The immigration issue grows

Just ask Senator Clinton as she campaigns in Iowa: "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York was asked at nearly all her Iowa campaign stops over the weekend how she would deal with illegal aliens, and she responded with a call for "comprehensive immigration reform."
It's a question all the presidential candidates face in Iowa and elsewhere. The Republicans incorporate immigration reform into their stump speeches, while the Democrats rarely mention it unless they are asked. But they are almost always asked."

Leave it to Senator Clinton to try to demagogue the issue herself, even while she decries demagoguery: "Mrs. Clinton criticized "demagogues" who call for deportation of the nation's illegals. She said such an idea would be costly and unrealistic, and would amount to "basically knocking on every door" and creating "essentially a police state."

Of course, serious, responsible persons concerned about illegal immigration aren't calling for every single illegal to be "deported."

NY says no to DLs for IIs

Governor Spitzer drops his plan to make driver's licenses available for illegal immigrants--he says there was too much opposition to it.

In a larger context, what does this tell us? That among American voters, feelings on this issue run high. Idea for Republican candidates in 2008: you know where you and your party stand on this isssue. Don't be afraid about saying so. But have positive solutions.

AND--force the Democrats to say where THEY stand on this whole issue. What are their solutions? Might make them uncomfortable. See Hillary Clinton, October 30th.

Huck stuck on opponents of illegal immigration

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee engages in some mischaracterization:
“I do not believe in amnesty, I don’t believe in sanctuary cities, I believe [illegal aliens] who commit crimes ought to be deported, and I believe we ought to go after the employers,” Huckabee said.

(Well, that's good. So?)

“But do I have a seething anger toward immigrants?” he went on. “No. I definitely have anger toward the incompetence of our government; I am just livid over it. But immigrants just love our country like we do.”

Well, the vast majority of those concerned about illegal immigration aren't fired by a "seething anger" either, Mr. Huckabee. And it's unfair of you to portray us that way. It's what we call a "straw man" argument. Knock it off.

Illegal immigration dept

Bush administration Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff slams sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants. The Bush administration should have cracked down on this long ago.

Tough questions

An illegal immigrant to this country was taking refuge for over a year in a church. She'd had a son while in this country (he's now a U.S. citizen) and therefore she and her supporters claim it's wrong to deport her. But she's been arrested and deported.

Some claim deporting her is wrong and immoral. But the woman in question came here illegally, and had a job using a false Social Security number. Does having a child excuse law-breaking? Did not the illegal immigrant in question know what the law was before she came here, and before she got pregnant?

By the way, on the immigration issue...

...did you catch this? It appeared in a New York Times editorial on the proposed immigration bill (the one that went down to defeat in the senate not long ago). What caught my eye was wheen the Times' editors wrote this: "It is the nation’s duty to welcome immigrants, to treat them decently and give them the opportunity to assimilate."

Hmmm. Really? Even illegal immigrants? We have a "duty" to unquestioningly welcome all of them, too?
And is there no limit to this "duty" to welcome immigrants? Will our living space, our housing, our health and educational resources, be unlimited? I don't think so. But it's remarkable that the NY Times' editors (and others) think differently.

There's a prairie fire a' burnin...

...on the illegal immigration issue. Many people want action taken, to control our borders, to crack down. Both parties need to be aware of it; I'm not sure either fully is. So people are taking action locally. Here's the latest example:

Prince William County officials voted unanimously last night to move forward with one of the toughest immigration policies in the country. The eight-member Board of County Supervisors passed a resolution that requires police officers to ask about immigration status in all arrests if there is probable cause to believe that a suspect has violated federal immigration law. The resolution also requires county staff to verify a person's legal status before providing certain public services.

UPDATE: and this will only throw gasoline onto the fire---translating our electoral ballots into Chinese? And the Bush administration supports this kind of stuff? Fundamentally a bad idea.

Why we must secure our borders

This is scary--the original article came from reporter Todd Bensman of the San Antonio Express-News. His most crucial findings:

More than 5,700 illegal migrants from 43 Islamic countries, including State Sponsors of Terror, have been caught while traveling over the Canadian and Mexican borders along well-established underground smuggling routes since 9-11, a traffic that continues daily. People caught coming from these countries in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa are labeled by our federal law enforcement agencies as "Special Interest Aliens." ... I have estimated that between 20,000 and 60,000 have gotten through without getting caught since 9/11. Most are probably economic or politically persecuted migrants but all of those who evaded border patrol also did not undergo terror watch list screening and are walking around the country anonymous. This evasion constitutes the primary national security vulnerability of our unguarded borders.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media has met Mr. Bensman's findings with...silence.

Falsehood of the day, part 2

Roger Simon is an interesting, entertaining, and very cynical (not that there's anything so wrong with that, given today's politics) political writer; he's currently chief political columnist for The Politico. I enjoy reading him. But this particular column of his, on the illegal immigration issue, was all wet. He writes as if the only argument being made by those wishing to stop illegal immigration is that the illegals are terrorists.

I don't know of too many folks who emphasize that. Most worry about the burdens illegal immigrants place upon our health care system, and upon our schools; how it's possible that their presence drives down wages, that they're not assimilating or seeking to assimilate as have immigrantss in the past, that it's simply not fair to those seeking to enter this country LEGALLY to wink at those entering illegally, etc.

One of the problems with politics is that too many people argue against things that aren't being said. To be fair, that's nothing new...

Falsehood of the day, part I

One of the things we'll do here frequently is go back to things written or said a few days or weeks ago by prominent persons, and/or at least things that appeared in prominent places, and/or things written or said that SHOULD have gotten more attention that they did, but didn't...things you might have missed the first time.

Example 1 for today: a column written by the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson a few weeks ago, on the illegal immigration issue. Mr. Robinson writes of the roughly 12 million (I suspect there are more) illegal immigrants in this country: "...those 12 million or so people are already settled here, that for the most part they are doing jobs our society wants done, and that any serious attempt to drive them out of the country -- even "temporarily," so they could apply to be let back in -- would be indistinguishable from a pogrom....Would SWAT teams of immigration officers descend on neighborhoods and go door to door? Would they snatch children out of schools? Where would they take these people? To special camps? To the nearest border?"

A "pogrom"? Really?? And who's talking about SWAT teams going door to door?
I would suggest this: no serious person is talking about deporting 12 million people. Some howevere reasonably suggest that a more vigorous, constant, and public deportation of some of the illegal immigrants who can be caught just might deter more illegal immigrants from sneaking across the border. That's the real argument being made by reasonable folks; not Mr. Robinson's false, scary straw man.