserves known to exist right now has never been greater."
Ah the arrogance of the policy wonk. Perhaps Alex could give us a reference to the amount of known world and U.S. oil reserves. Most of us simpletons rely on the price at the pump, the spot price of oil, and information about the increasing demands of China and India as their surging populations and new found wealth (US$) have engendered more autos, appliances, etc. Until Alex has an answer for the immigration demand and the illegal alien traffic, we can hardly consider him a credible source for info on more is better.
Perhaps the question for him is: If you were going to choose in which direction to be wrong, the present population or fewer or twice as many or more, which would be the larger mistake. Let's hedge our bets a little here, Alex.
"Please do not dispute Alex´s data unless you have factual links to dispute them."
Alex has been a little less than forthcoming about the precise sources of his so-called data. Until we have better info on that we should all feel free to express our opinions. As I said elsewhere, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Even the original sources sometimes don't hold up under scrutiny.
Let's have several different sources for info on world oil known reserves and then let's match them up with the increasing worldwide demand. The Saudis in particular have been very close-mouthed about their reserves so only estimates are available. I don't know what reliable data is available from the Russians. They may also have secrets they don't wish to share. They would like nothing better than to have all of Western Europe dependent on their oil so they could wreak havoc by shutting it off when they choose to.
The Saudis are reputed to have the richest oil deposits so why are they being so secretive. Must be a policy problem.
dee, depends on whether they are actual facts or heresay and opinion and bias. With you it all of the last three, no facts involved.
I didn't see any "Alex" among the "Experts and Adjunct" names on the CEI site. Hmmmm! Am I missing something here.
Characterizing an organization that, if Alex is correct, has no concerns about world or U.S. population growth as an environmental think tank is the grossest kind of perfidy.
"the average wage for an American including benefits has increased by 22% since 1979 (www.bls.gov/data). Since 1979, real output in the US per hour from non-farm business has increased by 40%."
What about the farm output per hour? I suspect it is slowing as we destroy or develop more of our arable land and we run out of petroleum based fertilizers or can't afford the fuel to run our tractors. I suspect Pareto's Rule is at work here in the farm area where 80% of improvement in output per hour was already accomplished once we left the horse and buggy days.
Perhaps you could give us a more precise reference among the myriad BLS data.
Doesn't the S-shaped logistic curve also have some relevancy here. Is it to be expected that farm productivity per hour will continue to rise forever so that it can keep pace with the demand for food as population continues to grow? I suspect as the logistic curve would predict that we have already reached a point of diminishing returns on farm mechanization and productivity with our mega agribusinesses.
Seems foolhardy to suggest that further population growth will be in the interest given the possibility, the decreasing amount of arable land and the inherent limitations on water resources.
re Patriot:
"... millions upon millions of uneducated and unskilled immigrants whose families eventually become net USERS of social services and, in fact, when given a chance to vote, vote to EXPAND THE NANNY STATE!"
I'd like to hear Alex respond to this, the most glaring contradiction in his argument. The socialism that Hispanics bring to the country is diametrically opposed to his goals:
"Also, I am in favor of eliminating all welfare, social services, publicly funded health care, and privatizing public schools. As far as I'm concerned, nobody is entitled to your money but yourself, whether they are Americans or immigrants."
Our Founding Father’s Outlook on Immigration
Our founding fathers were generally wary of immigration, and many of them were concerned about the consequences for the U.S. if levels were not controlled and limited.
Benjamin Franklin was concerned about mass influx of immigrants from middle European countries and that they showed little desire to adopt our language and customs. He felt that immigrants of sufficient number and concentration would radically change the cultural landscape in ways that the native population might not want.
Thomas Jefferson was concerned with immigrants from countries whose heads of state were monarchs and dictators. He felt that a large influx of immigrants from places without any experience with our kind of government and society could only introduce confusion and discord. Jefferson felt that it was better to wait patiently for the natural increase of the American population rather than achieve such increase by mass immigration and that the country would, as a result, be more peaceable and more durable.
Alexander Hamilton felt that any generous immigration policy has its limits if the welfare of the country is to be protected. He felt the safety of a republic depended “essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably found to be closely connected with birth, education, and family.” For Hamilton, immigration policy was a matter of prudence and good sense, not a moral imperative.
George Washington contended that the United States had no real reason to encourage immigration. He expressed a concerned observation that immigrants “retain the language, habits and principles (good or bad) that they bring with them.”
Rufus King, Constitutional Convention delegate from Massachusetts, was concerned about the character of the immigrants whom America might attract. He wrote in a 1798 letter, “it was the practice of the Emigrants from Scotland to bring with them Certificates from the religious Societies to which they belonged, of their honesty, sobriety, and generally of their good Character! Why should we not require some such Documents from all Emigrants, and it would be well to add to the Testimonial that the person to whom it was granted was not expelled from his Country and had not been convicted of any crime.” King wondered, “If from the emigrations of past time we have suffered inconvenience and our true national character has been disfigured, what are we to expect from the Emigrants of the present Day?”
John Jay, who would become the first chief justice of the United States, celebrated the fact that for all its “diversity”, the United States consisted essentially of people whose religious and cultural traits were broadly similar and compatible, rather than widely divergent and a potential threat to social comity.
At the Constitutional Convention, New York’s Gouverneur Morris noted that the privileges that immigrants enjoyed in the U.S. were considerably greater than in the rest of the world, but he concluded by stating that “every Society from a great Nation down to a Club has the right of declaring the conditions on which new members should be admitted.”
In summary, our founding fathers and leaders of the government from its earliest days fully supported our new republic’s right to control immigration and determine exclusionary criteria for citizenship. They would have opposed the essentially unrestrictive mass immigration numbers that we are seeing today and would have abhorred the million plus unvetted illegal immigrants coming in each year.
zeezle:
Well put. I wonder what Dee thinks of it. But then, the founders were not Hispanic, so she probably doesn't give them much credence. Not a very "vibrant" group, the founders.
Liquid,
I participated in Myers Briggs a few years back. My guess you are an ISTJ.
Ulty, Here is what various sources say about CEI. Also, go on their cei.org homepage and look under Experts. He is there.
"From its start in 1984, [CEI] has thumbed its nose at the traditional think tank model, instead adopting what it terms a 'full service' approach that begins with research , but doesn't end there, stretching instead to dogged issue advocacy." - The Washington Post
"The best environmental think tank in the country" - The Wall Street Journal,
"One of Washington's feistiest think tanks" - The Boston Globe
"CEI is...one of the most influential Washington think tanks" - Now with Bill Moyers
Ulty,
Also, Alex is not saying this about himself. I am saying this about him. I am honored he is joining us.
When I was conducting some research I saw some of his responses and I thought they were brilliant. I invited him to my blog and he has been very gracious in accepting my invitation and in participating in our discussion.
Both sides are all open to discuss and debate, as is the Mission of this blog. However, earlier, I did ask Pat to provide his urls when he was refuting and denouncing some responses Alex provided. This is common courtesy and we have all attempted to make this the standard mode of operation for this blog. (providing urls for reference)
Pat, At least you are finally admitting these are your “opinions” and not facts. That is the problem with your responses. You have no statistics, no data to support your opinions. As you say, “in your opinion” you just think it and therefore you think it is a fact.
You say look at the “barrio”. I say “how is the barrio any different than any other poor inner city neighborhood, or any other poverty stricken area?” You often confuse Poverty for “illegal immigrants” or “latin 3rd world countries.” Then you take a giant leap and make this the basis of your entire argument. You preface it with your “IMO” as if to excuse what you are about to say. Sorry Pat. Your opinion remains that. Just your opinion.
----
PAT STATEMENT:
We are not saying that these countries with the highest standards of living are as such BECAUSE of their small populations. We are merely pointing out that it is obviously possible to have a high standard of living with a sustainable and controlled population!
PAT STATEMENT:
IMO one of the problems with Latin America is overpopulation. These people have more children than what they can afford to feed, clothe, and educate which just leads to a never-ending cycle of poverty. Take a look at any barrio in the U.S. and see that they are recreating those same conditions right here! Please tell me how this is in the long-term best interests of the U.S.???
Pat,
Here is where I have the biggest concern about your “opinions.”
My family has never taken one dime of welfare. My father never believed in it for him or his children. I have worked all of my life. I am educated, successful and have a fine family. Yet, I was a migrant worker as a child. So was my father, my mother, all the members of my family. Latinos come here to work, not collect welfare.
WELFARE: Can you say the same about you and yours? Why do you jump to conclusions that illegal immigrants collect welfare checks in higher numbers than US citizens?
Education: My family is very well educated. Can you say the same about you and yours? We were migrants. Today we are successful business people. The high rate of immigrants that have come here since the 90s have not had an opportunity to assimilate and obtain an education for their children. It generally takes a generation to assimilate and educate. How can you make these statements when you don´t know?
Dream Act: If you are so against Welfare Programs and Education, why are you so against the Dream Act?
PAT STATEMENT
You stated that you would do away with the welfare state; but, that CLEARLY is not going to happen! We are sliding ever more towards BIGGER GOVERNMENT. The more uneducated and unskilled immigrants we import into our country, the MORE Socialism we will have.
dee, those two statements of mine that you pointed out were facts based on reality. What I stated about Norway, Sweden as having small populations and yet being successful and having among the highest standards of living is a fact, not opinion. I provided a map for you.
It is only common sense and logic that the more high density population of uneducated and low-skilled people in this country the more Socialism results. Duh!
Zeezil,
Re: your comment on the Founding Fathers thoughts on Immigration.
I found many of your ANTI reference sites with this same line of thought, here and here, almost verbatim.
You may be right about what some of the founding fathers said and the fear they tried to instill in the citizens at the time. Their comments are very similar to what some ANTI leaders are saying today and the fear they are trying to instill in people today.
Franklin and Racism:
The early history of the colonies reveals a population dominated by the English.
Franklin, "the real threat to the society..to your persons, fortunes, wives, and daughters, shall be subject to the wanton and unbridled rage, rapine, and lust of Negroes, mulattos and others, the vilest and most abandoned of mankind." Thus did Franklin use race explicitly as a bogeyman in his arguments. Continuing his argument, Franklin wrote that the non-English immigrants were not "purely white." He maintained that the Germans, Russians, and Swedes were of a swarthy complexion. Furthermore, only the Saxons and the English constituted the principal body of white people on the face of the earth. This concern with skin color caused him to ask "Why increase the sons of Africa by planting them in America, where we have so fair an opportunity, by excluding all blacks and tawnys, of increasing the lovely white and red?"
Hran,
Since you are an admitted, proud, White Nationalist, I am sure you proudly agree with all of Ben Franklin´s words.
He thought only the English and Saxons were "white enough" to be Americans. Is that your goal?
"In fact, we are getting substantially wealthier in an age of increased immigration.
I guess that explains our multi-trillion dollar national debt."
NO, four our trillion $ debt, we have the right wingers to thank for who voted this nut in office currently, and his name ryhmes with tush
""The best environmental think tank in the country" - The Wall Street Journal,"
I suspect this has more to do with the fact CEI reflects "enterprise" interests and has no concern about the extinction of the magnificent polar bear, a threat that even the Bush Administration has now had to admit.
I also am glad to read Alex's comments because they show how deluded even the best and the brightest can be when reality doesn't square with their point of view.
Regarding Ben Franklin, it is undeniable that he was among the most able among the Founding Fathers but like many of his day and even later he suffered from a blind spot when it came to race. To consider the "Aryan" Germans to be a swarthy race shows how wrong he was on this score.
Few of us have a problem with people of color. We are more concerned about culture, language and all the other things that still represent a magnet for all the downtrodden and impoverished masses of the world. It is unfortunate that more of us don't recognize what this will mean to the U.S. we know and love.
Hispanic politicians in California are chortling about their takeover of all of the institutions of that state. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and a host of other communities across the country are headed in that direction. What does this mean? Or what will this mean for our future? What comfort should it give any one of us when we look at the conditions in Latin America under the control of oligarchs and see that is what is in our future? I hope not but the extrapolation is quite clear. The tipping point will occur in this century as anglos become the minority and the country is turned over to those the anglos chose to pander to in the halls of congress with regard to immigration reform and border control. I'm convinced the die is cast and there is little any of us can do about the demise of our beloved America.
Ulty,
I find it interesting that anyone who has voted twice for Dubya can complain about any other elected official being an "oligarch".
I see the anarchists and socialist lib Dems are still confusing terminology. A little schooling is in order...
Immigration Terminology 101
With the vitriolic immigration debate roiling in all parts of our country, it is important to understand terminology. Be prepared to dispel the half-truths and no truths of the way those who are illegally in our country are described by their advocates. Knowledge is power:
ILLEGAL:
1.) Unlawful; illegitimate; illicit; unlicensed.
2.) Illegal, unlawful, illegitimate, illicit, criminal can all describe actions not in accord with law.
3.) Illegal refers most specifically to violations of statutes.
4.) Prohibited by law
ALIEN:
1.) a person who is not a citizen of the country.
2.) in the United States any person born in another country to parents who are not American and who has not become a naturalized citizen. There are resident aliens officially permitted to live in the country and illegal aliens who have sneaked into the country or stayed beyond the time allowed on a visa.
INVADE:
1. to enter like an enemy: Locusts invaded the fields
2. to enter as if to take possession: To invade a neighbor's home
3. to enter and affect injuriously or destructively, as disease: Viruses that invade the bloodstream.
4. to intrude upon: To invade the privacy of a family.
5. to encroach or infringe upon: to invade the rights of citizens.
6. to permeate: The smell of baking invades the house.
7. to penetrate; spread into or over: The population boom has caused city dwellers to invade the suburbs
Those illegally in a country are not "immigrants". There is no such thing as an "illegal immigrant". An immigrant is involved with an established and orderly procedure of immigration (entering a country to which one is not native in order to settle there by legal process).
They are not immigrants, not undocumented immigrants (Kennedy and the PC fan favorite), not undocumented workers, not undocumented Americans (Harry Reid’s favorite), not economic immigrants (Big Business and Wall Street favorite), not immigrants without work papers, not people who are working (Enrique Morone’s favorite), not migrant workers, not entrants, not day laborers and not the “unbanked” (Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s favorite).
The government has defined them as "illegal aliens" and explicitly uses that term in all its laws and statutes. So keep it simple…a spade is a spade…they are illegal aliens. Or, if you’d prefer, another term that would be just as correct to use is "invaders". I would consider the two interchangeable.
One other definition is exceedingly useful since you’ll hear with every piece of amnesty legislation, the open border lobbyists, facilitators and illegal alien advocates declaring that it isn’t amnesty in the hope that you will think so. Here’s the definition of amnesty so you can decide for yourself:
AMNESTY is legislation to forgive the breaking of immigration laws and to make it possible for illegal aliens to live permanently in the United States. Amnesty represents a system of federal rewards and assistance for illegal aliens, and they entice an even greater number of foreign nationals to illegally enter a country. Amnesty is providing the ultimate goal of the perpetrators illegal entry...legalization of their presence.
AMNESTY:
1. A general pardon for offenses against a government
2. An act of forgiveness for past offenses, esp. to a class of persons as a whole
3. Forgetting or overlooking any past offense
There you have it, folks. Knowledge is power…use it wisely.
Dee,
Regarding Franklin, those quotes would fit my definition of racist because they are not based on facts, but on simple vilification of blacks and race mythology. It is absurd to say that Germans, Irish, or Russians, etc are less white than Englishmen. I do not believe there is/was an "Aryan" race, by the way. However, I do agree with Franklin that brining blacks to America was a horrible mistake. Now we are doing something similar by brining in Mestizos to do manual labor. It is the same in that we are exploiting people of a different race for the sake of profit.
"Ulty,
I find it interesting that anyone who has voted twice for Dubya can complain about any other elected official being an "oligarch"."
Generally, oligarchs are elected or unelected people who pull the strings. An oligarch is a "ruler" in an oligarchy which is a form of government in which power is restricted to the few. I doubt W. can be considered an oligarch since his power has failed him many times: CIR, private social security accounts,etc. Perhaps I have the wrong term but I was thinking of the few families in Mexico that control most of the land and wealth and because of that have been able to control the government. I don't think we have that to the same degree although people like George Soros and organizations like Move On certainly give power to the few with money who can finance their operations. Do you think Carlos Slim is passive with regard to politics in Mexico?
Mexifornia: A State of Becoming.
California is going to be a Mexican State; we are going to control all the institutions. If people don't like it they should leave. - Mario Obledo, recipient of President Clinton's Presidential Medal of Freedom and former head of the left-wing Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Does he sound like an oligarch? What is a better term?
"America did not do fine before 1965 without massive amounts of foreign labor. From 1776-1924, with the exception of some laws, immigration was fairly unrestricted. During the times of highest growth, 1850s-1910, America experienced tremendous immigration. My point is that we can do better with more immigrants."
Like so many others you are living in the past. The massive amounts of foreign labor were really settlers, pioneers and citizens in the making not just foreign labor.
One would think from your point of view that nothing has happened in the way exploration, westward expansion, settlement, development, and the exploitation of natural resources since or during the period you cite. Surely those changes must be a factor in any policy analysis.
Doing "better" with more immigrants is a relative term and it can not be proven with any clouded crystal ball at your disposal. My thinking on this is not clouded by brownness or the lack thereof but the more practical considerations of the limit concept, the extinction of species, the 20 metric tons of pollutants produced annually on the average by Americans per capita, the congestion, crime, disease, and poverty that are evident in the most populated countries of the world. Sure one can cite Monaco and Bahrain as contrary example of densely populated areas but those are clearly exceptions rather than the rule. We have had boomtowns in the U.S. when oil or other natural resources were discovered like Bahrain but countries without yacht basin for the rich or oil deposits cannot hope to support population densities like those of Monaco and Bahrain.
If we subtract from the total area of the U.S. all the land in the Great American Desert, the mountains, the national parks and monuments, the land rendered u productive by the usurpation of water rights by cities, it paints a totally different picture than what we see in other more densely populated countries and what the Founding Fathers perceived in th beginning.
If we can do better with more immigrants from this day forward, it has yet to be proved and certainly that bald statement does not constitute proof.
"NO, four our trillion $ debt, we have the right wingers to thank for who voted this nut in office currently, and his name ryhmes with tush"
Tush has had a little help from the spendthrift Democrats and others in congress who have refused to reduce government spending. The current Farm Bill giveaway is a good example.We could do without that multi-billion dollar boondoggle as well as all of the other pork the congress has been serving up.
There are three ways to reduce the annual deficit and national debt. Increase revenues, decrease expenditures or some combination of those two approaches. The Obama tax increase will do nothing to help either because of his grandiose new spending plans. He has made no commitment to balancing the budget or reducing the national debt and restoring the dollar as the world's currency. So it will be more tax and spend, the Democrats forte in all kinds of economic weather.
The president proposes, congress disposes -- after they have added tons of fat and pork.
Mexican-American communities are no longer confined to the Southwest. Increasingly, Mexicans and Hispanics from other Spanish-speaking countries are moving to Northern cities like Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Often they live in insular neighborhoods where they don't necessarily have to learn a word of English or assimilate in other ways. Many are here illegally. And crime statistics show that those who are willing to break immigration laws are likely to break other laws as well and have little regard for the rule of law, the foundation of all civilized societies. Mass immigration has transformed once safe areas of town into crowded, graffiti-laden crime zones.
I gather that Alex is an open borders type of guy. Makes policy analysis easier that way.
Hran,
You are right. Franklin, even though one of the most renowned founding fathers, had his human failings. He was, in fact a racist towards many other ethnicities, including Germans, Irish and Russians.
Ulty,
Dubya doesn’t want CIR. He and big business prefer status quo. That way they can get richer after exploiting workers, fill up those crony owned private prisons after sweeps and continue to scare us so they can staff security with private crony contractors like Blackwater. Business continues to go unpunished as all the cronies in Business, Contractors or in government can get rich and richer.
Zeezil,
Your responses confirm your extremist views, as always.
That is why your side continues to lose the argument. You see black and white and use terms to incite rather than to educate, inform or for dialogue.
In order to understand any of these terms we need to study history. You know this as well as I do.
Your side always loses the argument when you forget history.
There is that alheimers thing going on again, dee. George W. Bush pushed for CIR. Also, I have told you over and over that the employers have to be investigated FIRST to determine whether or not they KNOWINGLY hired illegal aliens. I also provided an article for you whereby an employer was proven guilty and went to prison a while back. Do you really have alheimers (there is medication for that, you know) or do you just like to lie and deny?
dee, what a joke! Our side has NEVER lost an agrument and especially not with you. Show proof where our side has lost any argument on this issue!
You complain when any of us express our opinions in here and don't show proof. Well where is yours, dee? I would say since you haven't gotten your CIR and the raids are going on that it is OUR side that is winning the argument. Even the Iraq funding bill dropped all amendments that included amnesty just this week! LOL!
The world according to Dee:
Hispanic power through illegal aliens running amok.
Sorry, Dee, never going to happen. America is a melting pot of many diverse cultures and nationalities, all working together for the common good of our nation. Your objective of hispanic supremacy will not be achieved because the American people reject you and your racial exclusionary objectives.
Another employer punished for hiring illegal aliens. So much for dee's claims that employers always get off scot free.
http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_9357716
Zeezil,
No one knows where you come up with your ideas. I have never heard one Latino group say the words "Hispanic Supremacy." Not one. Nope. Never.
Just another term YOU made up to incite anger!
Pat,
Sorry. Your link was no good.
Also, the only time you provided the name of an employer, it was a low level supervisor with hispanic surname. They were flunkies for the owners and took the blame.
Post a good link if you have something differe.
Wrong, dee! The last article that I posted whereby an employer was sent to prison of hiring illegals, it was an Asian guy not a Hispanic. What difference would it have made what his ethnicity was anyway.
Here is the link again. If it doesn't work, I will post the whole article.
Here is the link.
http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_9357716
Ok, here is the article. For some reason the link isn't working.
Roswell businessman accepts plea deal in raid case
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 05/23/2008 07:07:22 AM MDT
ROSWELL, N.M.—A top official of an Roswell aircraft painting shop will pay $300,000 in fines in an illegal immigration case.
Carl Baldwin, vice president of Dean Baldwin Painting Inc., pleaded guilty Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Robert Scott in Albuquerque to three misdemeanor counts of knowingly employing and accepting falsified documents from illegal immigrants, U.S. Attorney Gregory Fouratt said.
Baldwin admitted employing illegal immigrants from 2002 to 2005, Fouratt said.
The U.S. attorney said the fine was the largest of its kind ever imposed in an immigration case in New Mexico.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities raided the company's plant in Roswell, N.M. and arrested 15 illegal immigrants in August 2006.
Baldwin originally was charged with 10 felonies.
Federal prosecutors agreed to allow him to plead guilty to the misdemeanors instead in part so the company could continue to do business in Roswell, the Albuquerque Journal reported in a copyright story Friday. The federal prosecution wasn't intended to jeopardize the company's operations or the jobs of its employees, most of whom are U.S. citizens, Fouratt told the Journal.
U.S. Attorney Stephen Wong said a felony conviction could have made it difficult for Baldwin to keep the security clearance he needs for work at airports.
"We're pleased with the outcome and we're pleased that it is resolved," said Jason Bowles, Baldwin's attorney.
Baldwin also will be on probation for three years.
"Mr. Fouratt felt that the wrongdoing had to be punished, but didn't want to penalize the employees who were lawfully employed at the company by shutting it down," Norm Cairns, spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque, told the Roswell Daily Record.
Baldwin and his company were ordered to pay a total of $550,000 in the case that arose from the raid on the Roswell plant. The U.S. Department of Labor administratively sanctioned Dean Baldwin Painting, ordering it to pay $250,000 for employing illegal immigrants.
The company released a statement expressing disappointment in the U.S. attorney's reference to an administrative sanction "for employing illegal aliens." The company said it has "worked hard to implement personnel practices to guard against the employment of illegal workers" and is enrolled in federal programs to help businesses screen prospective employees and check the citizenship of current ones.
Charges originally were directed solely at the company, but Baldwin was charged after prosecutors alleged he accepted falsified documents from immigrants.
The company, which has headquarters in the San Antonio suburb of Bulverde, Texas, is under contract to paint commercial and U.S. military aircraft at the Roswell International Air Center.
The Air Force temporarily suspended Dean Baldwin from receiving new contracts but said it could continue previously contracted jobs.
The business recently lost a nearly $23 million economic development and lease agreement with the Midland Development Corp. when the governing body of the Texas city rescinded the deal after learning about the immigration raid and that the company owed taxes to New Mexico.
The state of New Mexico charged last year that the company owed back taxes. Dean Baldwin challenged the claim, but lost in the state Court of Appeals.
Gov. Bill Richardson and Rep. Dan Foley, R-Roswell, worked together in February to craft a long-term plan for the business to pay more than $522,000 in taxes, interest and penalties.
Here is an another case dee where an employer was arrested under suspicion of knowingly hiring illegal aliens. If convicted he could get up to 10 years in prison.
Restaurant Owner Arrested for Hiring, Harboring Illegal Aliens
Written by Imperial Valley News
Friday, 23 May 2008
Waukesha, Wisconsin - Special agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested the owner of an upscale Asian steakhouse on Thursday on charges that he knowingly hired illegal aliens to work at his restaurant and housed them at a Waukesha residence. The charges resulted from an ICE criminal worksite enforcement investigation.
ICE agents executed a federal search warrant May 22 at Asiana Restaurant, 1198 George Towne Drive in Pewaukee. They arrested restaurant owner Rong "Ricky" Shi, 32, of Merton, Wis. Shi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from China, who is charged with unlawfully harboring and hiring illegal aliens for financial gain.
ICE agents initiated the investigation following an April 29arrest when they took into custody four illegal aliens from Mexico and China from a Waukesha residence. Waukesha Police Department reported receiving numerous complaints from the public regarding a residence located at 2208 Melody Lane; police requested assistance from ICE. An ICE affidavit unsealed in federal court Thursday alleges that Shi knowingly hired the four illegal aliens to work at his restaurant and harbored them at the Melody Lane residence he owns.
"ICE is committed to enforcing the nation's immigration laws in the workplace to maintain the integrity of our legal immigration system," said Brian Falvey, resident agent-in-charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Milwaukee. "Criminal sanctions against employers are an effective deterrent to illegal employment schemes."
ICE has dramatically enhanced its efforts to combat employers who unlawfully employ illegal aliens in the United States. The agency's strategy for effective worksite enforcement is aimed at promoting national security, protecting critical infrastructure, and ensuring fair labor standards. In fiscal year 2007, ICE secured more than $30 million in criminal fines, restitutions, and civil judgments in worksite enforcement cases. ICE arrested 863 people in criminal cases and made more than 4,000 administrative arrests, which is a tenfold increase over 2002 figures.
The penalty for the felony offense of harboring illegal aliens is up to 10 years in federal prison.
Members of the public are reminded that a complaint is merely an accusation; the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Pat,
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!!
The Roswell employer you cited "paid a fine." They were NOT sent to prison as the swept employees were. They were NOT sent to heinous, crony owned private prisons to serve time beyond their court date, until there were enough people to be sent back to thier country of origin!!
Shame on you Pat for your obvious LIES!!
patriot said...
Wrong, dee! The last article that I posted whereby an employer was sent to prison of hiring illegals
Dee, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! I never said that the Roswell employer went to prison. He did pay a fine and is on probation. You claim that no employers are fined and/or arrested for hiring illegal aliens. I gave you an example of BOTH. Can't you read????????
Pat, As usual, you are wrong. I said the employers, the CEOs, have not spent one day in prison for their heinous actions.
Even in the case you provided, some low level, small business person gets a slap on the hand and not one day in jail.
Oh I am sure that will make them stop!
The bigger issue is, the CEOs go scot free and are allowed to continue business as usual! Shameful!!
Employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens should be prosecuted and incarcerated, as should ALL those who aid & abet illegal aliens. Those are already laws 'on the books' that haven't been enforced. On the flip side, ALL illegal aliens that are apprehended MUST be deported. Doing the above is the only real solution and the best way to restore credibility to our system of immigration.
Wanted to share some music that you might like - my new CD "Revolution Rhapsody aka: Uprising Music" tackles some of the current political topics with song... Here's a couple of the tunes for you to check out:
"Arizona Shame On Ya" http://www.reverbnation.com/c./poni/71585597 , and
"War On The Poor" http://www.reverbnation.com/c./poni/71583430
... I'd love to hear your comments/critiques,
Gary Brown
bushmasterblues@yahoo.com
www.BushmasterBlues.com
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