Tag: Immigration

According to the Bible, Illegal Immigrants Must Be Welcomed

Jon Ponder

If you believe the Bible is the word of God — and especially if you believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God — you must believe this:

Why doesn’t Mexico have [the] drive toward technology and math/science education that has virtually transformed India?

Leviticus (19:33-4):”And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself.”

It would be interesting to know how the “God said it-I believe it-that settles it” crowd would square this admonition with their blood lust to round up 12 million people and send them back to Mexico.

Speaking of fantastical thinking, has anybody calculated the cost of deporting 12 million people, housing them (in concentration camps, assumedly), processing them and then shipping them across the border? If it is, say, $5,000 per person (which is low), then the cost to U.S. taxpayers would be $60 billion. (If we outsource it to Halliburton, multiply that by a thousand.)

So is there a solution?

What Americans see as a domestic illegal immigration crisis is, in reality, an economic diaspora of unskilled workers fleeing structural flaws in the Mexican political and economic system that are centuries old — and which are compounded by a religious abhorrence for birth control among the people of the exodus. (If the Republicans really wanted a sustainable majority, they would be courting these Bible-believing, hard-working, family-centric people instead of demonizing them. Their vicious rhetoric is sending the illegal immigrants’ naturalized relatives and culturally Latino sympathizers, many of whom were Republicans for generations, into the Democratic Party throughout the Southwest by the millions.)

Mexico is, in effect, the sort of oligarchy Republican economic and social policies are designed to create in the United States: A tiny elite group of people and corporations who control the country’s vast reserves of wealth and resources sits on top of a weak and struggling middle class, which in turn rests on a population of tens of millions of people who are poor, uneducated and easily manipulated.

The Mexican oligarchy profits from the exodus, as does the Bush oligarch-in-waiting: The influx of millions of unskilled laborers, combined with the defenestrating of U.S. jobs overseas, weakens the American labor movement, which, in turn, strengthens domestic corporations and oligarchs.

A question from a conservative published in a recent edition of the popular column, “Ask a Mexican,” points to an aspect of the crisis that is rarely discussed:

Why doesn’t Mexico have [the] drive toward technology and math/science education that has virtually transformed India? India doesn’t even have the mass economy like China, but they have billions and billions of dollars because of their brains. Mexico doesn’t produce labor other than the kind that will scrub, wash, press and cut grass.

Leaving aside the rightwing cultural bias, the larger question is on target. Why won’t the Mexican government do as the Indian government has done and educate its underclasses?

Why should they?

For one thing, the Mexican government does not view the U.S. illegal immigration crisis as a crisis because, from their point of view, it isn’t a problem, it is a solution. They have shifted the burden of caring for millions of their poor, unskilled people to the United States.

For another, educating its masses would actually weaken the Mexican regime because, unlike India’s democratic government, the Mexican oligarchy (rightly) views a strong middle class as a threat.

If this illegal immigration crisis is ever going to end, it won’t be resolved by the political parties in the United States playing rope-a-dope with each other — although Republicans will try to use it for their short-term political gain in the general election this year. The crisis will only be settled when the United States government forces the Mexican government to take responsibility for its people by feeding, clothing and, especially, educating them.

Until that happens, if it ever does, we have no other practicable option but to follow the biblical injunction and treat these people as our own. Restricting them from healthcare and education, as rightwing Christians insist on doing, will only exacerbate the problem by creating the ideal conditions for crime, domestic terrorism, deadly epidemics that spread like wildfire into the general population and worse.

Border Fence Set to Destroy Habitats That Have Cost Millions to Preserve

Jon Ponder

Los Angeles Times:

The lush, meandering lower leg of the Rio Grande is one of the most biologically diverse places in North America. More than 300 varieties of butterflies and half the bird species in the United States can be spotted here. So can two endangered species of wild cats: the ocelot, which resembles a miniature leopard, and the jaguarundi, an otter-faced relative of the puma.

Over the last 30 years, ranchers, conservationists, and state and federal officials have strung together a delicate necklace of nature sanctuaries along the river’s final 275 miles. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service alone has invested more than $100 million to buy land and restore it to its native state, creating a riverside corridor called the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

Now the new federal directive to build 21 fence segments here threatens to trample the lands the government and private groups spent decades nurturing. A Fish and Wildlife analysis found that up to 75% of the nature corridor could be harmed, for just 70 miles of fence.

“In this little area, you will find more species in four counties than in all but three entire states,” said Martin Hagne, executive director of the Valley Nature Center in Weslaco, a vacant lot that was transformed into an educational park filled with malachite and pixie butterflies, Texas tortoises and cottontail rabbits.

“Now they’re going to spend billions of dollars to undo the work that cost millions of dollars. These are your tax dollars at work,” he said.

Maybe Democrats Should Take Spanish Lessons — from the Republicans

Buck Banks

In a breathless e-mail I received Tuesday, Florida Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman wrote of the previous Sunday night’s Univision Democratic presidential debate (emphasis added):

On Sunday night, Democrats made history at the University of Miami when, for the first time, our presidential candidates directly addressed the issues of the Hispanic community in Spanish.

Sitting in the arena, I was surrounded by hundreds of prominent Democrats from across the country and more than a thousand students. An almost euphoric excitement filled the room. The momentous event reached a record 4.6 million viewers via the Univision television network — more than any other debate or forum this year.

Besides her overblown prose, Thurman also overstated the viewership, which was more like 2.2 million — less than the Fox Network’s Republican prez debate a week earlier.

Amusing malaprops and glaring grammatical mistakes mar the Spanish language websites of the Democratic presidential candidates.

It seems typical of the Democratic Party’s approach to what seemingly every pundit and their consultant was referring to as “Latino Power” after the debate (which ignores the fact that most Cubans and Latin Americans in my part of the country hate being called “Latino”), which is to exaggerate its efforts to woo Hispanic voters away from what appears to be a vacuum on the Republican side. But more on that later.

La Politica is a new publication that is set to debut Nov. 5 and provide analysis of the Hispanic-wooing efforts of the candidates for the ensuing year before the elections. The publisher is sending around a prototype PDF of the magazine to potential advertisers and subscribers. It looks both promising — and uncompromising. I particularly enjoyed its analysis of the Democratic presidential candidates’ efforts to cage a little of that “Latino Power” thing:

Amusing malaprops and glaring grammatical mistakes mar the Spanish language websites of the Democratic presidential candidates.

Hector Orcí, chairman of Hispanic marketing agency La Agencia de Orcí & Asociados, derides the websites as “not particularly interesting, nor effective, nor well-written … If they were doing as bad a job in English as they are doing in Spanish, none of the candidates would get elected with the exception of Bill Richardson.”

Although the article goes on to point out that Richardson’s Web site is rife with errors, too:

Spanish is obviously the second language of the campaign´s Spanish-language blogger whose very first post includes the phrase “Bill Richardson está corriendo porque quiere ser el próximo presidente.” In Spanish, unlike English, you cannot write a candidate is ”running” for office. Yet, the writer opted for the literal translation of “running” as “corriendo.” The second sentence of the second post manages to misspell five words. The third post includes a videotaped testimonial by Rep. Ben Luján, speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives, who praises the Governor for “dando relief en los tax issues.”

[…]

Press One for English? Not in Central Florida!

Trish

Poor Adam Putnam. The third highest-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives has a constituency that is inflamed.

What are the residents of Lakeland and Central Florida so upset about? Is it the grinding violence in the occupation of Iraq? The lack of access to health care, causing middle class families to lose their savings? The impending housing market and mortgage lending collapse, which threatens the entire economy?

No, it’s much bigger than any of those things.

Their most frequent complaint is dialing a business and getting “Press one for English and two for Spanish,” he said.

That’s right. They are sick and tired of having a foreign language offered them by automated phone systems. Enough already! Someone needs to pass a law! Hey Adam Putnam!

“It is hotter than Iraq, hotter than abortion. I have never had an issue that so overwhelmingly overshadows everything else,” the Bartow Republican said. “I would say it is ahead of every other issue by 4 to 1.”

…The almost absolute opposition to immigration has a lot to do with a cultural concern as well as other issues of border security and a feeling of fairness to those who immigrated legally.

“What I am hearing from them is that we are losing our cultural identity. Instead of being the traditional melting pot, we are becoming factions,” he said. “Now all of these things are not necessarily government’s responsibility, but there is a growing concern that there is no assimilation anymore as there has been throughout our history.”

Something’s wrong here. Either Putman’s staff is throwing away the emails and letters from residents concerned about real — as opposed to Rovian manufactured — issues, or Central Florida is in big trouble. I tend to believe that Putnam, who continued to peddle the “Nancy Pelosi wants a bigger plane” story even after it was exposed as false, is ignoring the real issues in favor of the ones that appeal to the base.

Putnam is chair of the House Republican conference committee, which coordinates the party messages and manages media relations for House Republicans. It’s his job to make the Democratic House leadership look as bad as possible. If automated phone systems are the best he can do, like I said, poor Adam Putnam.

Americans Really Are Moving to Canada

Trish

You know how both times Bush stole an election, people said they would move to Canada? Apparently it wasn’t an idle threat.

The number of U.S. citizens who moved to Canada last year hit a 30-year high, with a 20 percent increase over the previous year and almost double the number who moved in 2000.

In 2006, 10,942 Americans went to Canada, compared with 9,262 in 2005 and 5,828 in 2000…

Not only that, fewer Canadians want to be in America.

Last year, 23,913 Canadians moved to the United States, a significant decrease from 29,930 in 2005.

No doubt many of those making good on the threat we have all uttered are from places already Canada-ish, like Seattle and Fargo and Portland(s). Those of us further south have a little harder time with the whole concept of frozen things. Still, our country is losing some of its best and brightest.

“Those who are coming have the highest level of education — these aren’t people who can’t get a job in the states,” [Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies] says. “They’re coming because many of them don’t like the politics, the Iraq War and the security situation in the U.S. By comparison, Canada is a tension-free place. People feel safer.”

Would you have ever thought you’d understand — and agree — with that statement?

Novak: Sen. Minority Leader McConnell Criticized for ‘Dereliction of Duty’ on Immigration

Jon Ponder

For high Republican officials, it is bad when Robert Novak, “douchebag of liberty” and GOP tool, calls you out:

“It is difficult to exaggerate the pessimism about the immediate political future voiced by Republicans in Congress when not on the record.”
— Novak

I asked one of the few conservative Republican senators who stuck with President Bush on immigration to assess how Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell handled the issue. Asking not to be quoted by name, he replied: “If this were a war, Sen. McConnell should be relieved of command for dereliction of duty.” Not only did the minority leader end up voting against an immigration bill that he said was better than the 2006 version he supported, he abandoned his post, staying off the floor during final stages of the debate.

Novak does add this cheerful note:

It is difficult to exaggerate the pessimism about the immediate political future voiced by Republicans in Congress when not on the record. With an unpopular president waging an unpopular war, they foresee electoral catastrophe in 2008, with Democratic gains in both the House and Senate and Hillary Clinton in the White House. That’s the atmosphere in which these lachrymose lawmakers have for several months faced an increasingly hysterical onslaught from constituents demanding the death of the “amnesty” for immigrants they heard vilified on talk radio.

His lips to God’s ears, as they say.

Give Us Your Tired But You Keep Your Poor

Trish

Without even waiting for the other snobbish and judgmental rules of the new immigration bill to go into effect, the Bush administration is plowing ahead to put all the costs of coming to this country on the new residents. No matter how much benefit you believe we get from immigrants — whether it’s a lot or a little — this hardly seems fair.

But no one ever accused George W. Bush of being fair. The new asking price for citizenship tells us that in his view, the only good immigrant is a rich immigrant.

When my grandfather was an illegal immigrant from Italy in the 19-teens, his family could have never afforded fees like these

…the Bush administration made final Tuesday a new set of fees that will significantly hike the cost of becoming a U.S. citizen or legal resident.

Beginning July 30, the citizenship fee will rise to $595 from $330. Those seeking to become legal permanent residents will see the cost nearly triple to $930 — plus a fingerprinting charge.

The $930 is higher than the $905 fee proposed for legal residency in February, when critics charged that the government was pricing residency beyond the reach of many potential applicants.

But, in what Citizenship and Immigration Services chief Emilio Gonzales said was a change in favor of families, the cost to process a child as a legal resident will be cut to $600 from the proposed $805.

That means a family of two adults and two children will pay $3,060 to become legal residents, compared to $1,100 under the current fees.

But, see, we really need the money. We have to grow the government even more, as we have at unprecedented rates already, under Bush.

Citizen and Immigration Services needs the additional $1 billion that the fee increases will raise to hire personnel, upgrade computer systems, train employees and make other improvements…

Gonzales acknowledged the fee hikes are steep, but vowed that the increased revenue would help reinvent the agency, with a 20 percent improvement in service in the first year…

The agency gets more than 90 percent of its funding from the fees and will have a budget of about $2.3 billion after the new fee structure goes into effect, officials said.

I don’t know about you but I’d say that having the Immigration Service work 20 percent better is money well extorted.

When my grandfather was an illegal immigrant from Italy in the 19-teens, his family could have never afforded fees like these. It was all they could do to scrape up the money for some fake papers and a ticket on a boat bound for Ellis Island.

Unfortunately, Grandpa spent the whole voyage arffing over the rail or passed out in steerage, so he failed to memorize the false information in his papers, such as what his name was supposed to be, who had sponsored him, where he would be living, who his closest relatives in America were, etc. He was shipped right back to Italy. The next time he made the crossing, he studied harder and gave the right fake answers. He passed his citizenship test for real in the 1950s.

McCain Lost His Temper During Senate Negotiations

Jon Ponder

Meltdown: Word on the street has it that Sen. John McCain has a bad temper. He needs to keep it under wraps while he runs for president but that may be too difficult:

“[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room,” shouted McCain at Cornyn.

During a meeting Thursday on immigration legislation, McCain and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) got into a shouting match when Cornyn started voicing concerns about the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive, according to multiple sources — both Democrats and Republicans — who heard firsthand accounts of the exchange from lawmakers who were in the room …

Things got really heated when Cornyn accused McCain of being too busy campaigning for president to take part in the negotiations, which have gone on for months behind closed doors. “Wait a second here,” Cornyn said to McCain. “I’ve been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You’re out of line.”

McCain, a former Navy pilot, then used language more accustomed to sailors (not to mention the current vice president, who made news a few years back after a verbal encounter with Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont).

“[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room,” shouted McCain at Cornyn. McCain helped craft a bill in 2006 that passed the Senate but couldn’t be compromised with a House bill that was much tougher on illegal immigrants.

McCain’s staff denied that the senator said he knew more about immigration than anyone else.

33 Percent of Pensito Review Editors Back Tancredo for Prez

Buck Banks

Monday Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo announced he was joining the legions seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Now, if he can only win it. I for one fervently hope he can.

‘We have something they don’t have — a group of people out there who are there because of an issue.’

That might sound odd coming from one who has been somewhat critical of Tom Tancredo in the past, who was dismissive of his presumed run for the presidency and offended by his characterization of Miami as a “Third World country.” But I’m serious, I really do want him to win the Republican presidential nomination. Honest, I do.

I know it will be difficult for Tom to compete with the likes of Mitt the Money Magnet in fundraising, but he’s got that covered:

[Tancredo] said he wasn’t intimidated by other campaigns with more money and resources. Tancredo said he had raised a little more than a million dollars for his presidential bid. In comparison, aides to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced on Monday that he had raised more than $20 million.

“We have something they don’t have — a group of people out there who are there because of an issue,” Tancredo said. “And they’re never going to have that. They can use their 100 million to try and buy constituency. I have it. It’s natural. It’s there.”

And we all know what Tom’s issue is — immigration. It’s the number-one issue for Tom and his constituents, just not for a majority of Americans. But that’s okay, too, because you don’t need a majority of Americans to win the presidency anymore. Tom’s counting on that, which is why he said to heck with tradition and announced his candidacy, not in his home state of Colorado, but in Iowa. On the radio.

Tancredo said he chose radio because talk radio had for years given him a platform for his stand against illegal immigration. And he made the announcement in Des Moines rather than his home state of Colorado because of the importance of Iowa in the nominating process.

“That’s how you get there,” he said. “You do well in Iowa, you do well in New Hampshire.”

Now that sounds like a solid plan for winning the nomination — do well in Iowa and New Hampshire. I tell you, this guy has the juice!

That’s why I am breaking with my co-editors and endorsing Tom Tancredo for the Republican nomination for president of these United States. Because if the GOP nominates a single-issue loose-cannon headcase like Tancredo, the Dems are sure to win.

We Third Worlders are behind you Tom, and I speak on behalf of my fellow Miamians when I say that were most of them in the country legally and registered, I’m sure they’d vote for you. Honest.

Tancredo Exploring Run for Prez

Buck Banks

Jingo-In-Chief: Colorado Republican Rep. Tom “Miami Is a Third World Country” Tancredo thinks he has what it takes to be president of these United States. Of course, that might have something to do with the low bar the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. has set. Tancredo has announced the formation of an exploratory committee to assess the nation’s need for a jingoistic, mono-issue conservative from the suburbs of Denver.

‘They believe that there is a void in this race that none of the other candidates are willing or able to fill.’

Tancredo’s single issue is immigration reform, by which he means close the borders and kick out the illegals. Following a weekend meeting with Repugs in Iowa, Tancredo was convinced that the increasingly crowded GOP field of runners needs one more. Indeed, he explained to the Associated Press Tuesday what the Iowa GOP brain trust told him: “They believe that there is a void in this race that none of the other candidates are willing or able to fill.”

He’s probably right, you know. What sensible presidential candidate would hitch his wagon to the lone horse of immigration reform, an issue which reared its ugly head before the midterm elections but had absolutely no effect on any key races. Indeed, while the 109th Congress was well-known for its ability to get nothing accomplished, one got the sense that few on Capitol Hill had any real stomach for taking on the immigration issue, so no one did. Well, except for enacting a law that calls on the federal government to build a 700-mile-long Great Wall of America on the Mexico border — without appropriateing the $49 million to $70 million it will likely take to build it.

So Tancredo sees himself as the Void Filler of the GOP in the race for president in 2008. Good luck with that, Tom. He’ll likely garner some support from the true conservatives out there, but he’s such a polarizing and monomaniacal figure that I can’t imagine him becoming a viable candidate for president. But then, I thought the same thing about George W. Bush.