cbr900racr

Interesting commentary from Ann Coulter. Many of you will discount her message simply because its from her, but it doesn't make her message any less relevant or true. I tend to side with her on the "common sense" aspect of her views on this particular topic. Enjoy:

On the bright side, if President Bush's amnesty proposal for illegal immigrants ends up hurting Republicans and we lose Congress this November, maybe the Democrats will impeach him and we'll get Cheney as president.

At least Bush has dropped his infernal references to slacker Americans when talking about illegal immigrants. In his speech Monday night, instead of 47 mentions of "jobs Americans won't do," Bush referred only once to "jobs Americans are not doing" — which I take it means other than border enforcement and intelligence-gathering at the CIA. For the record, I'll volunteer right now to clean other people's apartments if I don't have to pay taxes on what I earn.

Also, someone must have finally told Bush that the point about America being a "nation of immigrants" is moronic. All nations are "nations of immigrants" — as Peter Brimelow pointed out brilliantly in his 1992 article in National Review on immigration, which left nothing for anyone else to say (Time to Rethink Immigration? ).

Of the "nation of immigrants" locution, Brimelow says:

"No discussion of U.S. immigration policy gets far without someone making this helpful remark. As an immigrant myself, I always pause respectfully. You never know. Maybe this is what they're taught to chant in schools nowadays, a sort of multicultural Pledge of Allegiance. ... Do they really think other nations sprouted up out of the ground?"

Brimelow then ran through the Roman, Saxon, Viking, Norman-French, Welsh and Celtic immigrant influences in Britain alone.

Instead of a moratorium on new immigration, I'd settle for a moratorium on the use of the expression "We're a nation of immigrants." Throw in a ban on "Diversity is our strength" and you've got my vote for life.

Bush has also apparently learned that the word "amnesty" does not poll well. On Monday night, he angrily denounced the idea of amnesty just before proposing his own amnesty program. The difference between Bush's amnesty program and "amnesty" is: He'd give amnesty only to people who have been breaking our laws for many years — not just a few months. (It's the same program that allows Ted Kennedy to stay in the Senate.)

Bush calls this the "rational middle ground" because it recognizes the difference between "an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently and someone who has worked here for many years." Yes, the difference is: One of them has been breaking the law longer. If our criminal justice system used that logic, a single murder would get you the death penalty, while serial killers would get probation.

Bush claimed the only other alternative — I assume this is the "irrational extreme" — is "a program of mass deportation." Really? Is the only alternative to legalizing tax cheats "a program of mass arrest of tax cheats"?

This is the logic of the pro-abortion zealots (aka "the Democratic Party"): Either lift every single restriction on abortion or ... every woman in America will be impregnated by her father and die in a back-alley abortion!

Those are your only two answers? Do you need another minute?

How about the proposal made on Brimelow's Web site, Vdare.com, that illegal immigrants be told they have two months to leave the country voluntarily and not have their breaking of our immigration laws held against them when they apply for citizenship from their home countries — or not leave and be banned from U.S. citizenship forever?

Or how about just not giving illegal aliens green cards — as Bush is proposing — and deport them when we catch them?

Instead of choosing immigrants based on the longevity of their lawbreaking, another idea is to choose the immigrants we want, for example, those who speak English or have special skills. (And by "special skills" I don't mean giving birth to an anchor baby in a border-town emergency room.)

Why not use immigration the way sports teams use the draft — to upgrade our roster? We could take our pick of the world's engineers, doctors, scientists, uh ... smoking-hot Latin guys who stand around not wearing shirts between workouts. Or, you know, whatever ...

As Peter Brimelow says in his book Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster, why not choose immigrants who are better than us?

Bush thinks it's not fair to favor people with special skills — a policy evidenced by his Harriet Miers pick.

How about this: It's not fair to want to go out with someone just because that person is attractive and has a good personality because it discriminates against people who are ugly with bad social skills! That's our immigration policy.

Press "1" for English; press "2" for a new president ...

mr_alleycat

If nothing else, we know ole Dubya is quacking already

Gatorade Frost

I generally dislike Anne Coulter a lot for being overly zealous in her politics, but that's an opinion I've had for a while. I guess some people would cry foul that we're discrimintating, and I guess we are, but in this case it makes sense to me.

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Etarip

That's the most terrorifying thing I've heard all week

flstf

First things first. We have to secure the border so that the 15 million or so illegals we deport cannot come right back in. Maybe like the Brimelow proposal give illegals 2 months to leave or become felons, and felons are barred from citizenship forever.

I also think enforcing the $10,000 fine for each illegal a company hires and jail time for repeat and/or long time offenders will go a long way to stopping the violations.

I'm not sure what the heck is going on here and why our polititians won't enforce the law. Is it that the Republicans don't want to fine businesses that contribute to them and deprive them of cheap tax-free labor and the Democrats don't want to piss off multitudes of potential underclass voters?

Whatever is behind the perfect storm of President Bush and Senator Kennedy agreeing on the senate amnesty bill, I have a feeling that it is not good for the country.

loganmule

Personally, I find Ann Coulter somewhere between over the top and offensive most of the time, but this piece raises a number of good points, and has more than a pinch of humor added in.

Bottom line is that illegal immigrants are breaking the law, and for me anyway, any path to legality/immunity/amnesty needs to start with having them first stop breaking the law by going back to their country of origin and applying for legal entry into the U.S. As flstf points out, this needs to be done in conjunction with strengthening border security, granting a limited opportunity for illegals to go home, and severely punishing employers who are hiring illegals.

As for the politics being played out on the issue, better not to know, or we'd have to be killed.

Redlemon

She raises a good argument, then jumps to answering a completely different question. She is talking about "jobs Americans are not doing", and her proposal is to only allow highly-educated immigrants?

The illegal jobs market is extraordinarily significant to this issue, and needs to be addressed somehow. The strawberry crops will need to be picked somehow, and the owners of these farms are enjoying an illegal subsidy right now. Preventing migrant workers will mean a huge economic impact on the farming sector. I don't know the answer, and Ann doesn't either.

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stevo

The south was saying the same thing about cotton when slavery was abolished. Then someone invented one of these



I'll bet something interesting is invented to harvest strawberries if cheap illegal labor dries up. thats the way things go around here. something about necessity and the mother of inventions.

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JustJess

Okay, I can't believe this... but she's not entirely off base on this. There are a lot of good points. I bring this section up because: we ARE using immigration to bring in the brightest/most skilled/etc. She is clearly completely unknowledgeable about the green card process. Outstanding Researcher? 3 month processing. National Interest? Waiver of labor cert, come right in. Doctor? Lawyer? Indian Chief? Come on in and make yourself at home.

My issue is that our economy IS set up for the migrant worker, and not to handle paying people for real. Yes, penalize those employers. In the meantime, Sally Jo in Long Island is going to be pretty pissed off if her strawberries double in price, and she does not care who's picking them. We will manage, but it's foolish to think it will be a snap to change the system.

And dammit, I am a humanitarian. We can HELP people here, and we just want to tell them all to go away, and bury our heads!
Why not a migrant worker visa? A temporary, 6-month stay for the growing season.
Why not offer the in-country illegals an opportunity to apply like they wanted in the first place? Give them an actual chance! Offer clear and concise directions on how to apply, what is involved in the process, how much it will cost. Stop obsfucating the entire thing. It's not fair. Most Americans I know would not be able to handle this process, and we are already familiar with this country and its ways. We expect a newcomer to deal? HAH!

So let them apply, and if they do not within 2-3 months (or whatever deadline), THEN kick them out etc.

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Redlemon

I'm really interested to know how a migrant worker regulation would work. Obviously, they would be exempted from the minimum wage rules. How about OSHA? And what else?

And I totally agree with you that the migrant worker is built-into the current employment system. There's an occasional raid, but I think that's more for show than real enforcement or deterrence.

Yeah, I've been considering how much of a mental link there is between slave farming and migrant worker farming. From the standpoint of the farmer, there doesn't seem to be much difference.

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flstf

I don't have the numbers handy to back it up but I would bet that the majority of illegals in this country do not pick crops. The recent cases in the news around here have been in construction, manufacturing, restaurants, meat packing and domestic help.

My wife was joking the other day that the reason so many polititians and judges are against enforcing our immigration laws is because so many of them employ domestic help who are in our country illegally. They can treat them almost like slaves, not pay minimum wage or withold taxes and there is not much they can do about it. She was just joking but I wonder.

Charlatan

I am pretty sure that there already is a healthy migrant worker system in the US. I know we have one here in Canada.

We bus or fly migrants up from Central and South America to pick most of our cash crops (fruits, vegetables, tobacco, etc.) and then we ship them back after the harvest (pockets full of cash). From what I've seen it works well.

Based on a couple of documentaries I saw recently, it suggested that there was a similar set up in the US.

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abaya

Your wife may have been joking, but she knows her shit.

There's so much I could say on this topic, but I don't feel like getting started right now. I'll just say that I second JustJess on most of her points. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow with more fire... just too tired to argue with y'all tonight.

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Poppinjay

We should use immigration to upgrade our roster, as we did in the past. It's not really policy now. In fact, the validictorian of Princeton this year is an illegal from El Salvador. Nobody knew until he addressed his graduation class (which he did entirely in Latin). He grew moslty here, barely subsisting until he got a scholarship to a prep school.

He's been offered a spot at Oxford, and INS is saying that if he goes, he won't be able to come back. That's stupid.

The part where I differ is that unskilled migrant labor is also tremendously useful in states like Kansas where the population is about 20 ppl per square mile. The migrant worker program helps come harvest, but the documentation is slim to none and people just generally show up. Sometimes they stay. And it helps the economy of Kansas, and the workers who don't pay taxes.

I'm sure this idea would never fly, but what about allowing undocumented migrant labor in states like Kansas and Wyoming where the current supply of residents is low?

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