Point: Immigration Sense and Nonsense by James Hall from the Left With two competing bills, and visions, in Congress, America faces a choice in reforming its wayward immigration policies. One bill, the Senate’s, reflects a spirit of compromise that deals with the reality of immigration. The other, the House bill, sets America back by further criminalizing people who are here to work for themselves and us. From the way some are fulminating, you’d think America was under an invasive attack by unregistered aliens, or that al Qaeda was directly linked to Mexico. Haven’t we suffered enough by falsely linking terrorism to failed foreign and domestic policies? This is all about economics, not the war on terror. If this hysteria continues, the transition of our beloved country to a Soviet-style police state isn’t far away. Because of terrorist fear-mongering, we already have unconstitutional wiretaps, illegal search and seizure, and the withdrawal of habeas corpus and lengthy imprisonment without trial. All we need is our own Berlin Wall and divisions of machine-gun toting border guards to win the look-alike contest with the Soviet Union. The hysterical yapping of the punishers ignores the obvious. These people came here, risking their lives, to work and build, not tear down and destroy. And they have helped our economy remain the strongest in the Western World. In places in America where there are the most undocumented workers, the economy is roaring along. I live in Florida, a place awash in the undocumented. Our jobless rate is 3% in the state, the lowest rate in the country, and companies are begging people to come to work. Don’t tell me these people are taking jobs from Americans. They do the jobs that unemployed, lazy Americans turn their backs on. They work in the kitchens; they clean hotel rooms and offices; they pick our crops and watch our children. They provide local American entrepreneurs with a hard-working cadre of willing workers. Yes, they’re here illegally, a crime that’s technically a misdemeanor, payable with a fine and deportation. They crossed the border without documentation, and many of them obtained documentation fraudulently. So, show me a victim of these crimes, those of you who are the descendents of immigrants, many of whom arrived undocumented themselves—but before there was a law against it. The vast majority of the undocumented don’t wear ski masks, don’t rob and rape, don’t prey on the weak and helpless. They’re here to work at jobs that pay twenty times what they could earn in their countries of origin. If we’re that concerned with millions of people who have committed misdemeanor crimes, then what about all the Americans who break our misdemeanor laws? These illegal Americans speed on the highways, jaywalk, and cheat on their income taxes and divorce agreements. Perhaps after we deport all the illegal aliens, we can go after all the illegal Americans and make our transition to a police state complete. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not any happier than most people are with the state of immigration policy in America. We need improved border security. We need background checks of those who are in the country. We also need rational reform, a reform that recognizes the role of the immigrant who comes to America to work, and recognizes the need of some American industries, like the agriculture, hospitality, and construction industries, for low-cost, hard-working workers. Every worker who comes to America should be documented, and a national registry of these workers can separate the people who are here honestly to work from those who come here with more sinister motives. A national registry of workers allows immigrants looking for work to be matched with jobs that are needed. It reduces and ultimately dries up the motive for illegal border crossings by those looking for work. When an entrepreneur can easily get a legally documented worker, why should he settle for an illegal? So what should we do with the worker who’s here illegally now? There are some eleven to twelve million of them, a logistical nightmare to track down and deport. (Not mention the police state environment that this would create in this country.) Many of them are already established in the country, with employers who count on them. Some are married to Americans and have children who are American citizens. The answer is not amnesty, but justice. First, register them, document them, background check them. Then charge them with their crime. Make them pay their misdemeanor fine, pay back taxes, and serve community service hours. If they want to become citizens, they must go to the back of the line of those applying for citizenship. The Senate’s bill would do all these things. Once we have our current undocumented aliens documented, and future workers coming in documented in a guest worker program, filling all needed jobs in this country, the job market for illegal aliens dries up. The number of illegal aliens declines to those with truly illegal purposes—drug smugglers, illegal importers, and terrorists—and catching them without documentation becomes a manageable law enforcement issue. If we deal with the cause of most illegal immigration—the search for economic opportunity that is as American as apple pie (and the reason our own ancestors came here)—then the effect, the massive undocumented surge of foreign workers, disappears; and we are left with the much smaller problem of tracking down those who really mean us harm. Otherwise, we are left with the cost of divisions of border guards, police going from house to house to search and question and examine documents, and our own Berlin Wall. The American Police State, God forbid. Encourage your Congressman to support the Senate’s version of immigration reform. Rebuttal: Immigration Imbroglio Opponents of complete immigration reform are neither truthful to the debate, nor fair to those who depend on the undocumented living in our country. They claim that the Senate bill is amnesty, when amnesty isn’t on the table at all. They avow that illegals are invaders, instead of individuals seeking opportunities for themselves. Worse of all is their vindictive attitude towards mostly-poor, hard-working individuals, some of whom have good jobs, families and children in this country who would be affected by the draconian measures the House bill would create. It’s plain silly, and a violation of the English language, to call the Senate bill’s requirements for citizenship for illegal aliens ‘amnesty.’ “Amnesty,” according to the Oxford Dictionary, is the act of excusing or forgiving an offense—in this case breaking immigration law, a misdemeanor offense. But the Senate bill doesn’t excuse or forgive anything. Its provisions require eleven year’s residency, good conduct, a steady job, knowledge of English, and passing a difficult citizenship exam to be eligible. Fines and community service, which are traditional for misdemeanor offenses, must be met as well. That’s not excusing or forgiving anything. It’s a much rougher pathway that what most misdemeanor violators face. It’s not letting off the perpetrators lightly, and it’s certainly not amnesty. Those angry at the Reagan-era amnesty deal will have to come up with a more accurate choice of words to characterize the penalty portion of this bill than the word ‘amnesty.’ (Note to the English-only crowd: if you insist on using English, use it correctly, please.) Equally dishonest, if not downright silly, is the characterization of these immigrants as invaders. Illegal or not, the vast majority of immigrants are in the United States not to seize territory back for Mexico or to serve Al Qaeda by attacking Americans. They’re here to work. When was the last time you heard of a conquering army hammering roofs, weeding gardens, or washing dishes? When do invaders pick strawberries or watch children and seniors for the minimum wage? These ‘hordes’ of cheap, dependable, and hard-working people have actually smoothed our economic engine and contributed to the strongest economy in the world. Hiding behind the word ‘illegal’ is equally wrong. These people are, for the most part, not career criminals. For most migrant workers, crossing the border without the proper documents is the only crime they have committed. Nor did they take their crime for granted: in most cases, crossing the border was an expensive and dangerous proposition. Many risked death to get here; many were abused here because they were undocumented. What of the theory of waves of polyglot speakers as a threat to English? This idea shows ignorance of the immigration history of our country, of waves of non-English speakers, adults who slowly learned English while their children quickly learned it in school. In a generation these waves of foreigners, speaking Yiddish, Italian, German, Swedish, Russian, and Greek became indivisible from the rest of America. This happened before; it will happen again—as a teacher in a school that’s 75% Hispanic, I see it happening before my eyes. My students, many of whom have parents who speak English poorly or not at all, are excellent English speakers and virtually indistinguishable from their Anglo-Saxon peers. Besides being dishonest and silly, critics of the Senate bill are unrealistic. Their attitude is that we can easily solve our problems with an enforcement-only approach. But closing our 2000-mile border with Mexico is virtually an impossibility. Fencing will cost billions; patrolling the fence more billions. Equally unrealistic is the idea that we can deport twelve million illegal workers without disrupting our economy and causing pain to the millions of Americans, some of them children, who depend on them. It’s time to wake up to reality. An unrealistic attitude towards complete border security will only lead to cost and pain. Silly fears about Spanish-speaking invaders must be banished. Have confidence that this wave of immigrants has the same goals as all the previous waves—one nation, indivisible. The Senate bill, a comprehensive approach, works on all elements of the immigration problem and can dry up further illegal immigration as it identifies and separates those who are here to work from real criminals and terrorists. Time will solve the other problems, as it has done in the past. James Hall, From the Left

Counterpoint: Immigration Civil War The battle of political wills has just started. The original rational legislation coming from the House of Representatives called for criminal enforcement for illegal intruders. The Senate bill would codify amnesty and grant pardons for law breakers. Hitherto, the stage for a monumental show down seems to be set. But don’t fall into the trap that your federal professional careerists will ever do anything other than serve their own political interests. The voice of assimilated ordinary citizens will be ignored, while the rants of crazed Reconquista revolutionaries and corporate internationalists will shape the lawmaking. Remember that making laws does not mean they have to be accepted, observed or even enforced. When the central government seeks to implement 14th amendment applications to non- citizens, the entire basis of legitimate government is tossed overboard. Let’s be clear and unambiguous. A country is only a nation when the inhabitants share a common bond of cultural aspirations and vision for a communal society. Without the genesis of voluntary acceptance, only lines of geographic boundaries shape distinctions for separate jurisdictions. Now the defenders of illegal immigration would have you cast off those barriers and bully you into accepting the inevitability of unlimited multiculturalism. It is amazing that bilingual subversion has become so cavalierly disregarded by so many Western European descendants. This isn’t a contest among civilized debaters. It is clash of incompatible ways of life. English is our language, and Spanish is a foreign tongue. Argument that America will be turned into a police state misses the point. It already is a gulag ruled over by bleeding heart turncoats that play into the hands of globalists while the essence of self-determination is systematically dismantled. The half-wits that worry about construction of a Berlin Wall flunk the test of history. Soviet goons built that fence to force and keep people IN, America needs a concerted policy to keep undesirable outsiders OUT. The price of cheap manual labor is enormous when calculated in terms of the loss of national identity. It isn’t xenophobic to separate ourselves from hordes of illicit trespassers. The threat is unquestionably real. The South West has been totally overrun and the same disorder has spread to every other corner of the country. The infection from diseased herds of wanna-be colonists has contaminated our political landscape. They do not deserve the same status as legitimate émigrés. The explosive nature of allowing committed Aztlan infiltrators to wage a consistent guerilla war to recapture what they never created is obscenely offensive. Sending illegals back across the border is sound and sane public policy. Such mass removal won’t be a Cherokee “Trail of Tears”, it would be prudent cultural self-survival. That goes to the meat of the buffalo. These ‘bandito bisons’ want to stampede over the plains and drive out the settlers. Only a blind buffoon would cheer the willing surrender of their communities and the recapture of the Alamo by the Fox’s that seek to achieve what Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna could not make permanent. Yes this is a real war. A fight more important then just to one’s death, it is a war to maintain a superior civilization. Internment for deportation is justified, necessary and a moral imperative. There is nothing Christian about betraying your own faith and giving up the keys to the door of your counties’ chapel. Provide all the charity your conscience demands as long as the aid is voluntary and goes to residences south of the border. A campaign for legitimate defense against the real threat to national security is in order. In all likelihood a true civil war is waxing and may well be necessary to survive as a meaningful nation. Secession has always been a valid option for self-sufficient and independent citizens, but conceding our culture and heritage to overt subversives as the cost for a compromised peace is intolerable. Sedition is the only response that comes out of the treasonous federal government establishment. Add to that band of traitors all those drum beaters that want you to do a Cathar chant as they push you to dance into the fire. These enablers of cultural disintegration would have you believe they are benevolent disciples of 'Mother' Jane's passionate revelations and that the endless encroachers of underprivileged are really incursive mystics just crying out in strange tongues. All they want to do is craft your Shaking Quakers furniture. They are a peaceful sect and won’t harm anyone! Such lunacy that comes out of the pulpits of Cardinal Roger Mahony is akin to cultural genocide. The heresy of multicultural pluralism has been a political tenant of faith for decades. In Previews of the New Papacy , Atila Sinke Guimarães and Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D. state: "The principles that are orienting the Papacy today seem to be frontally opposed to the principles that previously oriented the Papacy. This change has been qualified as a revolution. Such a revolution in the Papacy seems to exceed the limits of the authority of a Pope.” Its political future seems to coincide with the party hacks that foster the equalitarian election fraud. Immigrants do not have any right to be in or remain in this country. It is a privilege to be a resident, contrary to what utopians or purist Libertarians will tell you. Outsourcing, Nation Building and Open Borders are destroying America. But allowing universal entry from a MEChA scourge guarantees - república del plátano – a banana republic of rotten fruit. Surely, such law-breakings are not a mere misdemeanor. It is treason. James Hall aka SARTRE Final Word: Open Borders Madness Oh my heart is bleeding and feeling all your pain is just overwhelming! The nub of the immigration sell out is that the proponents of open borders WANT the real traditional America destroyed. Their global paradise of - interdependence - government socialism would force their collectivism upon the assaulted middle class. Their ultimate goal is to forge a two tier society, the hugely well off privileged and the underling handmaids that do all the grunt work. The notion that such progressive enlightenment is noble is revoltingly nauseous. Any real American would fight to preserve a society that grows a middle class of individual merchant enterprise that creates living wage jobs as the norm. Oh no, the broadminded of unlimited migration tolerance are the social engineers of big government to their rotten core. They would have you believe that only the absorption of the rainbow coalition would achieve amelioration for their co-dependent society. The only kind of assimilation that fits into their scheme of behavior speaks the language of government addiction based upon slave labor. For the "we are the world crowd", Marxist lunacy is valid public policy. This is not a debate between House and Senate legislation that will have a conciliatory settlement in conference. Oh no, this charade is all about the abdication of the federal legislature from their constitutional duty to protect the nation. If the systematic dismantling of national identity is not worthy of a common cause, then the vast majority that opposes open borders has truly lost all representation. The spineless leadership out of the Speaker Dennis Hastert , and the treachery of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, demonstrates that the common ordinary citizen has no voice in the central government. By removing felony liability as a legitimate penalty for illegal entry and unlawful residency the Congress has proved it is an appendage of corporate calculated dissimilation. Stopping illegal immigration is the water shed issue of national survival. If the federal government refuses to maintain a secure border, individual states must act. It should be self-evident that amnesty in whatever form or cloak it is dressed, is the ultimate result of refusing to initiate a comprehensive deportation policy that will remove unwelcome persons of suspect loyalties. Where is the justice for our own citizens to the self-determination of our own nation? President Bush has encouraged Fox to evacuate transmigrates through Mexico as a prelude to placing the entire Western Hemisphere under the economic slavery of transnational globalism. NAFTA and CAFTA are precursors for FTAA . Consider the social consequences that few are willing to admit? In the words of Samuel Fernandez , a Catholic priest, " Yes, they have raised their lives a bit economically, but it is a pity, the divided houses we have here. The people morally, psychologically, have many problems. The families lose control, they lose unity, they lose the sense of being families. Every year more people leave. Every year the towns are more and more alone." Entire villages have practically become ghost towns as their menfolk (and sometimes womenfolk) have headed north. The "safety valve" phenomenon skews economic development, even enticing middle class Mexicans and Mexicans who already have employment here in Mexico to go north "for a few dollars more". Already some sectors of the Mexican economy are complaining of labor shortages they blame, at least partially, on the northward exodus of workers. The migration "safety valve" is taken into consideration as part of economic planning and fosters a collective mentality of dependence, and attitude of "why resolve the problems here, if they can go work in the U.S.?" If the elite enjoin to destroy their own people, it is time for the people to remove those regimes from power. Mexico's problems need not destroy America. The dire effects of Bush clan commingling need not be the curse of national surrender. Who is unrealistic? The teachers of forced integration into a neo-progressive society, where the common law becomes foreign, because the population no longer has the tradition of our heritage, is not a pleasant future. Your choice - wage a civil war to restore our independence or become absorbed into a New World Order of universal servitude. Real Americans know how to answer this call for national preservation. James Hall - 'The Right'

