Fitz!

When many of those millions are coming in via air, just how does the proposal to build a wall on the southern border even begin to address the issue?

As the grandchild of immigrants from Germany [grandpa was a draft dodger waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back….] I can sympathize with the yearning for opportunity. But this issue isn’t an island…economic policy, education policy, all tie together with immigration policy. Takes an administration willing and able to do the Hard Work of Intelligent Design of policy, methinks!

there is also the News of the Peruvian National Election

Re: immigration…

I just cannot believe all the scared, defensive horseshit about this issue. I think anyone who can get here should be allowed to stay, PERIOD. Have always hated borders, which BTW are not visible from space, duh.

Goddamned scaredy-cat cretins, raising yet another stink about nothing. WE NEED IMMIGRANTS!!! Besides, opening our borders might make it easier for others to reciprocate. How I would love to be able to run away to Canada or South America at a moment’s notice. The way this administration is behaving, pretty soon Americans will be barred from entering other countries. Just wait till we nuke Iran. No more vacations in Europe, by God. But then, no one will be able to afford to drive to the airport, much less actually go anywhere on a plane.

Watched some “real Amerkuns” burn a Mexican flag on CNN just now (does the irony of their shouting “burn, baby burn” even make a dent in what passes for consciousness with these folks?).

Guess it’s finally time to hang the “Never Mind” sign around Liberty’s neck.
Sigh….It all just makes me want to lie down.

Previous thread:

al-Qaeda brand terrorism. Ask for it by name!

~

Interesting Tom Toles cartoon cartoon on this issue

Has that Haliburton subsidiary, KBR, started building the detention facilities it won a contract for, from the DOD. I remember hearing that mentioned here some time ago. sorry, no link.

the state named “Indiana” has no Federally-recognized tribes or reservations. As a Hoosier descended from many generations of Hoosiers, I find it ironical that most “illegal aliens” are actually Indians that nowadays speak Spanish. Most Latinos are predominantly racially Indians or “Native-Americans” — so Bienvenidos Amigos Indios!

Hey Jennie– not to worry Doktor Frist has introduced anti flag desecration legislation. (supported by Hillary). Oh yeah, that is for OUR flag, never mind.

timmer, there’s this

http://robwire.com/?q=node/894

The question the remains unasked is – why is it illegal for certain people to enter the U.S? The job market clearly has the capacity to handle them, for the most part they are far more productive than they drain our resources — what’s the problem?

Well, it’s just plain on xenophobia folks, but even worse – it actually is racist.

Yes, yes, I know people consider that a “knee-jerk” position, but the facts are hte facts. The U.S. State Dept sets quotas for the number of Visa granted each month based on the nation of original for any potential immigrant. South America was granted only 975 Visa for April, while Europe was granted over 10,000.

The 14th Amendment is supposed to grant all persons the equal protection of the laws, regardless of where they come from. In the famouse Bakke case, the Supreme Court found that quota systems in regards to college admissions were Unconstitutional. Further the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of national origin – yet these quotas persist.

Just look for yourself.

Before we argue that “all these illegals” are breaking the law, or whether or not they should or shouldn’t be granted “amnesty” — maybe we need to confirm that the law were trying to enforce is itself constitutional in the first place.

Vyan

One recurrent charge is that illegals irritatingly suck up all these taxpayer-provided benefits, that they are a net drain on the public till.

Probably impossible to get solid objective economic stats on that, but even if you could you’d certainly have to compare it to the relative drain caused by actual citizens, i.e., what % of the citizenry are “net producers” vs net public resource consumers?

Bet it’d be similar in the aggregate.

in 1851 Indiana devised a new state Constitution and printed up 50,000 copies for mass public distribution. At the time, the State had many of those slow-headed German immigrants, hard-working and clean but they loved their beer too much. Those Krauts were also too pigheaded to learn English so the State also printed up 5000 copies of the new Constitution in German too. Why couldn’t Hans learn English like real Americans?
That was back in 1851…

Behold the perfect wedge issue to split the corporatist and rank and file Republicans apart. The Dems need to hammer the point home that the Right has consciously built an economy dependent on cheap labor. Hell, they don’t even want to pay citizens the paltry minimum wage that hasn’t seen an increase in years. A handy solution is allowing a huge, albeit illegal, workforce to take over. There’s the added advantage of getting to take a pass on any kind of enforcement of worker’s rights, health care, etc.

The “700 Mile Wall Club” needs to understand that they have contributed in a large part to this influx by putting (and keeping) this plutocracy in place by voting Republican.

Totally OT, but the The Fifty-Eighth Annual Conference on World Affairs at CU Boulder starts today, and runs thru friday.

http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/information.html

The University of Colorado’s Conference on World Affairs was founded in 1948, originally as a forum on international affairs. CWA expanded rapidly to become a forum on Everything Conceivable—encompassing music, literature, environmental activism, science, journalism, visual arts, diplomacy, technology, spirituality, the film industry, politics, business, medicine, human rights and so on. …

Schedule

http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/sc…..?year=2006

Monday Schedule

http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/se…..;year=2006

Highlights –

1103 It’s Okay, I Wasn’t Using My Civil Liberties Anyway

9:00-10:30 on Monday April 10, 2006
Old Main Chapel
Panelists:
o Chip Berlet
o Caroline Daniel
o Dave Grusin

o Moderator: Gordon Gamm

=====

1501 Newspapers Are SO Last Century

1:00-2:30 on Monday April 10, 2006
UMC 235
Panelists:
o David Bernknopf
o Simon Hoggart

o Moderator: Paul Voakes

=====

The CWA is like a pre-blog YearlyKos, that’s always worth a visit if you are in Colorado.

=====

Christy, no doubt undocumented workers is a huge mess. My own position has gradually changed over the years. Now it has reached critical mass and I can see a camel coming. Especially interesting in one proposal is the “how wet are you” provision. Nevertheless, something needs to be done. I’ve written several posts on the subjuect over at my blog, in case anyones interested.

here’s the link on KBR:

(maybe “influx” is code for the opposite. a forced diaspora.)

http://news.pacificnews.org/ne…..3f4c9b3a77

Clearly, Rove has focus-grouped this new immigration issue for the 2006 election, since Terra, Gay Marriage, and Mushroom Clouds aren’t getting the base riled up like they used to.

But by attacking families, and threatening to wrest children and parents apart, they may have started a national conversation that will blowback on them.

Describing the ‘family values’ party as homewreckers and heartless orphan makers will do more damage to them than any amount of screaming about Aliens and Lawn Order.

Why are Republicans so concerned about Lawn Order, anyway? Don’t they know you just hire some Mexicans for that?

“It’s a tough call…”

Excuse the hell out of me, but what’s a “tough call?”

The Sensenbrenner Brown Person and Immigrant Criminalization and Deportation Bill is NOT a “tough call” at all. It is a piece of right wing red meat, and that’s all it is, and it should be dismissed out of hand by any American with a brain.

The people marching in the streets are not doing so because there is some high minded lawmaking going on, some third way triangulation to “solve the problem.” They are marching in the streets (and by the way getting a hell of a lot more coverage for it than the anti-war protestors who filled the streets repeatedly and are still dismissed as “nobody” [as in, “Nobody thought Saddam didn’t have WMD”]) because the Sensenbrenner bill is overtly and disgracefully racist and contemptuous of ferriners.

It’s that simple.

It’s not a “tough call” at all.

Antifa # 18:

“Lawn Order.” LOL! Brilliant!

Sorry, got EPU’d, repost.

In the comments thread of the link to Jane’s Hiatt post at HuffPo, I found this comment by: DonB on April 10, 2006 at 02:07am.

It is directed to Jane, so I reproduce it here. Anybody know about this, that WaPo is at the governement tit with “No Child Left Behind?â€

Jane, I think you missed an opportunity here to tie all this to the incestious business relationship between the Washington Post and the Bush regime. Washington Post is receiving millions in govt contracts from the Bush administration under the no child left behind program. It is all about money. It is always about money. Washington Post carries water for Bush and Bush lines the pockets of the Washinton Post compnany with money. Add to that all the regulatory favors they are getting from the Bush regime and you have a clear cut case of quid pro quo.

Che Pasa — the Sensenbrenner bill is crap. Thought I made that clear — but there is a tough call in terms of the balancing of security considerations versus family/personal security considerations. That is the difficult call — and one that needs to be made carefully, and with all of the gray areas considered, not just whitewashed over to inflame whomever’s base is out there to be riled up for the 2006 elections (which is what I think Sensenbrenner is doing, fyi). Is that clear enough?

On immigration.
Is this a progressive or a wingnut site? Please let me know asap. Your piece on immigration sounds wing nut to me. This country would go to hell without these so called “illegals”. We need to get rid of Nafta which dumped cheap agri goods on mexico and forced millions to come here for work. We need to have OPEN, Open borders. People want to stay alive – so they need work. What is your right wing nut problem here?

NPR Update — Bush admits authorizing declassification, but doesn’t mention the super duper pre-declassification for Libby’s leak.

hmmm . . .

=====

American Progress published a study about the cost of deporting all the undocumented folks. The study can be found here (pdf)

http://www.americanprogress.or…..MENTED.PDF

They say themselves that their estimates are probably low, and that it’s really hard to get a handle on the issues. They do not address the ramifications removing all of these workers would have on our economy. Their bottom line is that attempting this removal would be fiscally unrealistic.

First let me say that Lizzy on the last thread linked to a great blog, the sentiments of which i really like:
“If there must be trouble – let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”

Second, as a lot of us saw on Driftglass, there was a brilliant post about immigration, more specifically, our addiction to cheap black/brown labor from very early on. Named ‘Life Free or Buy.’

When RNC chairmen and others try to point to democrats as “a party without ideas” in counterpoint to Republicans, I want everybody to point at great ideas like taking our resources to deport 11 million people and ask if this what they mean when they cite a “party of ideas.”

Battling the Jesus freaks . . . with science!
Bill Nye, the harmless children’s edu-tainer known as “The Science Guy,” managed to offend a select group of idiot adults in Waco when he suggested that the moon does not emit light.
snip
But nothing got people as riled as when he brought up Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”

The lesser light, he pointed out, is not a light at all, but only a reflector.

At this point, several people in the audience stormed out in fury. One woman yelled “We believe in God!” and left with three children, thus assuring that people across America would read about the incident and conclude that Waco is as nutty as they’d always suspected.
http://www.sploid.com/news/200…..the_je.php

oops

I sometimes wonder why Free Trade empowers capital and production to move freely across borders — but not labor. Opening the borders to labor certainly would put NAFTA and our glorious Global Economy in a new light.

damn, i can’t do links anymore!

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/

had to go over and cut and paste

I’m on my way downtown to the immigration rally, after a bit of lunch.

I’ve thought a lot about how I might write it up. It is, on some level, complex, as you point out, Christy. But to me, on another level, it’s not complex at all. You hit upon it, Christy: these people are turning out to protect their families, and they are very American, be they citizens or no. More on that later.

Sorry to post so much, but it occured to me that this might be the media giving us our “QUICK, look over THERE!” moment (you know, the one that is usually precipitated by going up one color in the threat rainbow).

When it suits their purposes, MSM can and does ignore/downplay masses of people in all forms. After last weeks revelations, George et al are standing hatless in the path of a huge shitstorm.

I’m not saying that immigration reform is not a complex, critical issue. But it’s one that soooo much easier for bubba (and before you paint me elitist scum, know that I live in the buckle of the bible belt) to wrap his brain around than Iran/Plame/Ethics. Bubba can see this one in black and white, or in this case, brown and white.

An effective feudal regime is founded on an absence of a middle class and a large and vulnerable under class. The wilful neglect of border security and the ensuing flood of people desperate to improve their standard of living achieve these critical aspects effectively.
Not to be overly paranoid (hah, that even makes me laugh), but beware of potentially unfolding chaos and logistical security concerns resulting from political action that will necessitate the construction and staffing of large detention centers. This is will be a potential ‘canary in the coal mine’ indicator of a covertly unfolding but defacto police state.
It is at least a potent wedge issue (do the Republicans deal with any other type of issue?) at worst; it could lead to some very bad things.
Then again, I’m probably just being paranoid.

~

not everything is about national security – and i think that (just as with the nsa wiretapping) the words “national security” are being used here to make it hard for us to think clearly.

the best analysis i’ve seen on the topic of immigration is from david sirota. if we’re really worried about immigration – then we ought to take a look at our trade policies.

the problem is that these policies have been supported by (most but not all) policial leaders in BOTH parties.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…..I4KL61.DTL

http://www.workingforchange.co…..3F75FE488D

http://www.davidsirota.com/200…..ously.html

Oh, and dag — I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you or any other regular reader that I, as a former prosecutor, would look at the security concerns as something that ought to be considered. Esepcially in light of how much the rest of the world hate our guts with GWB in the power chair. If you don’t think that needs to be part of the equation in terms of what we talk about with a borders question, then you aren’t using your brain. You can’t discuss all sides of the issues without resorting to vilifying someone who thinks differently than you do? Then that’s your freaking problem. Having had to deal first hand with the INS issues that come up when you pick up an illegal who gets popped for a crime and then seeing how the INS folks want nothing to do with the process — you can see how I might have some insights on security issues with our borders — and that doesn’t even touch on how easy it would be for potential terrorist cell members to slip across — more likely the Canadian border than that southern one. You want to talk facts instead of invective — fine. You want to throw out “wingnut” snottiness at me because we disagree about policy — then screw you.

Hey, last nights Late-Nite thread is overrun with creepy weirdos spewing “Islam=Evil” garbage. Pachacutec is holding the fort, but maybe in need of support.

Froomkin’s having an on-line chat right now.

Cheney’s Pitch: I am a very strong believer in not booing at the ballpark, but I will be there tomorrow and am afraid I will not be able to control myself from booing at Cheney.

Anyway, I know this isn’t really your beat, but do you think we should expect the security lines to be as outrageous as they were last year with Bush there?

Dan Froomkin: Wow, even the non-booers plan to boo? It could get ugly.

I have no idea about the security lines — I sure hope they learned from last year.

I had a chance to catch up on the immigration bill controversy the last few days. I read the transcripts of the talking heads show. Regardless of one’s feeling about the seriousness of the immigration problem, the House bill is garbage. And I cannot believe that Democratic consultants would be afraid of it. To the extent that they are, they are fools.
The House bill makes not one lick of sense. And its proponents cannot string two coherent sentences together to defend it. So you hear them saying that action needs to be taken to expel the undocumenteds, and they deliver a diatribe on importance of sending messages and really doing something about it. But when challenged on the money cost, and economic, social and personal dislocation, they say that they don’t really intend to actually remove them. So then the issue of the draconian criminalization of undocumenteds, and of citizens giving them humanitarian aid comes up, they say they don’t really mean that either. They say that if it had no been for Democrats blocking amendments, the criminal sanctions would have bee reduced to misdemeanors from felonies. So they are really not so serious about it. But then they immediately go on to rail about how serious the problem is and something needs to be done.
The height of grotesque hilarity came in the Face the Nation. Rep Becerra had explained how what the Senate had proposed was not an amnesty. Then Tancredo said he wasn’t going to let Becerra “get away†with that. And Tancredo went on to say that what Becerra said was misleading because Becerra was using the ordinary “dictionary or textbook definition of amnesty†rather than the special House GOP definition of the word that made what the Senate wanted to do very perfidious immoral and nasty indeed.
I haven’t found a discussion of how effective this fence would be. To effective at all, I think it have to be a mammoth thing similar to the Israeli wall. How much that would cost to build and maintain over 700 miles, some of which is wilderness, I cannot imagine. If anyone has a link or reference, please let me know.
You don’t have to be a wonk to understand the incoherence immdiately. You just need to speak English and be able to think straight.
And a majority of the US in polls is against the House GOP bill (TPM Café quotes a poll saying 75% believe undocumenteds should have avenue to citizenship). Even Bush is against the House GOP bill!
I cannot cannot absolutely cannot believe any Democrat, no matter how centrist would be afraid of this issue. Any who are suffer from a serious mental disorder which is causing delusional thoughts of some kind, and they need treatment.

Jane & Redd: There is an anti-terror website, http://www.werenotafraid.com
that has a tremendous number of great pics from all over the world. In each one, people hold signs saying We’re not Afraid. It is a riot. Check it out.

I’m deeply troubled by the prospect of my neighbors being turned into felons by intemperate immigration reform.

I live in Northern California in a town that is at least 70% hispanic. Many of these folks are surely illegal. Many of them own homes, businesses, and are in every way the kind of neighbors we all want to have.

Similarly, the businessmen and women who employ many of these folks, make real contributions to the good of the country, our community and their employers.

Forget the fact that I’ll suddenly be paying much more for lettuce, cabbage, carrots, artichokes, apples, wine, etc, etc, etc. Worse, much worse, I’ll be forced to witness my neighbors hunted down like dogs, arrested, and–some of them–deported. Will I watch as doors are kicked down? Children terrified? Lives destroyed?

And what about my own life? I’m a brown skinned person. How many times will I be stopped and my identity papers inspected?

What about you? To avoid charges of racism, police tasked to uphold the new laws will have to stop and question white people as often as brown people. Are you ready for carrying identification papers and being forced to stop to identify yourself at the will of a police force?

Mabye this is what draconian immigration reform is all about–another tool for the Bushies and crazy conservatives to use to control the population.

I employ between 6 and 8 people depending on the season. A couple of them are, um, undocumented. One is an degreed accountant who worked for four firms in Mexico City before moving here to work as a laborer to escape the city and to make more money. The other is one of the hardest working and smartest young man I’ve ever employed. I pay them the same I pay my other documented and citizen employees–enough to make sure they stay for years. I don’t offer health insurance–I’d like to and intend to, but damned it’s expensive. I’ve got both undocumented guys on a program to become fluent in English. I am willing to do whatever I can to make them legal and get them on the path to citizenship. My aim is to get the accountant working for himself as a bilingual tax and business accountant serving the Spanish-speaking community. The other young man will make a solid small business manager or owner. They are kind, smart, hard-working individuals and they are exactly who we want to live and work in our community.
—-
Another issue coming down the pipe is that the protest organizers in SoCal have called for a general strike on May 1. Of course I want to support this, but damn, I’ve got product to deliver. I’m working with my employees to find a solution. As the man said, “it’s hard work!”

First, the word is undocumented, not illegal.

Second, if you have no borders, you have no country.

The game is rigged because the Republican paymasters are narcotically hooked to having a frightened and powerless workforce. No workers comp because they’ll just limp a little. Stuff like that. Try to see the big picture and realize giving legal status, debating a realistic immigration number, and enforced whithering fines for exploiters and violators would be a boon for middle class America.

BobbyG 13–there are plenty of studies (which i don’t have links to on hand) which show that immigrants are nearly always net producers. The reason is easily understood: because they are nearly always schooled for 12 or more years on another nations’ tax base. The studies I recall are of legal immigrants. But the same dynamic (possibly at lower magnitude) will be there for illegals.

A comment about the House bill. It makes you a felon for going out of status pretty much no matter what. The late unlamented INS (now BCIS) is notoriously terrible at keeping track of its own paperwork. (And yes, in the 21st century, it’s still entirely paper driven.) As I read the bill, if the INS loses your paperwork, or checks the wrong box, or simply screws up–if you go out of status because of that, you’re a felon. Every person I know–myself included–who has ever dealt with INS has watched important forms go AWOL or worse. Go out of status because of such a screwup, and you’d be liable for hard time.

(BTW I always thought they changed the name to BCIS precisely as a marketing move–INS was a damaged brand. Like most marketing moves, the name change had no basis in substance.)

I think this is no small part of the energy behind the protests. Legal immigrants understand that the near 100% likelihood of INS incompetence in their cases, coupled with the bill, will eventually make all immigrants felons.

(And we all know this Administration would never, ever underfund an agency to such a degree that it deemed “paperwork” to be a “burden” it couldn’t meet. Except of course in the trivial instance of tracking terrorists through FISA applications…)

Off Topic, but on calls to Representatives and AT&T on spying.

Well I called two State Representatives this morning, one mine and the only other Democratic one listed in the phone book. I also called one of my Senators offices, the Democratic one and my long distance carrier AT&T who is also my ISP provider.

The poor girl at AT&T said she wasn’t aware of any wiretaps of American Citizens inside of America. I informed her about the news article telling how the NSA has a office setup inside AT&T in LA illegally spying on Americans. I said I wanted them to stop spying on me without a court order and that I was disgusted by their complicity in violating my Constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendant and the rights of all Americans under the Constitution against unlawful wiretaps without a court order by this insane madman running our country. I told her that this is America not Nazi Germany and it was illegal and AT&T should stop complying with this illegal activity ordered by the Dictator running our country. I also said that I hope there would be a class action suit brought against AT&T and that if AT&T didn’t stop there illegal actions that the american people would shut them down by not buying or supporting there products and what they were doing was Unamerican.

Then I called my State Representative who was not in the office and left a voice mail. I told her that I had voted for her in the last election, but since she switched parties to the party of Death, Corruption, Fascism and now Treason she could no longer expect my support. I further told her to remove my name from all her mailing lists and that I would work against her and do what I could to see she is not relected.

I then called the only other State Democratic Representative listed in my phone book. His secretary answerd the phone and ask for my zip code after I had introduced myself. She said that they weren’t my representative and I informed her that I had already called mine and left a voice mail. However, since he was the only other Democrat shown for my state in the phone book I wanted to state my concerns over the Dictator Bush wanting to start World War lll by dropping Nukes on Iran.

She told me that the representative was in the Legislature and she would email him my concerns and get back too me. She ask for my phone number which I gave her. I told her I was concernd that the Democratic Party was not doing enough to stop this madman from destroying our country and that they needed to standup and fight even if they lose. I brought up the NSA spying, the leaking of our covert agent and loss of her company Brewster and Jennings Associates which was tracking WMD’s and Nuclear Weapons and the plans to Nuke Iran which could lead to a Nuclear War which could destroy our country. Even though I wasn’t in his district she was very polite and said that she would pass this along to him. This is the kind of representation America needs. I look forward too hearing back him and will pass it along as soon as I recieve it.

I then called my Senators Office. He also was not in but his secretary was. It took me several minutes to get through as the line was busy. I gave her my name and zip code and wanted to know what the Senator was going to do to stop Bush from starting World War lll by Nuking Iran which would lead to the destruction of America. She said the Senator didn’t have a responce at this time. I informed her that I was extremely upset that the Democratic Party was not doing anything to remove this madman from power.

I brought up their not backing Senator Feingolds Censure Resolution, the spying of American Citizens without a court order in violation of the Constitution against illegal wiretaps, Senator Liebermans refusal to support who ever wins the Primary in his State [mentioning that I would not support the DSCC and had already donated to Lamont because of Senator Liebermans constant support of Bush], Senator Liebermans efforts to shutdown anything the Senators tried to do by refusing to acknowledge the wrongs committed by Bush and Abu Gonzales’s telling the investaging commitee that Bush has the power to wiretap anyone he wants too under his inherant War Time Powers as a Unity Executive.

I also brought up the leaking an outing of a NOC operative, the shuting down of Brewster Jennings and Associates which was protecting Americans by tracking WMD’s and Nuclear Weapons because of his and the OVP’s leaks. I stressed that I did not want hearings offering immunity for testemony and wanted to see them tried for Treason, and not walk like Oliver North and others did for Iran Contra.

I stated that if they did not stand up and fight this madman and his administration that Abu was right and the Legislative Branch was useless and not really needed as Abu clearly informed them that Bush was not Above the Law, but is the Law.

She told me she would pass it on to the Senator. She was also very polite and I felt better after telling her my concerns about the direction our country is heading in. All in all it was a very produtive morning. I hope the Democratic Party wakes up before it is too late or we are all screwed.

PS: On an afterthought everyone who has AT&T as their phone service provider or ISP should call and complain about them collaberating with the the governments illegal spying on them without a warrant.

Will be offline for awhile if anyone responds to this post.

I am in complete awe of the marches going on simultaneously all around the country. We could all learn something about their power to organize.

But there is one point I just have to make, one which I have not seen much discussion of. Other than North and South Korea, I don’t think there is another place on the earth where a border demarcates such a wide disparity in wealth (and human rights???) as there is between the US and Mexico (just go a few feet between San Diego and Tijuana and this gap becomes very clear). For instance, NAFTA has been an unmitigated disastor for the average Mexican…

people are in the streets protesting

karl has to be getting nervous

this sin’t a good sign for bushco

Delurking to do a little push polling:

Massive turnout at immigration rallies: Are you more sympathetic to their cause?

So far 24% yes, 76% no.

cnmne @ 30 –

yep. if we were REALLY pro-free trade our borders would be open to people as well as capital and products.

now, THAT would really force us to rethink our foreign policy!

The immigration issue is very complex and I certainly don’t have the answers. I wish someone did.

I was EPU’d (just can’t read fast enough!), but in case you didn’t see this:
Christy, did you see the FDL mention in a story about Murray Waas over at MyDD?: “He’s relentless, and he’s focused on the big picture. And eRiposte and Firedoglake are right there chewing through the reporting with him, a kind of adjunct institutional memory.â€
http://www.mydd.com/

Froomkin is on line taking questions. Sorry for the drive-by, if this already posted.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01863.html

Looks like he isn’t going to answer my question whether editorials are fact-checked. Snerk.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
— from ‘The New Colossus’ by Emma Lazarus.

(Also inscribed at the foot at the Statue of Liberty…which was a gift from France.)

Christy, the security issues with immigration are not a “tough call” – that is a red-herring. Illegal immigration and terrorism are not connected. Any member of a terrorist cell is not going to enter the country illegally, they will follow each and every one of our laws to minimize their exposure prior to completing their mission. If you want to argue that there is a drug and “wage slave” issue connected to immigrantion, that would be true – but not “security”.

Vyan

orangejumpsuit #53,

Why does Emma Lazarus hate freedom?

Oilfield: right. Note that GOP House bill provided no enforcement $, and used Democratic amendments that did allocate $ as excuse to gut enforcement of both labor standards and employee sanctions. So employee sancitons in the House bill mean nothing, since they won’t enforce.

Hoosierville: on polls, go to TPM Cafe and read up an real, nationally representative polls. What you mention is an unreliable internet poll. Anyway, some fools burned a US flag today at one demonstration, which could affect results.

How about these simple measures:

1. Don’t bother too much with “tougher criminal penalties on employers”–you’d have to prove intent, which is hard–and you’re giving both sides (employers and illegals) the incentive to conspire together.
2. Extend all labor laws to cover illegals as well. Min. wage, benefits, worker safety, unionization, everything! This immediately grants some additional protection to US workers, and enables cooperation between US workers and illegals. Very important for both sides–the most useful things from the perspective of scofflaw employers of illegals is to keep this sort of cooperation from happening.
3. Grant all workers, including illegals, the right to sue for back wages and compensation in case they have proof of discriminatory and illegal employment. Allow liberal suspension of deportation proceedings for the duration of good-faith legal proceedings against abusive employers.
4. Allow RICO-like triple damages against abusive employers.
5. Grant even illegal FICA taxpayers some (perhaps limited) FICA benefits. Say, perhaps, just the rights to their own and their employers’ contributions when they reach retirement age. This gives them a strong incentive to keep track of this stuff, and another means of driving a wedge between employers and illegals.

These sort of measures will

(a) break the nexus between illegals and their employers
(b) provide strong basis for cooperation between US workers and illegals
(c) relieve the government of the burden of “hunting down” illegals, and proving deliberate wrong-doing on the part of employers
(d) treat illegals as human beings who have legitimate aspirations. This is the weakest part of US immigration law–very few immigrants and their sponsors have much respect for immigration laws, since they are so widely regarded as unjust and exploitative.

Of course, German immigration laws are worse (as Zakaria recently pointed out), but that’s not the point. Even US immigration laws are unjust, since there is hypocracy at the heart of it. The gorilla in the room is the addiction employers have to cheap illegal labor, and racist remnants of old policies (for instance, the fact that Liechtenstein has the same quota for immigration as India and China).

Tommy, 57

orangejumpsuit #53,

“Why does Emma Lazarus hate freedom?”

Huh? Sorry, I’m not very good at riddles.

Excuse me, 10,000 in the streets of Salt Lake City yesterday – really, wtf were they thinking ?!?!

I know, I know, it was just all about energizing ‘the base’, but the base is all they have left

was trying to find an updated number for y’all, but at last count, LA County has over 200,000 newly registered voters and it’s not like they’re gonna go away – Come that 2nd week end in Nov., Catholic priests will be gently admonishing parishoners to get out the vote that Tuesday – their duty – as a means of helping others

this is political suicide for a party that has made well documented efforts to court the Latino vote the last two election cycles

btw, general legal question – If you’ve been here ‘illegally’ for 15 years at what point does a statute of limitations kick in ?

who to vote for? El Partido Republicano de Tomaso Tancredo y Jaime Sensenbrenner o el Partido Democrata de Edwardo Kennedy?

SusanG has a beautiful post up at dailykos called, “Leveraging Xenophobia and Other Bush Administration Policies”.

We are being leveraged on every level, dear readers, by the most massive marketing machine in the history of humankind, the U.S. government under George W. Bush. And the future of our experiment in democracy depends on each of us uniting and recognizing our shared aspirations instead of our exaggerated minor differences.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..141932/724

Timewarp #49

Latest Republican Wedgie

If we can’t get off our asses enmasse to protest the abuses foisted on the world by Dubya, then maybe we need some new pioneers with the grit to cross deserts, rivers, fight banditos on both sides of the river just to make a life. They have a hell of a path to citizenship and they’re showing us the way. Feel free to take notes.

Blogwhoring here.

Hoooo boy

Richmond, Va.: Did you read “A Good Leak”? Your thoughts…

Dan Froomkin: Lots and lots of questions about yesterday’s lead editorial in The Post: A Good Leak.

(Much excitement in the blogosphere and even the trade press.)

I’ll just put it this way: When readers suggest that articles in The Washington Post are influenced by the newspaper’s editorial positions, the response is often that the Post newsroom and its editorial pages operate in two different worlds. That has never been more true.

Bang!

Vyan, quick definition of “security” (OxfordAmerican Dictionary):
>the safety of a country or organization against espionage or theft or other danger.

I don’t see the word “terrorist” mentioned in there, do you? Safety and security mean more than just terrorism. Stop trying to play ‘gotcha’ with Christy’s prosecutor’s brain power, and go take an early tea break.

Froomkin’s going on vacation, I hope it’s short. But he’s lively today.

Durham, N.C.: I don’t mean to get you in trouble with the Ombudsman or anything, but…

Any commments on the instantly-infamous “A Good Leak” editorial?

Dan Froomkin: Oh, and I forgot to mention that critics of that editorial have hi-jacked this comments thread on post.blog — ostensibly about washingtonpost.com’s really cool, highly functional site search. Try it! (Search, I mean.)

Dan calling for a Maryland Moment? Nah…

ccmask – I’ve been an aquaintance of Bill Nye’s for nearly twenty years now. And instead of allowing his head to swell with fame, he has simply become more passionate about educating folks about science and debunking myths taken as historical fact by wingnuts.

He’s definitely one of the good ones…

kittensomper(!?) That will attract a certain kind of reader, I guess. Are you going for regular guys who hate cats?

Well, I like that post.

History is another reason Democrats should be very aggressive. Everytime GOP has tried this wedgie recently it has caused them serious problems. Opened up huge divisions in GOP that are bigger than in Democrats. In order to feed their base, they have to resort to rhetoric and extreme policy measures that alienate at larger number of normal people, including some of the more normal parts of the base.

Why are they trying again? They’re running on fumes issue-wise? That’s my guess.

OT – Joe Wilson is going to be on Countdown tonight.

All of the legislation I have read about seems cruel or nuts or both.

However, one good thing would probably happen if we closed the border with Mexico. A huge revolution.

First, I think it is a huge mistake to build an immigration policy on a platform of criminalizing anyone who is currently here on an undocumented basis. I can’t think of a better way to drive these people deeper underground than to instantly make them felons.

Second, for security reasons, we do have an interest in knowing who these people are, but I have not come up with a method that also will not drive them underground.

Third, if there are criminal penalties to be handed out, they should go to those who employ undocumented workers. It should not ever be a crime to work and work hard, but if the hiring of undocumented workers is to stop, it has to hit the employers in the pocketbook.

Fourth, if coming to America to work at a low wage job, with no benefits, is more attractive than staying in your country of origin, what does that say about those countries? I do not understand why we are not making more of an effort to economically lift these other countries so that they have economies that are attractive to their own citizens.

Fifth, other countries around the world are teaching their children to speak, read and write in English from a fairly young age. If the third world countries are to have any hope of retaining their citizens and participating in a global economy, they need to improve their education system generally, and specifically, be giving their citizens the tools they need to compete in a global economy. Easier said than done, I know, but what helps these other countries ultimately benefits the US, doesn’t it?

Finally, I understand security issues, but building walls is just a boondoggle, another opportunity for some cozy-with-the-government-contractor to make billions, with little or no effect on cross-border penetration.

Heads up! MSNBC just said Joe Wilson will be on Countdown tonight with Olbermann. 8pm E/5pm P.

showphone,

Christy specifically mentioned in comment #39

and that doesn’t even touch on how easy it would be for potential terrorist cell members to slip across — more likely the Canadian border than that southern one.

I happen to disagree, based on my reading of of 9-11 Report (which points out that each and every member of Mohammad Atta’s group entered legally) and Michael Scheurer’s writings concerning the workings of al Qaeda. Tim McVeigh was a U.S. Citizen, as was the Atlanta Olympics bomber. The London bombers were all native Brits (I believe, haven’t checked lately). There was no illegal immigration needed.

Entering illegally is against their mission profile, we don’t need to worry about terrorism in relation to illegal immigration. The right-wing has conflated to two issues in order to sow fear and so far it has worked, we certainly shouldn’t be buying into it.

Now, I can understand disagreeing with my view – but I would ask for at least a couple examples of illegals who’ve commited terrorist acts. I can’t think of any,

Vyan

Eight million visits per site meter!!!

OT:
“I wanted people to see what some of those statements were based on. I wanted people to see the truth. I thought it made sense for people to see the truth. That’s why I declassified the document,” GWB

Ok – so why was it declassified and leaked in such a surreptitious manner?

Vyan — I can’t give you a personal example of a terrorist who has crossed the border illegally. But I could give you multiple examples of serial DUIs, a rapist and a couple of child molesters — all of whom had records in their native countries and who came here to escape arrest there — and then re-offended. In my mind, that raises a serious ass questions about security on a number of levels — including the potential for it to be abused. (The 2000 bombing attempt that was foiled at the border crossing comes to mind, but I know that was a simple border crossing issue and not an illegal attempt.) I can’t just brush aside what my own experience has taught me on this — that the way things are now does not offer the best possible protection for the long-term.

Vyan,

One does come to mind. The guy trying to get in from Canada that was trying to get to L.A.. Caught him on a ferry . I do not remember much else. Y2K,I believe. Anybody?

The immigration issue is nothing more than one big “Look over there” issue for the repukes, because it’s just about the ONLY one that the Dems don’t own outright. Not that it doesn’t deserve a solution, but the less time we spend debating it the better–it’s just diverting attention from Bush’s crimes. Especially with the Congressional elections coming up. Wouldn’t surprise me if the repukes deliberately stalled on it just so they can make THIS the centerpiece of the whole campaign! Beware! Beware!

When I saw the usual suspect–some dough faced middle aged white male prattling on about “immigrants” and then he said: “We don’t even know what diseases ‘these people’ have.” I knew that whatever he thinks, I think the opposite.

Frankly John Q. Whitesheets–I would be more ‘afeared’ of what you have growing in that petri-dish of a half empty brain socket.

-GSD

Oh yeah, Karl Rove is indeed an enemy of humanity.

Amit Joshi #59: intriguing ideas that economists (those who are not violently anti-labor) should like.

Anne #72: Omigod, I hadn’t thought of that. If House GOP bill passes, BushCo will build the wall. That means it would probably messed up in a way such that it would cost hundreds of billions too much, and increase illegal entry. And would cost trillions to fix or tear down. Cheney would probably want nuclear booby-traps because “it’s our due.” Thanks for the horrific insight.

Oh, yes, It was in WA state.

wesgpc#69

Thanks for the kind words. About my blog title…
I put an explanation right under it. Now I’m looking for that graphic I’ve seen, the one with the kitty using the submachine gun. Then there is the matter of importing it into my header where it will work. I’m still Forrest Gumping my way through all this stuff.

I want to clarify a mix up in Vyan’s post from earlier today. Vyan – you are mixing up the green cards available thru the visa lottery (”DV”) with the number of green cards available/given out to immigrants thru other channels (family and work sponsorship). The lottery is basically that – a lottery to make a (relatively) small number of green cards available for those countries with low levels of immigration. While I absolutely agree that the Sensennbrenner bill is garbage, that immigration needs to be addressed comprehensively and as part of a broader civil rights/economic/humanitarian/social justice strategy by progressives, and that immigration laws often are racially/ethnically/geographically biased, I felt the need to explain this incorrect understanding of the law.

Vyan – a little over 5 years ago, Ahmed Rassam tried to enter the country at the Canadian Border in Blaine, Washington. He was not coming to America to obtain a green card so he could work here. He was crossing the border with a car trunk filled with explosives, to fulfill the plan of heading down to Los Angeles and blowing up LAX.

This is an extreme example, but still…

As I already stated, national “security” means more than guarding against terrorism.

Elizabeth De La Vega says it best on Tom Paine Dispatch, regarding Bush’s selective declassification of intelligence:

“Is a President, on the eve of his reelection campaign, legally entitled to ward off political embarrassment and conceal past failures in the exercise of his office by unilaterally and informally declassifying selected — as well as false and misleading — portions of a classified National Intelligence Estimate that he has previously refused to declassify, in order to cause such information to be secretly disclosed under false pretenses in the name of a “former Hill staffer” to a single reporter, intending that reporter to publish such false and misleading information in a prominent national newspaper?”

The dems and the media (who are asking the wrong question) would do well to read her article.

“You want to throw out “wingnut†snottiness at me because we disagree about policy — then screw you. ” Hooray for you Christy. There are good reasons to be concerned abut immigration issues. You have stated some of them. You don’t have to be a wingnut to be concerned. And of course we know that you are not one.

Building a wall around the country would be the biggest pork boondoggle in history, which may be part of the reason they might try.

Bet it would never get finished either.

BTW, I agree with Anne’s sentiments in #72. The legislation in play will only drive illegals underground further. And NAFTA is certainly a factor in difficulties faced by Mexican nationals looking for jobs. Bush never understood that exporting democracy and economic development begins in our own backyard – MEXICO.

Stacy B. #86
I agree. I think this angle is why GW Bush will lose a few more points this week. I think the average citizen intuitive understands this point, and also understand that he/she is the intended mark. It is not some other sinister person anymore, it is him or her. They will realize that Bush is not “with them” or “on their side” in any meaningful sense. They will sense that either Bush is acting in bad fatih, or that Bush is just asking way way too much personal power and trust on one of the most grave and very serious matters of state (ie, war and peace, that’s all).

I think it would help if press asked too, but feel enough will figure it out on their own so that a few more points off Bush’s ratings in next couple of weeks even without that.

orange…#60

It’s a joke in my family. Any idea that’s expressed–no matter how lovely and inclusive– that runs counter to the GOP is rejoined by that question.

Lazarus’ poem is so moving and beautiful. I just got an image of W calling her an “enemy of freedom.”

Sorry I had to explain that joke. I mean, tell it.

Christy (and everyone else): Cross your fingers that you’re not premature on Berlusconi’s demise. Deutsche Welle is reporting that at 9:00 pm Italy time one exit poll showed him winning. Considering that he likely has substantial influence on the vote counting, it ain’t over till it’s over!

#77

Yes, when it comes to more common crimes – such as DUIs as you point out – there is an issue with crime which is fair to connect to some illegals. This can also be said of people who engage in the underground economies of illegal drugs. Honest people are being mixed in with genuine criminals simply because they have no other (viable) choice.

The solution in many ways has to address the “illegal” status of these activities as I did in comment #12. People enter illegally because they can’t get a legal visa – because of discriminatory state department quotas. Eliminate the quota system and grant visas based on merit such as employability after a reasonable background check and all these problems start to fade, the massive influx of “illegals” would become normal legal migration, the “security” bugaboo and legitimate issues of crime linked to illegal human trafficing would also begin to subside.

If you’re dealing with resident aliens who are living “above board” rather than under the radar, employers would have a more difficult time exploiting them for cheap labor. They would pay taxes, and contribute to the general services. They’d the potential for healthcare and wouldn’t need to go to the emergency room for minor issues.

The only people who would consider this a bad idea are the xenophobes and the corporatists who are simply afraid that releasing the quota/floodgates would significantly change the ethnic makeup of the nation, and drive the standard of living for workers across the nation upward. They should be more worried that these proteset represent a entire new generation of permenently Democratic voters.

Vyan

Dang Minnesotachuck — do you have a link on that?

PS to #92: Here’s the Deutsche Welle link:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/arti…..91,00.html

Dan Froomkin: Wow, even the non-booers plan to boo? It could get ugly.

LOL! That was a quote from #41 that Dan Froomkin siad about Cheney throwing out the first pitch. Is he really going to do that? What, is he crazy? Don’t answer that. You might get hurt. ;o)

Christy is right. Security is absolutely an issue and denying that it is challenges the common sense of most Americans.

Re Christy at 37 above.

I gotta come to Christy’s defense here. Border security and immigration control are not trivial matters. Because out borders are so porous, not only can people be smuggled across illegally, so can contraband: drugs, guns, ordinance, explosives, you name it.

In fact, it is much easier to smuggle non living thangs than it it is to smuggle people. This creates a huge hazard in country where illegal drug use has decimated our under priviledged areas, where illegal guns are threat everywhere and where illegal explosives can be and were used, for instance in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

Further, ineffective immigration control means that in addition to the poor, hardworking folks who want to come here just to make a living, we also get the predators who come here to take advantage of those hard working souls and of us.

Tin Foil Hat time:

In the 1980’s the Reagan administration funded and encouraged two groups of “freedom fighters”: The mujahadeen in Afganistan and the Contras in Nicaragua who were themselves closely alligned with El Salvadoran rebels.

We know that when the US abandoned the mujahadeen to freeze and starve in the mountains, Usama Bin Laden came along and started a veterans group for them. He fed them, he sheltered their families and he helped them hide from USSR retribution. He replaced their Reagan era name with a new name; Al Quaeda.

Now in the US we have a gang Called MS 13. MS stands for Mucha Salvatrucha (sp?). The legend is that if you are a “12″ rather than a “13″ it means you are a veteran Salvadoran “freedom fighter” abandoned by the US to be tortured or killed or watch your family be tortured or killed.

I have done some public education work with the federal gang task force during the last couple years (yeah, I’m such a nerd that my “hobby” is public interest law) and surveillence photos of “12s” show missing limbs, eyes, and scars that make me shudder. Debriefed “12s” in prison for violent gang related felonies tell heartbreaking stories about watching their wives, mothers and children being tortured in front of them.

They hate the US for what we did to them. FBI statistics show MS 13 cells in virtually every state of the union. Unlike other gangs that are often sharply seggregated by race or ethnicity, MS 13’s hallmark is inclusiveness. They activelly recruit young people who are born here and cannot be deported.

Unlike other gangs (like the bloods and the crypts) MS 13 has a well defined para military structure and remarkable strict discipline and formal “training”.

Don’t take my word for it,ask any cop you know, the most violent gang causing the greatest number of fatalities per gang memebr in almost any given city or suburb, is MS 13.

The gang originated in California b/c we did not have good border control b/c California thought they could exploit a beaten people. Basically, the US wanted to take advantage of these folks again. But instead we let a time bomb into our country.

Originally, MS preyed on other Hispanic people, usually other immigrants b/c these victims were afraid to report crimes to the police. As they have grown and expanded, and they are everywhere now, they have branched out.

The head of our local branch of the FBI gang task force noted to me once how much other gangs feared MS. They are an army. We let an army into our country b/c we had poor border control. Now, most of that army is not deportable.

As long as they are content to remain garden variety criminals, no great bogeymen yet exist, though still a major law enforcement headache. However, if the leadership of MS, should ever become politicized (you know by a draconian immigration bill?) or if they should ever decide that Al Quaeda has proven that a ragtag army of irregulars can take on the so called greatest military in the world……well?

So yeah, Christy, border control is not racist. There is a world of difference between admitting a poor underpriveleged person who just wants a job and chance to build a better life and letting in drugs, criminals or worse.

Further, having a vast undocumented population provides the marsh grass for little fishes from terrorist groups to hide out in. Border control is not racist. Using border control in a racially discriminatory manner, is.

Appels and oranges

CHS, you understate the impossibility of deporting 11 million. It is not a cop shortage due to Iraq (as real as that it in itself) that makes it impossible.

Maryland has 5.5 million people, most of whom are unarmed, many of whom are plump GS-12 or -13 yuppies or immediate family of same. Now, if you wanted to depopulate Maryland and turn it into the worldest largest nature preserve, who would you hire to depopulate it? Where would you feed and store Maryland?

Who would pay additional taxes for the additional holding facilities (replete with health insurance for the guards and the laundry crew) pending removal hearings? How many federal public defenders would get hired? What will be the budget for concrete and barbed wire at Halliburton prices? Who will provide education for the (non-citizen) children in juvenile detention? Who will pay for the jet fuel to fly 5.5 million people to the Nevada desert to whatever 250,000-cell prison stadium that would have to be built there? The judges, the interpreters, the leases on building,

Now double it, disperse them into 3.5 million square miles, not Maryland’s 10,000, arm 10% of them along with another 5% of LPR or citizen family members, and do it amidst mass civil disobedience led by Catholic cardinals, Quakers and libertarians, and violent uncivil disobedience by radicals of every stripe. Yeah, add Congress wanting to do it on the CHEAP, no equipment for the removal teams of quasi bounty hunters, cause if soldiers can’t get armor, what’s some damn immigration cannon fodder. After all, if there’s one thing the racist right hates as much as brown people, it’s paying retail for good government.

This is beyond impossible. Invading Belgium and turning it into a parking lot would be difficult but this is impossible. If every U.S. servicemember in Iraq, in the reserves and in IRR status were drafted into the removal effort, it would still fail. Why? Half of those removed would make it back with the help of the Mafia, bribed guards or sheer brute force. If they can’t keep crack out of LA, they cannot keep Angelinos out of LA.

Apples not appels. Why can’t I type!!!!

Good post Christy,
This is a mess– almost a throw your hands up type when you add the Sensenbrenners. I’d rather criminalize genuine criminals, not people who come here just like most of our grandparents/ancestors did. Couldn’t help noticing one rationale on one forgettable show, maybe Primetime: “13% Americans think immigration is the number one problem this country faces.” & hence (paraphrase) the response of the House. Seems to me this is a desperate rationale for the GOP.

Shoephone, IIRC Rassam was arrested in Port Angeles as he drove off a Black Ball ferry from British Columbia.

shoephone,
Thanks. I could not remember the particulars.

Froomkin’s chat is now over, but it was priceless.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..tml?sub=AR

California permitted undocumenteds to get adrivers license for years, since 1917 or early 1920s I think. Whether good policy or not, had guest worker program (Bracero) for years. Outrageous, racist and irrational (even if ultimately counterproductive) GOP politiczation has gone so far, (and press, and Dems, response has been so meek) that we cannot even use successes and failure of long history of dealing with problem in discussion. CA has been dealing with this problem for something like 100 years now.

NY Times headline as of 20 minutes ago:

Exit Polls Show Italian Election Is Too Close to Call

Wouldn’t it be great if: instead of our tax dollars paying the salaries of pedophiles and other unqualified cronies at the Department of Homeland Security, that money could be used to enhance real border security? Oh wait.. I forgot. We’re living in BushWorld.

NPR just declared Berlusconi the loser.

It’s really tragic that we can’t come up
with a policy that will work.Why is it that
Cuban boat people are automatically admitted
if they land on our soil,yet the poor desperate
Muchachos are sent back?

Shoe #85

Vyan – a little over 5 years ago, Ahmed Rassam tried to enter the country at the Canadian Border in Blaine, Washington. He was not coming to America to obtain a green card so he could work here. He was crossing the border with a car trunk filled with explosives, to fulfill the plan of heading down to Los Angeles and blowing up LAX.

This is an extreme example, but still…

You’re argument is that this person tried to enter the national illegally – not to nitpick, but this was not the case. No, he didn’t have a green card, but he did have a Visa.He was caught by a border patrol agent – at the normal border crossing – because of his nervous behavior during standard inspection. He did not try to enter illegally and circumvent the border patrol, and iIt’s very unlikely he could have done so with a car full of explosives.

This guy was not an “illegal immigrant”, he was a legal visitor who was properly identified at the border by attentive agents. I can’t check right now, but there was another member of the Atta’s team who was turned back at the Airport because the border agent was suspicious of him. Again, this was legal immigration.

You could argue that we can’t screen people who slip across illegally, but it’s also true that they can’t get a legitimate job that would allow them access to sensitives resources such as a nuclear plant without legitimate legal documentation. al Qaeda’s modis operandi is to use our own reasources (planes, chemical plants) against us. Trying to import weapons over the border simply isn’t going to work. The ports might work, but not the border.

Vyan

RBG – you may be right about that. All I remember is that he was stopped by savvy border police who thought he was sweating a little more than most people do in the dead of winter!

shoephone – I pray NPR is right. Berlusconi losing is great for a number of reasons.

Including the fact that the barriers within the Italian government preventing our true understanding of who forged the Niger memo may be removed.

The debate on immmigration is completely non-serious.
Two things would tell me that Congress intends to take meaningful action.
First, a commitment to securing our Southern borders must be made, using whatever funds this requires. Whatever one intends to do with current illegal immigrants, there is no reason we should continue to accept the influx of millions of illegals.
The second reason is related to why the firsst action does not occur. Business, both big and smalll, wants the illegal immigrants. They save money on wages, and shunt insurance costs, etc. to the taxpayers.
Until the role of business in encouraging illegal immigration is addressed, there can be no equitable solution.

I asked every WaPo online host today if they were willing to stand behind the intellectual honesty of the “Good Leak” editorial. I wasn’t asking them to say it was right or wrong, just asking whether or not they thought it was intellectually honest. How many answers do you think I got? Not one. Not Froomkin, not Kurz, not Balz. Each of them hid behind the news/editorial church-state boundary. Pretty lame, IMHO. I like to read some dead-tree news, but I am getting cranky. Got friends from out of town coming over so I can’t go down to the rally.
Si se puede!!
peace,
jim

The Borders will be secure when there is economic and social justice on BOTH sides of the border. Which is why there is relatively little sneaking across the US – Canadian border of undocumented workers. As long as US corporate interests benefit from the horrifically low-wages (and I might add, the corrupt unjudicial system) which exist in Central America, decent hopeful hard-working human beings will continue to make the heroic and courageous journey over the border.

NAFTA made a bad situation untenable for millions of Central Americans.

This is especially tragic.

A few words about immigration.

This is something I have strong feelings about. If America had not opened its doors to my mother’s parents – Polish Jews born in the early 20th century — they would most likely have died in one of Hitler’s concentration camps. As much as I may complain about the things I don’t like about America, I never forget that my family owes this country our lives.

So here’s my bottom line: unless there is a damn good reason to think that someone will not be a good citizen of America, we should allow them to come here and work for a better life.

Now, exactly how we do that, I don’t know. I think reasonable people can disagree on precisely what set of policies and regulations will work. I recognize that there are some practical concerns that accompany an open door immigration policy and that not everyone who wants to come here is going to be able to come here. That’s Ok, we can work it out. But we need to start from the foundation belief that we want immigration and that immigrants are still welcome in this Land of the Free.

froomkin live

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01863.html

Richmond, Va.: Did you read “A Good Leak”? Your thoughts…

Dan Froomkin: Lots and lots of questions about yesterday’s lead editorial in The Post: A Good Leak.

(Much excitement in the blogosphere and even the trade press.)

I’ll just put it this way: When readers suggest that articles in The Washington Post are influenced by the newspaper’s editorial positions, the response is often that the Post newsroom and its editorial pages operate in two different worlds. That has never been more true.

Good point someone else brought up. Vyan. Didn’t most of the hijackers 9/11 have proper visas and all? I think I read that in Richard Clarke. So what follows . . . I don’t know.

marky #112: right. And the big business cultural conservative split on this issue is why the GOP proposals are always fundamentally weird, nasty and nonserious. But lots of psychich damange -like a mean drunk on bad speeek rampaging through the house talking about what he’s gonna do.

Some commenters are correct: at some level Dems’ need to call GOP bluff. Dems need to say GOP proposals of Bush and House fundamentally dishonest and bad faith turnout-the-base GOTV efforts, and racist. A bunch of garbage that is fundamentally non-serious.

BBC now saying that Berlusconi “may narrowly retain control of both houses of parliament, according to projections from the Nexus pollsters”.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wor…..894584.stm

I had a discussion with someone recently about what a joke U.S. immigration policy is.

On the one hand, ‘Conservatives’ use immigration policy as a Spigot to modulate wages. I’m not talking low wage jobs here. Want to drive Doctor’s salaries down? Offer US citizenship right this minute to anyone who is a ‘qualified’ foreign physician, I guarantee ten of thousands of applicants, who if allowed in, would in fact drive down doctors income. Think an open immigration policy would be welcomed by the AMA?
Think again. How about engineers? How about letting in a hundred thousand foreign lawyers? Think the ABA would go for that?

Pick an occupation and let me control the number of people in that field allowed into the US legally, and I will guarantee what the prevailing salary will be in that field to within single percentage points of accuracy.

Immigration policy is also a tool of wage control, Big Time, that is also an undercurrent in this discussion, even for White Collar folks.

Do people grasp the imagery of building a wall between the US and Mexico?

Chicago Tom 116,

Oh that’s right. Forgot about that firewall between the journalism and advertising (er editorial) desks.

Vyan, whether it’s nitpicky or not, I find these arguments that because we don’t have proof of illegal crossings ever resulting in terrorism that’s somehow proof that it could never happen. I think this is naive. Considering how porous our borders are, plus the utter incompetence of Bush’s Dept. of Homeland Security, we shouldn’t be so cavalier with probabilities vs. possiblities. Having lived in Washington State for 21 years now, it’s not an uncommon occurrence that criminal activity of many kinds has been discovered through our border with Canada – usually after it’s too late. We’ve had gun-running, drug smuggling and people smuggling (through the drug tunnel) and I believe the question is how to secure the borders for all possiblities of illegal activity occuring. Patty Murray has been pleading and prodding the Bush administration and the wingnut congress for appropriations for enhanced border security ever since 9-11. But no dice. The longer the need goes unmet, the more the possibilities will increase. I am not interested in seeing families torn apart because of deportations of hardworking individuals. I agree with you, we need a policy that rewards the hardworking who really are here for economic reasons. But relieving pressures on undocumenteds workers without securing borders at the same time strikes me as myopic, to say the least.

Vyan, I think we agree more than we disagree.

mui #117 –

Yes, they (the 9/11 Hijackers) did all have legal visas. That is precisely my point. They couldn’t have been able to access the resources they needed, get drivers licenses, begin flight training – if they had been illegals. al Qaeda’s signature is to plan large co-ordinated attacks, such as the East Africa bombings – or that original “Planes” plan to simultanousely explode 11 aircraft over the oceans. I’m just saying – they’re gonna remain as under the legal radar as they can until times comes to strike. Now you might have some crazy lone-nut try something, like Eric Rudolph, but it won’t have the impact or do the damage of a well planed al Qaeda attack.

I’d be more worried about what Randal Terri and his buddies are up too these days, when it comes to the next “terrorist” bombing (only in his case, he’ll be bombing the local OB/GYN!).

Vyan

Maybe i’ll offer to buy Hiatt a supscription to the Post, so he can read the news page.

One of the things that could potentially have the largest impact on the immigration issue is to pass a bill that requires 100% federal tax money back to the states that are affected the most by illegal immigration issues. I think California gets back one of the lowest federal spending returns for how much we pay into the system. In other words California taxpayers are subsidizing most of the food the rest of the nation purchases by having to fund the additional infrastructure and social services costs that can be attributed to the add’l 2.5 Million illegals currently estimated to be residing in Cali.

Second, we need to renegotiate the NAFTA trade agreement to allow U.S. citizens to purchase land in Mexico and other central american countries with clear title rights. At the same time we need to reduce the barriers to FDI in these same countries for small businesses that want to expand into Mexico. It’s all large corporations right now and massive amounts of paperwork. If we can get more money flowing into those countries less people will come here.

Operation Diebold Drop is underway in Italy.

-GSD

perhaps Tancredo is planning to permit on guest visas some architects from East Germany to supervise the building of “Another Wall”? After all, they do have a certain expertise…

I’m Irish. From Boston. nuf said?

GSD – darnit. We got our hopes up to soon?

I need to get back to work now..

Sorry if redundant….no time to read everything above…. but, in response to Ms. Smith’s ‘not sure if there is a ‘procedure’ for declassification’ comment, Mr. S. McCLellan says that one was followed:

SCOTT McCLELLAN: I assume you’re referring to articles like The New York Times article today. I’ve made it clear I cannot get into commenting on an ongoing legal proceeding. I read that article, like you all did, with interest. I think it talked about how a significant portion of the National Intelligence Estimate was declassified on July 18th, 2003, and how it went through a declassification process. But I know it referenced a separate effort. I can’t get into commenting on that issue because you can’t separate that from the ongoing legal proceeding. I made clear the other day that the President has the authority to declassify information as he chooses, and I would reiterate that.

Shoe,

I’m not trying to be cavalier – I’m trying to rank the relative risks based on the available evidence and documentation of how al Qaeda functions. They don’t do “illegal” and there are many reasons why.

Yes, our borders are porous – but I think we need address this not simply be continuing to build the fence the President Clinton repaired and reenforced a decade ago – we also need to address why people are coming and properly seperate those who are simply looking for a better life form those who are a genuine danger to our nation. The key is reforming legal immigration, banning the Visa Quotas, using our economic leverage and diplomacy to fight corruption in Central America and ultimately make the run on the border unneccesary from both sides.

Vyan

So….where’ the stamp on the document Scotty?

.

Vyan,

http://www.altereddimensions.n…..13Gang.htm

Nuff said.

MSNBC Question of the Day
Massive turnout at immigration rallies: Are you more sympathetic to their cause? * 7759 responses
Yes
23%
No
77%
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080261/#survey
Christy, thanks for three great posts and packed threads. Really appreciated the links to Foomkin’s chat, cbl’s link to Anonymous Liberal, and lhp’s comments, especially about MS13.

RBG #102

You are correct — Victoria, British Columbia to be exact.

Reliable results on the Italian election are several hours away if not more. You can safely ignore anythnig from AP or that has AP in the byline there hasn’t been one occasion in the last few years when they’ve got it right.

The place to go to is Reuters UK:

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/default.aspx

or the Financial Times:

http://news.ft.com/home/europe

pat #122, yeah, I can call up the image of a wall across our border with Mexico, and it makes me physically ill to ponder….it probably would look a lot like this

http://images.google.com/image…..rch+Images

Vyan,

http://www.altereddimensions.n…..13Gang.htm

Nuff said.

This is a gang. Yes, a serious problem – but not terrorist. America has native born gangs too.

Vyan

Froomkin punted: the “firewall” excuse has always been used in the past to defend the newsies against charges that they were unduly sympathetic to subjects of their articles who also seemed favored by the opinion folks. Never has the firewall been the justification for the opinion folks getting facts wrong, especially facts published in the Washington Post.

More from Mr. McClellan given the I vs. it amalgamation above:

“…There is nothing in that National Intelligence Estimate that would compromise national security, that was released — there’s nothing in there that was released that would. And that’s why it went through the declassification process and it was — and a significant portion of that National Intelligence Estimate was made available to the public through you all.”

Of course, now it could be argued that there is an amalgamation of the leak and the later more fulsome declassification.

.

Security is an absolute issue regarding immigration. The bigger concern should be a constant vigilance against security becoming the only issue.

Would a herd of sheep recognize other sheep purposely dressed as wolves to effect a terror response? Would those same sheep not call upon the farmer’s dogs to protect them from this threat?
Perhaps the focus should be on the bigger picture: Who is letting the wolf/sheep in? Who is dressing them as wolves? Do people like to be constantly manipulated and politically herded like farm animals?

Four legs bad.

~

GW’s whim *is* the “declassification process.”

Irish potato famine drove my ancestors to America –> Illinois.
http://www.historyplace.com/wo…..merica.htm

Christy, a Libby Legal Question

Somewhere today (forgive me, I’ve read too much in the past 8 hours) a former Reagan atty stated that Libby would probably be pardoned before Fitz was allowed to call “certain witnesses” to testify. Can a person be pardoned BEFORE they are convicted? How does this work?

Thanks for this and everything else you do.

“Bush Calls Reports of Plan to Strike Iran ‘Speculation’”
By DAVID STOUT Published: April 10, 2006 WASHINGTON, April 10 — President Bush today dismissed reports that his administration is accelerating plans for a possible military strike against Iran, calling them “wild speculation
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04…..ref=slogin

Several 9/11 highjackers were denied visas by the US Consulate in Saudi Arabia — but the CIA overruled them, and issued the visas. They also did flight training at a CIA linked flight school in Florida. Conspiracy? Probably not — just professional courtesy for Saudi Intel.

As for the 11 million illegals, we can no more expell them than order the tides to not come in. These people are completely integrated into the US economy, and subject to the same pressures everyone else is. If you are worried about the housing bubble, the quickest way to assure a collapse is expelling the illegals. between 2000 and 2004, Colorado lost 100k jobs, and some illegals moved on. We added 50k jobs last year, and things are looking up — for all of us.

=====

Teddy, what about this Froomkin answer:
“I’ll just put it this way: When readers suggest that articles in The Washington Post are influenced by the newspaper’s editorial positions, the response is often that the Post newsroom and its editorial pages operate in two different worlds. That has never been more true.“

I see this as a CLEAR dig at WaPo editorial board. I suppose he could have taken a page from Deborah Howell wrt Ben fiasco.
“I can’t defend it. It’s a ‘n disaster”.

But Froomkin doesn’t have a potty mouth.

Cheney’s going to have to take some veterans out on the field when he throws out that pitch in order to minimize the booing, just like W did…

Oh my, another abuse of the military for political purposes by the civilian leadership?

[clutches pearls]

Vyan – just curious: since the U.S. has become so reviled under Bush, do you really think that “Al Qaeda”, with its myriad unrelated cells, is the only foreign element that wishes us harm, and is ingenious enough to figure a way into our unprotected borders?

wespgc–

If Lance Link’s whim is, indeed, the process shouldn’t the American people know that?

Again, somebody, maybe Helen T., has to ask – “Where’s the stamp?”

Italy must have those ‘funny’ voting machines in that country. I am sure that Rove has many of his minions steadying their friend’s mandate in Italy. This is what happens here — real close vote that ‘always’ swings against the good guys and for the bad guys. I am not optimistic about 2006.

145 Comments, and no mention of Julie Myers ??
you guys are slipping

Crony, recess appointed to head Immigratiom and Customs Enforcement – so stinky, our friends at ‘The Corner’ hold their nose

linked text

On the one hand, we clearly need to have a better handle on what happens with our national borders — there are obvious security concerns about having porous borders in the wake of 9/11 and with the rising level of threats and animosity toward this country around the world.

But the focus seems to be in the wrong place, given that we don’t know of any terrorists that have come into the US from Mexico, though we know of several who came in from Canada. But if we go there, we couldn’t hate on the brown people. :P

Jenny 138 – thanks. It’s good to know I’m not alone.

RossK #151: Yes, I agree. But I think they are figureing it out on their own, even if press too unprofessional to ask and Dems to scared to explain.

ooh, ooh pick me, pick me!

Jenny# 145

Bush41 pardonned Caspar Weinberger prior to trial

new thread (by Jane) upstairs.

new thread: “It’s the Election Stupid”

Our little brown brothers and sisters (I should talk, being a short, round, very tanned Sicilian) even marched here today in li’l ol’ Palmetto, FL. Right outside my favorite Carta Blanca watering hole, Alvarez’ Restaurant (Where’s Arlo?) they did, and held up traffic for about 10 minutes. Then, over the bridge to Bradenton for an even bigger rally. I called the local Dems awhile back, thinking of Tammany Hall and the immigrants, and asked if anybody ever thought of registering the many citizens here of Mexican descent, including a few of my cuzzin-in-laws. Uh, ummm. Sadly, no. Thus, Katherine Harris (this is her district).

As long as we have unprotected borders – whether to the south or the north – we will have people crossing over into this country. We also have people entering the country legally – on valid visas – and never leaving. Have no idea how many people fall into that second category, but I’m guessing it’s more than a few.

Many of the undocumented are first at a disadvantage in their own countries, because of the poor economy. They are then taken advantage of by their own people trying to get out and into America. Once here, they are further taken advantage of by having to get low-wage jobs.

The benefits accrue to the country from which the worker came, and to the employers in the new country, who get to pay less than a living wage, and the retailers, from whom the worker is buying goods and services. The only thing that changes for the worker is that instead of living in as much fear of how he or she will support him- or herself and family, he or she lives in fear of returning to a life of poverty and hardship.

I do not believe for one hot minute that if this country would be purged of all undocumented individuals, whose presence here is alleged to be such a drain on the social services and educational system, the lives of disadvantaged American citizens would be improved one iota. We know where the “savings†would go – more tax cuts for the wealthy.

Thanks cbl #157!

And this is legal?…..oh, wait, I forgot where I live…..

O/T or back topic – wasn’t there a news story in the past few weeks of Zarqawi being ’stripped’ of his command by Al Qaeda – or was that just more psy-ops fluffin’ ?

crap crap crap, my online video sucks!

Someone, please, who is the gentleman addressing the crowd in Spanish on CSPAN?

Jenny at 145,
Casper Weinberger was pardoned after indictment but before trial or convection by Bush the First.

Richard Nixon resihned before impeachment and was pardoned before indictment by Ford.

No one ever challenged the pardons, so I can’t tellyou if either of them were legally sufficient. They may have been void due to unripeness. How will we ever know?

looseheadprop #165,
With Weinberger you’re refering to the whole IranContra unpleasantness, yes? I seem to recall more than one pardon but have slept since then and, well, you know how it goes.

Void due to unripeness? Please tell me this is not a legal term. If so I’d say your professions gravitas is in serious jeopardy.

BTW, I love your “hobby”
Thanks

Anne 161 – that assumes there are savings.

Nationalizing the illegals would be GOOD for national security.
I am all in favor of tightening our borders in any way possible. I am also in favor of deporting convicted felons. But as for the vast majority of undocumented workers, I think nationaizing them would be the best option. And here’s why: they would have a vested interest in America. If anyone on this board has dealt with corporate contract worker, I don’t have to tell you why. Contractors are committed to the contract. They work for the contracting agency, not for you. They do only what they are told and no more. They owe allegience only to themselves or the contracting agency. Go ahead, try to get that contracted sys admin to restructure your NIS system. Not gonna happen. Their contract says they update the operating system on your server and maintain network connections. You gotta problem on your workstations cause the damn volumes won’t export? Tell it to the chaplain. Contract workers go where the money is. Abusing illiegal immigrants is inviting trouble. If Al Quaeda is looking for help inside the US, what better place to find it than in the underground economy where life is tough and there is no loyalty to the country. Think of France and other European countries with immigration problems. It’s a ticking time bomb. As already noted, it is impractical to send them all back. Let’s absorb them. Give them part of the franchise and it’s a different story. It sounds like I am advocating amnesty. Call it what you want but these guys didn’t get here all by themselves. The system is set up to accomodate them entering the country. It is the corporations that hire them who are responsible for them being here. Let’s crack down on them so that the tap starts running dry. But let us get the 11 million already here to join the team. The sooner the better.

Who is going to build this wall? Almost all the construction workers here in California are Mexican.

Christy – Giving amnesty to undocumented people already in this country, and having a reasonable, non-exploitive worker program will go a very long way toward freeing resources to deal with the criminal activity and security threats at the border that you are talking about. Thank you for talking about the issue.

*ilson46201 #9- Most Mexican workers coming here to Northern California in the last two years, are Mexican Indians (Mayans, etc.) from Southern Mexico, for whom Spanish is a second language. The United States is dumping subsidized corn in Mexico at below market rates. This has devastated farming in Southern Mexico.

Immigration is a tough issue–
and I am glad we are trying to see all sides–
I found this article helpful, but couldn’t cut and paste the url–so…

ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE DON’T WANT IMMIGRATION TO BE FIXED

By Cynthia Tucker Sat Apr 8, 8:06 PM ET

If they really wanted to, your representatives in Washington could dry up illegal immigration almost before you could say, “Tom Tancredo is a tiresome demagogue.” All they would have to do is require U.S. employers to check the legal status of all employees and impose stiff sanctions — including multimillion-dollar fines and prison time — on employers who flout the law.
After a few executives had done the perp walk, others would get the message. Illegal hiring would drop precipitously. Since the vast majority of illegal immigrants come to this country to work, many of them would leave if they couldn’t get hired. And they’d take the message back home to La Paz and Villa Juarez and San Gerardo: Without legal papers, you can’t get a job in the United States.

So why haven’t Congress and the White House fixed a broken immigration system? Because it works for so many — illegal workers, business interests and middle-class Americans alike. Industries such as construction and agriculture get a cheap and docile work force, poorly educated men and women who’ll work Sundays and holidays and never report their employers for labor violations. Middle-class Americans get the benefit of cheaper products and services, everything from lawn care and domestic work to homegrown fruits and vegetables. And houses. Since home sales are keeping the economy afloat, politicians don’t want to do anything to interfere with the massive housing-construction-and-sales complex.

Fringe politicians benefit from the presence of illegal workers, too. Without them, would you ever have heard of a minor-league congressman named Tancredo? A Republican from Colorado, he is now considering a run for the White House, fueled by the name recognition he’s won with his nativist rants against the undocumented workers pouring in across our southern borders.

That’s not to say illegal immigration is without its costs. In towns and cities that have seen a rapid influx, there is rising frustration over schools having to accommodate non-English speakers, hospitals overwhelmed by uninsured patients, and higher rates of gang-related crime. (But those taxpayers benefit, too, from lower prices for ditches dug and chickens filleted.) An even higher cost is borne by Americans at the bottom of the wage scale, especially poorly educated black men, who lose out when forced to compete with illegal immigrants for jobs.

But poorly educated black men don’t have oily platoons of lobbyists looking after their interests. Big Business does, and it wants to keep those borders open. Overwhelmed taxpayers, meanwhile, are easily placated by election-year rhetoric promising higher walls, stouter fences and more border guards than rattlesnakes along the Rio Grande. Let’s call this campaign-season spectacle “Wag the Mexican.”

Indeed, the steady flow of workers across our borders became a tsunami in the 1990s because of pressure from business interests. After agents from the old Immigration and Naturalization Service raided one of Georgia’s Vidalia onion fields in 1998, members of Georgia’s congressional delegation — Republicans and Democrats alike — denounced the raid. In response, the INS practically shut down workplace enforcement. By 2000, according to INS figures, the estimated number of illegal immigrants had risen to 7 million, from 3.5 million in 1990.

To understand the inherent and willful contradictions in the laws that govern workers and their legal status, consider this: The
Social Security Administration is able to identify companies that routinely employ large numbers of workers using fake numbers. But, by law,
Social Security is forbidden from forwarding the names of those companies to
Homeland Security. That law could be changed in a heartbeat, but Congress hasn’t done it.

Congress could also appropriate money for a nationwide computer system that would allow all employers to get instant verification of a worker’s Social Security number and then require all employers to use it. If Bloomingdale’s can give me approval for a credit card in three minutes — while I’m still trying samples at the perfume counter — then the feds can create a system for instantaneous verification. Congress hasn’t set aside money for that, either.

That’s because it doesn’t want to solve the problem. Your political leaders like to rant about the broken immigration system, but they have no intention of fixing it.
(Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Republicans feel they are paying too much for immigrant labor. Better to have it for free: slave labor. Halliburton $385,000,000 to build “prison camps” for civilian labor. Unclassified Army document: Civilian Inmate Labor Program. http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r210_35.pdf

SLAVE LABOR. Arbeit Macht Frei.

The slaves, sorry, workers that are not needed will be deported, “100% of them.” “Detention and Removal Strategic Plan: ENDGAME
http://www.ice.gov/graphics/dro/endgame.pdf

“ripeness” is indeed a legal term. It comes into play in the prohibition against courts issuing advisory opinions, which means that there has to be an actual “case in controversy” before a court will hear a case.

The ripeness doctrine can also effect standing to bring a case. In these circumstances I questions whether the pardon recipients even had standing to make a pardon application.

Pardons usually come at the end of a long formal process, similar to the defense’s presentation under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The applicant offers all sorts of proof of hardship, rehabilitation, whatever the basis of the application may be.

The Office of the Pardon Counsel (acting in a role similar to the US Dept. of Probation) issues a report on the application doing a legal and factual analysis of the reasons for and against granting the pardon.

I don’remember, but both the Nixon and the Weinberger pardons may have “sui sponte”. That is an action taken without anyone asking for it.

The thing I question, is whether a person not yet convicted of a crime has standing to request or recieve a pardon?

I have no idea what the answer might be. It would make a nice moot court topic.

Pat at #167–

they’re already talking about how much undocumenteds “cost†the US, and are appealing to Americans’ resentment that this is money that should go to “our†children and our seniors and our poor people. But the sad fact is that it has never been the presence of undocumented individuals that has prevented us from properly caring for those who do not have the means to do it themselves, or from fully funding education, or from doing a host of other things that would help those in need.

So, as I said, I don’t believe for a minute that if you sent every single undocumented worker back to his or her home country, that one, there would be anything approaching the vast savings that are being hyped, and two, that any savings in social programs would end up being spent there – those budgets would be cut, and another tax cut would materialize to further line the already filled-to-overflowing pockets of the wealthy.

looseheadprop #172

My understanding of the word “pardon” is limited beyond belief, but it is defined in law (this is the dictionary here) as, “the exemption of a CONVICTED person from the penalties of an ofense or crime…”

Whether the pardon is requested or not would seem irrelevant.

Regardless, thanks for taking the time to s’plain it to me.

Question -

Anyone heard any believeable estimates on the attendance at the DC Rally Today? I am watching C-span, streaming. I can’t seem to get a visual estimate. I know they expected 100k, but it sounds bigger, somehow.

Blow out the lamp beside the golden door,
We don’t need cheap foreign labor anymore,
Without the unions and the ERA
We will have twice the jobs at half the pay.
–Si Kahn, “Government on Horseback”

He wrote that song about Reagan, but it’s far more true about Dubya.

You can listen to Si perform the song here.

Vyan – just curious: since the U.S. has become so reviled under Bush, do you really think that “Al Qaedaâ€, with its myriad unrelated cells, is the only foreign element that wishes us harm, and is ingenious enough to figure a way into our unprotected borders?

Well, al Qaeda has indeed metastisized (sp), into a multi-headed dragon and certainly we’re always at risk from crazed nutballs – but my general feeling is the same. Bin Laden likes to stage large multi-target attacks and that requires long-term planning and logistics. In response we need to reform the legal immigration process and remove the quotas. The benefits of this is several fold, first honest people will naturally prefer to use the legal process rather than try and risk their lives to cross the desert if such a risk isn’t neccesary — then only those people who have something to hide – criminals – will be trying to dodge the border patrol, and their numbers will greatly decrease making the resources needed at the border in line with what we already have.

There might be some al Qaeda wannabees or simpathesers who hate the U.S. who might take a run on the border – but if they aren’t hidden within a crowd of relatively honest, but desperate people – they’ll be easier to catch.

Second, this will allow us to refocus our energy on screening for Hardline and well-trained al Qaeda who won’t try and run the border IMO. Instead they will try to send through customs freshy recruited members without any criminal records or known terrorist links, who are highly educated and are coming from countries (such as Europe or Africa) where we have a high visa quota and little scrutiny. This is why most of the 9/11 hijackers were from the Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emerites – both of whom are supposedly our allies. They didn’t come directly from Afghanistan, and did everything they could to hide the fact that they might have been to that region for insurgent/terrorist training. Again, we simply need to have thorough screening and good follow-up on anyone who overstays their visa – like Zacharias Moussaoui, who immigrated legally and was arrested for overstaying his visa.

We have to do look at what has worked for us – good screening, accurate updates to the TIPOFF and No-Fly list – and keep doing it. We don’t need to demonize undocumented workers and associate them with al Qaeda or bin laden without cause.

Vyan

I think the real reason for the illegal alien bashing is to deflect public blame for the bad economy from Bush, et al., and shift it to Hispanics.

Given the large problem (esp. outside the southwest) of most people assuming all Latinos are immigrants, and that those who speak English poorly are illegal, it may well work.

Which gives the Grand Old Party a set of talking points to beat the Democratic side of the house with.

TK

When the ILLEGAL immigration problem gets as bad in the north and east then you will understand the situation we are laboring under here in Texas. The solution is to prosecute the employers who hire these people for slave wages. Dry the job market up and there will be no need to deport people.Please don’t tell they do jobs Americans won’t do as that in itself is a racist outlook. They drive the wages down so that Americans cannot afford to take the job unless of course you are comfortable sharing a 2 bedroom apartment with 20 other people. Would you reward a person for breaking into your home? Then why would you reward someone who breaks into your country?

Saying “they do jobs Americans won’t do” presumes that if all the illegals were not doing those jobs, they would not get done. The tomatoes would rot in the fields, the dishes would never get washed, no apartment complexes would be built. Absurd. Americans will do those jobs if they are paid a living wage. Congress has the power to raise the number of legal work visas to — whatever level they choose. This situation is allowed to continue as it is for one reason only–a source of cheap labor. If the jobs vanish, not many illegals will have to be deported. They will leave on their own accord at their own expense. If there is no work, they will not come and those who come won’t stay long.

Since when the fuck has cosmopolitan statelessness been such a muthafucking crime…oh wait.

” If you seek peace; if you seek prosperity for the United State’s AND South America. If you seek liberalization… Senor Bush – TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! “

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith, becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American.”

“There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room but for one flag, the American flag. And this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all war against liberty and civilization just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile.”‘

“We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
~ Theodore Roosevelt

Ok I haven’t even begun to read the comments due to two whole days of attending the Strawberry Festival in Ponchatoula! http://www.lastrawberryfestival.com/

So if this is old I am sorry!

I thought about 11 million people being rounded up and my next thought was those prison Haliburton got the contracts for. The ones where they are going to have slave labor just like China! Sorry no link but many here have linked before.

Some where in the last week or so I heard the suggestion that prisoners be used to “pick vegetables” and other menial jobs.

Bunch of new prisoners that work hard = shiny new slave labor + possible brand new American manufacturing sector

I am not a conspiracy theorist but this is not much of a strech for this group considering what they have done to habeous.

Sorry if it is old. I just popped on for a minute before cooking!

I’m all for nationalizing the illegal immigrants if it means they will begin to pay into the system. And don’t tell me that many of them already do, because they, for the most part, don’t. There’s loopholes that allow legal immigrants to claim dependents back in their home country, in effect making them the sole breadwinner for 9, 10, 13, 15 family members. So they don’t have to pay taxes, they instead get it all back (and then some!) to send across the border to family on the other side. In the meanwhile schools are overpopulated and falling apart, yet there aren’t any new taxpayers to help support the school system because Pedro apparently has another 12 children across the Rio Grande.

The company my wife works for hires legal immigrants (the largest legal immigrant employer in Portland!) and it amazes me that not just some but ALL of the immigrants employees claim many, many dependents who are still in Mexico. And they don’t have to pay taxes. Their myriad of children flood the schools, but they don’t pay a dime into the system.

Lastly (yes, I saved the national pride bordering on racist comments till the end), I have NEVER seen a Mexican waving a USA flag until today’s protests. I have seen plenty of Mexican flags sported on their cars, their homes, and their hats, but I have never until today seen a Mexican claim to be a proud American. So when I see it being waved above their heads today all I can think is, “Hypocrites”.

On immigration.
Is this a progressive or a wingnut site? Please let me know asap. Your piece on immigration sounds wing nut to me. … What is your right wing nut problem here?

Many hipper-than-thou liberal blogs are bending over rightwards and backwards on issues like immigration, unions, Israel, CIA heroine-worship, TERRRRRRORRRRRRRRR, ETC.

They are starting to sound like liberal Liebermans.

I have seen a real rightward drift by many so-called A list bloggers. It was inevitable

There’s been a tendency to conflate criminality with terrorism and security issues, visible in a number of posts on this thread, and then a conflation of all of that with the desire of many millions of immigrants, with and without papers, to come to America and succeed.

Christy said that it was a “tough call” on the immigration bills because of the security issues, possiblity of terrorist infiltration and so on, and I felt she was conflating those issues with those of the hundreds of thousands or millions who were marching all over the country today and who promise a General Strike on May 1, to protest the disgusting racism and contempt and criminalization of immigrants and those who help them in the Sensenbrenner bill.

As has been pointed out repeatedly here and elsewhere, all the terrorists we know about in this country have been either native born or immigrated legally not illegally, and the likelihood is that if any bad guys wanted to come to this country to set up some nefarious terrorist cell, they would most certainly do so legally, just like the Atta cell.

On the other hand, it is very simple right now for criminals of many kinds to slip back and forth across the border (north or south) with nary a second glance from INS. I submit that is an entirely different issue than the security issue vis a vis terrorists and it does us no good to continue to conflate them. Better control of the borders and better enforcement of existing immigration legislation (which is hardly even being discussed at this point) would probably be sufficient to deal with the issues of criminals skipping over the borders. But that’s not what’s happening.

The fact of the matter is that the Patriot Act is being used to prosecute or deport gang members, drug couriers, petty thieves, you name it, as well as being used to put away an unknown number of people accused of such things. In addition, police forces all over the country are conflating dissent, protest, petty crime, more significant crime with terrorism — throwing it all together — and it is wrong.

The millions who are marching and protesting now are protesting the Sensenbrenner bill. They are not protesting reasonable controls on immigration. Those controls may or may not require addional legislation, but they certainly require better enforcement of existing legislation, as well as clear instruction to law enforcement agencies not to conflate immigration violations with terrorism.
The only legislative action passed thus far is the Sensenbrenner Brown Person Criminalization Bill, and if you aren’t out in the streets protesting it, too, I want to know the reason why.

It is not a tough call.

Oh, wow! The overseas vote will decide it! I forgot there was an election today…

La Repubblica is reporting that the center-left won the lower house by 26,000 votes.

OH NO! Illegal Immigrants are killing America!

Its a War on Native Americans, er… wait.

Its a War on Working Americans. YAH! That’s the ticket!

Look the Mexicans are Invading!! LOOK LOOK OVERTHERE!! AN ATTACK!! BE AFRAID!

The Bush Administration must be laughing its ass off how EASY it is to distract this country.