Despite the enormous and far-reaching negative impact that illegal immigration has on the United States each year (think unemployment, education, crime, poverty, health, the environment and homeland security) both George W. Bush and John Kerry vigorously dodged questions about the issue during the presidential campaign. Both candidates knew that a pro-immigration stance would entice Latino voters. And, in Bush’s case, it worked.
On January 7 of this year, Bush proposed a guest-worker program that would give illegal aliens already in the United States temporary—yet continually renewable—legal status. The President says his plan doesn’t amount to amnesty, but illegals know better.
In the first three months of 2004, 25 percent more illegals were apprehended on the southwestern border than were apprehended in the first three months of 2003. And in the presidential election, Bush garnered 44 percent of the Hispanic vote, compared to the 35 percent he got in 2000. Don’t think the potential for amnesty didn’t play a part. Just days after winning re-election, in a move likely to grease the skids for the next Republican candidate for President, President Bush is now attempting to revive the plan.
The currently volatile border situation has become even more volatile with a recent Time magazine report that claims al-Qaeda is interested in moving nuclear materials from Europe to the United States via Mexico. According to the story, Sharif al-Masri, a key al-Qaeda operative captured last August in Pakistan, says that al-Qaeda has considered smuggling nuclear materials to Mexico so operatives could then smuggle the materials into the U.S. Though al-Masri’s claims have yet to be proven, U.S. officials have already stepped up inspections of heavy truck traffic, and Mexican authorities are keeping their eyes on flight schools. Three men from southern Mexico recently assaulted a security guard and stole a crop duster just south of San Diego. The plane has yet to be discovered, and though the incident has yet to be linked to terrorism, crop dusters are perfect vehicles to douse large areas of land with toxic substances. Just like how commercial jets are perfect for crashing into tall buildings…
With our forces still knee-deep in Iraq and Osama bin Laden still at large, and heightened security at the nation’s airports, al-Qaeda may be using an alarmingly obvious back door to attack us. Just like traffickers use the border to bring Meth from Mexico to places like the Tennessee Valley, al-Qaeda could be using the same route to draft off of illegals and threaten our national security.
There are an estimated 15 million illegal aliens in the United States, with upwards of three million sneaking across the border each year. Of those 3 million, an estimated 190,000 illegals from countries other than Mexico snuck in between January and August of this year. It only took 15 terrorists to attack us on September 11th. Is it crazy to think there could be 15 more?
Bill, illegal immigrants are a necessary element in our economic system. Capitalism demands a rather large amount of cheap labor, with each sucessive generation that group of cheap labor has to be replaced. Because we're also a country that values and insists upon upward mobility, each generation of cheap labor, through education and other means, will move up the economic ladder, leaving a void that again, needs to be replaced.
Right now that group is the illegal immigrant group, I think it's both economically dangerous to turn them away and morally inconsistent in the sense that we push them away and don't allow for upward mobility.
By NOT having a large cheap labor group in our economic system it forces the huge rich-poor divide and removes the middle class.
Anyways, this is a huge discussion and it'd be better had in person, sinc eits dang complicated.
There's also the fact that our hispanic population is the future heart and soul of our country: hard workers, family focused, and the church plays a huge role in their culture. We WANT something like that to be a huge part of OUR culture. We shouldn't let the democrats/liberals be THEIR party, when they're actually much closer to the Republicans. Bush is making a very very smart move for a number of reasons.
Further, most meth labs are made by rednecks. Not illegal immigrants, that's just silly.
Posted by: JosiahQ at November 16, 2004 11:37 AMAnd dangit, its the AMERICAN DREAM man. Hispanics WANT to live in America, in a very real sense its the promised land: good work, good education, the opportunity for advancement. Remember the family in Spellbound? Why wouldn't we want people with the American Dream in mind coming to our country?
If anything, its a bigger drain on our economy because they AREN'T paying taxes! Make 'em citizens! Get them good wages where they pay taxes like you and me.
blaugh, must get back to work!
Posted by: JosiahQ at November 16, 2004 11:39 AMI would make the case that Bush's position on immigration, while politically savvy, was not a position taken solely because of its political effectivenss but also because of the pragmatism that comes from being governor of a state like Texas. He knows that if all of the illegal workers in this country up and disappeared, the agricultural economy would cease to function. We need the workers, and it's better to try to do an amnesty/guest worker program to give those people legal status rather than have them in a hazy limbo position where we don't know who they are and where (from a human rights perspective) they can be easily exploited.
Posted by: kathryn at November 17, 2004 02:57 AM