The Interocitor

2006 translation: Amnesty.

Posted by: clark smith at April 17, 2006 09:08 AM

"Give me your unskilled illegal aliens, yearning to undercut our job market while swamping our emergency rooms ... all for a cheap head of lettuce.
Send also those OTM'S: jihadists, sleeper-cell terrorists from far-flung al-Queda camps, come to reduce our cities to rubble.
I bid all these welcome to raven an unprotected American citizenry courtesy of obscenely lax border security and immigration policy."

Posted by: clark smith at April 17, 2006 09:48 AM

"Give me your unskilled illegal aliens, yearning to undercut our job market while swamping our emergency rooms ... all for a cheap head of lettuce.

Hmm... much what they said about the Irish in the 1880's. Exactly how many people who are doing well in their home countries do you think emigrate? Exactly how do you complain that people work their asses off for peanuts AND claim they're here to get welfare?

Send also those OTM'S: jihadists, sleeper-cell terrorists from far-flung al-Queda camps, come to reduce our cities to rubble.

Again what they said about the Catholic immigrants in the 1880's. Or the Chinese. And, frankly, we let Arabs in the front door in droves. Every single 9/11 hijacker came in legally. Why would they need to sneak in?

I bid all these welcome to raven an unprotected American citizenry courtesy of obscenely lax border security and immigration policy.

Until about 1920 there was no border policy to speak of. SO, nearly every current American citizen owes their citizenship to lax border policy. Why was it good for them and not now?

I guess you'd like those words erased from the Statue. We could call it the Statue of Legality....

Posted by: Kevin Murphy at April 17, 2006 10:28 PM

Hmm... much what they said about the Irish in the 1880's.

I'm trying to comprehend the apparent fact that you can discern no substantive differences between emigration of the 1880's and illegal immigration today.

Send also those OTM'S: jihadists, sleeper-cell terrorists from far-flung al-Queda camps, come to reduce our cities to rubble.

Again what they said about the Catholic immigrants in the 1880's. Or the Chinese.

One humongous difference--Catholics or Chinese never plowed loaded jumbo jets into skyscrapers; jihadists have.

Every single 9/11 hijacker came in legally. Why would they need to sneak in?

It's not as easy to get in by that means since 9/11 ('terror watch lists,' et al).

Why [were lax immigration policies] good for [circa 1920] and not now?

If you do not recognize the vast differences between 1920 and today as regarding the fiscal and security impacts of lax immigration policies, it's because you're not paying close attention to the news.

I would recommend scanning through this Google search query (cost+illegals), clicking on relevant links as you find them.

Posted by: clark smith at April 18, 2006 10:30 PM

In order:

In the 1870's and 1880's everyone who showed up and wasn't Chinese got in, barring an exception here or there. This went on well into the 20th Century. It stopped somewhere around the 1920's or so. Immigration was, in a word, "lax." There was a large minority opposed to all this (largely Catholic) immigration. Historians today attribute this to anti-Catholic religious bigotry and carry-over intra-European predjudice, especially against the Irish.

I'll grant your point after the next terrorist attack by a Mexican immigrant, which will be the first.

I could also google ' "flying saucers"+anti-gravity' and get 50,000 hits. Proves little. Frankly, the only people I see on their asses demanding government help are native-born Americans, white and black. Most illegals are too busy keeping their head down and working. Or do you consider "school" to be welfare?

But my real problem with all these arguments is that most of the people making them are just making them. The real problem is that "there are too many damn Mexicans" and they want it to stop.

There are literally hundreds of ways to solve the sovereignty and welfare issues and either to limit immigration to enforcable (i.e. larger) numbers, or to get something for it (e.g. discount oil, removal of barriers to American investment and ownership in Mexico, etc), or otherwise approach this from a rational point of view, yet it isn't happening because NONE OF THIS is the real issue. The issue is that people don't like change, and particularly don't want an "alien culture" settling in around them. Which brings us back to the Catholics entering the Eastern US in the 1880's. Deja vu all over again.

Posted by: Kevin Murphy at April 18, 2006 11:19 PM

In the 1870's and 1880's everyone who showed up and wasn't Chinese got in, barring an exception here or there.

You're still unable to recognize differences between the 1800's and today. Until--or unless--you are able to do so, this conversation won't get anywhere.

I'll grant your point after the next terrorist attack by a Mexican immigrant, which will be the first.

You seem here to be confusing two separate lines of argument I've been making about immigration issues as they stand today.

I could also google ' "flying saucers"+anti-gravity' and get 50,000 hits. Proves little.

I present a serious argument (i.e.; illegal immigration is posing crushing impacts to the economy) and you liken it to a bogus one like "flying saucers." That's comparing apples to oranges, which is kind of like comparing issues we faced in the 1800's to those we face today.

I'll give this one more try.

From The Center for Immigration Studies:

WASHINGTON (August 25, 2004) — A new study from the Center for Immigration Studies is one of the first to estimate the impact of illegal immigration on the federal budget. Based on Census Bureau data, the study estimates that households headed by illegal aliens used $10 billion more in government services than they paid in taxes in 2002. These figures are only for the federal government; costs at the state and local level are also likely to be significant. The study also finds that if illegals were given amnesty, the fiscal deficit at the federal level would grow to nearly $29 billion.

Among the findings:

Illegal alien households are estimated to use $2,700 a year more in services than they pay in taxes, creating a total fiscal burden of nearly $10.4 billion on the federal budget in 2002.

Among the largest federal costs: 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).

If illegal aliens were legalized and began to pay taxes and use services like legal immigrants with the same education levels, the estimated annual fiscal deficit at the federal level would increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total federal deficit of $29 billion.

With nearly two-third of illegals lacking a high school diploma, the primary reason they create a fiscal deficit is their low education levels and resulting low incomes and tax payments — not their legal status or their unwillingness to work.

Amnesty increases costs because illegals would still be largely unskilled, and thus their tax payments would continue to be very modest, but once legalized they would be able to access many more government services.

The fact that legal immigrants with little schooling are a fiscal drain on federal coffers does not mean that legal immigrants overall are a drain. Many legal immigrants are highly skilled.

Because many of the costs are due to their U.S.-born children, who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth, barring illegals themselves from federal programs will not significantly reduce costs.

Although they create a net drain on the federal government, the average illegal household pays more than $4,200 a year in federal taxes, for a total of nearly $16 billion.

However, they impose annual costs of more than $26.3 billion, or about $6,950 per illegal household.

About 43 percent, or $7 billion, of the federal taxes illegals pay go to Social Security and Medicare.

Employers do not see the costs associated with less-educated immigrant workers because the costs are spread out among all taxpayers.

[...]

Such findings cannot be easily dismissed.

The real problem is that "there are too many damn Mexicans" and they want it to stop.

That's a strawman which asserts that all concerns regarding illegal immigration spring ultimately from racial bigotry. As the article I cited above proves, there are valid and compelling reasons to vigorously oppose illegal immigration whose motives do not stem from--indeed have nothing to do with--race.

Posted by: clark smith at April 19, 2006 08:09 AM

And you refuse to recognize repeating history when it jumps up and bites you, so yes, this is just contradiction. You want immigration to stop and think your reasons are novel. They aren't.

Posted by: Kevin Murphy at April 19, 2006 08:57 AM

$10 billion????

Well, that's the rounded-up, gasping stretching value that they come up with, counting treating communicable disease and accidents, and schools (which you indded do consider welfare). And it's still a pittance in the federal budget.

The arguments I hear are all strawmen themselves, and all cover the real reasons which aren't very pretty. Why is it that this tiny fraction of government spending bothers you so? It's like getting upset at the Forest Service budget.

Posted by: Kevin Murphy at April 19, 2006 09:10 AM