
This is an exchange from a reader on immigration. I hope you find it interesting and informative.
__________
D
wrote:
this pretty captures my sentiments except I'd totally close our southern border while we have a civil and humane debate about the fate of 12 million human beings who did break a law, but are not going home.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401302.html
My Response:
Yes,
Sending
them all back would not be humane nor would it be logistically
possible. But I think that every illegal immigrant that wants to
remain should register, pay taxes and submit to an investigation (to
check on criminal convictions, gang membership, drug organizations
membership/affiliations, Hit and run incidents {which are epidemic
with illegals1}).
After this, they in most instances should be presented with the
possibility of staying. Yet, having this many illegals
is not fair to American workers who have had their jobs stolen from
them. Every (not most) but every Job an illegal
does takes away from an American and more often than not it is other
ethnic groups that suffer for it and it shows in certain racial
groups unemployment rates which are significantly higher than whites.
I often hear apologists for the CFR say., “well, there just doing jobs that Americans don't want to do.' That is only a half truth. Americans are not going to do many of these jobs for wages that are minimum wage or lower (as many are). They should not have to. But because there is a huge labor pool of people who will work for $10 a day, with no benefits and will not complain when they are worked 15 hours a day with no compensation, they are very a attractive labor force to unscrupulous business people. No, our politicians are reading prepared statements from think tanks that are funded by folks who want to drive every Americans wage down to the poverty level, strip them of health care benefits, rape their retirement funds, shift social security to defense contractors and use 'eminent domain' to build chemical plants where poor people live.
You
state that 'they are not going home'. That is what our Congress is to
decide, not the illegal immigrants. Let is not forget that
'relocation camps' have already been
built for this very purpose. They are sitting empty at
this very moment waiting for occupants. The more boisterous and
violent of this criminal element may talk a good game now but when
they are forced to leave their jobs because their employers face
tough restrictions, they will sing a very different tune, and do it
very, very quietly. Those who say the are not going back should be
the very first to go, as they are law breakers and are inciting
others to break the law. We want law abiding citizens, not a group of
criminals and violent thugs. Citizenship is granted by the state, it
is not to be stolen by anyone.
If they are hard working good
citizens there should be a path to citizenship. Not a guarantee, but
the real possibility of it. Ship the rest back, without ceremony,
without bureaucratic impediments and most of all... without
delay.
This has been an invasion planned by corporate
America to drive down wages take away benefits and integrate our
continent into one giant economic region very much like the EU. I
have posted numerous links showing clearly from their own policy
papers that this is their goal. They want to do it surreptitiously
and not have the people vote on it, all the while touting our systems
democratic foundations. This is one issue that has had such a wide
effect on everyday Americans as well as our health care system, state
and local budgets that this is the unfortunate (in their minds)
backlash.
Our leaders are not going to be honest about
their plans. They were not honest about Iraq
and our invasion of it.
They simply cannot articulate what they really want to do, because if
they did their would be a groundswell of opposition. But if Americans
are too stupid to see it, the people in Central and South America are
fully aware and are putting in leaders that are putting the brakes on
it and in some cases rolling it back. They do not want to be
exploited by mega-corporations. Americans have yet to figure out that
these entities are not the friends of America, its workers or its
citizens.
The bottom line is this is about economics. It is
not Mexican against American. It is the mega global corporations that
want to drive down wages, destroy benefits, take land from the poor
and 'develop it' for THEIR interests, in the entire hemisphere. They
are succeeding here in the US because people are still stuck in one
of the two wings of the business (NAFTA) party, the Dems and the GOP,
of which the Washington Post and NYT are chief spokesmen for their
interests. They have both (GOP-Dems) worked tirelessly for these
trade agreements because it is the very same corporations that fund
their campaigns. They are just using the same old tricks to get
people to go along with their agenda. Using terms like 'humane',
'xenophobia', 'fortress America' 'racism', they use these propaganda
terms and 'tried and true' models to accomplish their agenda.
If
you think I'm off... then consider this. The link you sent me was by
William Samuelson. He writes for a magazine called Foreign Affairs.
This is the official publication for the Council on Foreign
Relations. (See this link
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20010101fareviewessay2001010112/robert-j-samuelson/the-spirit-of-capitalism.html
).
The CFR was
the main driver for NAFTA and is the man driver for
CAFTA.
http://www.cfr.org/region/262/nafta.html
Codi
is a member of the CFR as was
Powell.
You do not get to be Secretary of State, Defense,
National Security Adviser or Treasury Secretary without bowing
before Mammon and Mammon in America is spelled Council On
Foreign Relations.
For further reading.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/faux
http://www.citizen.org/trade/cafta/
This
is a global problem and immigration is just one small piece of the
puzzle. Be humane yes, America has always stood for that. But let us
not be fools.
A fool and his wealth are soon parted.. and
probably should have never gotten together in the first place and
America is turning into a nation of fools. But we can do better, I
know we can.
If we use our heads, we as a people may get a
chance to eat and heat our homes in the 21st century. We are not
using our heads so I see a whole lot of hungry and cold Americans in
the years ahead.
Mark S. Watson
1Whole insurance categories have been set up for drivers to protect themselves from 'uninsured motorists' which in my old state of California usually meant a person who could not obtain a drivers license, which was a euphemism for illegal immigrant.