If you haven’t read it yet, please see Ed Morrissey’s post on chasing the pipe dream - sensible answers offered reasonably by a gentleman. Well done.
I said something similar to his final remarks, in my update, here.
Big Lizards - saying there are of course legitimate complaints about the bill, also puts all the questions through their paces
May 18th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Thank you that is great. I think it is important that we all get the facts
I am reading Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Tony Snow that has just been posted. This is disturbing but I have seen this before
[quote]HH: If there is no mention of who’s going to do the background checks, and how they’re going to pay for it, given the overwhelming burden that these agencies already face, and their inability to cope with the laws that already exist…
TS: Get Chertoff on, because Chertoff’s the guy who’s done all the…
HH: We have tried to get Michael Chertoff. Again, the administration will not engage with its critics, Tony Snow.
TS: Oh, are you kidding me?
HH: You’re the only one.
TS: [b]Are you kidding me? He got turned down on three shows yesterday, today, because they didn’t want to hear from him. I’ll work it for you, okay?[/b]
HH: I appreciate it.
TS: I’ll work it for you.[/quote]
I am willing bet dollars to donuts this is the conservative media. This is where we have come too. Conservative media offered the promise of giving us the facts. Now it appears it is nothing but a entertainment machine aimed at a certain segment that just tells it what it wants to hear. I saw the same thing during the Dubai Terminal lease deal. I would love to know what three shows turned him down. I thought this was about getting the facts out
jh
Louisiana
May 19th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Yep.
My thanks as well.
I’ve been beating the drum along the same lines. Even now, with legislation finally squeezed, massaged and negotiated through both houses of Congress, I still hear a chorus of shock-jocks railing about tossing out “criminal immigrants.”
As one of those employers targeted for a “crackdown” I can report that it’s hard enough running a business without wearing the uniform of a policeman as well. Thirty-five years in a labor-intensive marketplace gives one a bad case of eye-rolling in response to those arguments.
May 19th, 2007 at 10:17 am
I live in an area where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a “Now Hiring” sign. I have nothing against people coming in legally and taking these jobs.
My concern is that, more than anything else, the people coming across the border are coming for government handouts, not gainful employment. Give them legitimacy, give them the right to vote, and they will vote in those who will expand the welfare state.
I have no answers. The illegals will win, and their quality of life will improve. Children of current citizens will be forced to pay to support them, to the detriment of their own quality of life.
Conservatism is doomed, and socialism will triumph.
May 19th, 2007 at 10:26 am
The issue is inertwined with that of good faith on the part of the congress and the executive; many of us don’t see it. There Morrisey is right; no matter what the bill says, it lies.
Understandably, I hope, this puts us in a cranky mood.
May 19th, 2007 at 11:21 am
JH- I listen to a lot of talk radio, and I don’t know one of them who would refuse to talk to Chertoff. Conservative media has been getting the facts out for a long time on illegal immigration. Heck, they are the only ones who will call it illegal immigration. There is much more to this statement than can be found in this selected quote.
May 19th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
I refresh my browser, click on the tab for The Anchoress, and instead of a brown background I see a sort of marble-looking background! Hmmm! Then as it loads I see what appears to be an image by John William Waterhouse! Wow! A new look?
Well!
Right now, though, the entire right sidebar is squished over and covering half the senter space.
The look is fun! Exciting! Medieval!
Can you adjust the right sidebar?
May 19th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Gotta say, I like the look of the new layout. Pretty image, and a bit easier to read, as well.
May 19th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Very, very nice new layout.
Thanks also for another great piece on this Immigration bill.
May 20th, 2007 at 10:37 am
tyree
As to conservative media I am largely going off my experiences from the Dubai Terminal lease deal. Sean Hannity had a few people on o support the administration side but he largely stacked the guest to those that opposed especially in the ned. FOr instance we didn’t hear from Seans good friend JOhn McCain as he calls him on that issue.
Look at immigration How come 9 guest out ten taht are Republcian on FOX news or conservative radio during the past year have all been the hardliners like Tancredo. I have rarely seen Sen Brownback, Sen Grahmn, or Sen Martinez or Rep Canoon or many others on to discuss their views.
May 20th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Dear Miss A.,
Ed offers a coherent expectation of what will happen if we do NOT change our methodology. I read in the newspaper last year, however, that over 22,000 people were using 1 certain social security number. If the President’s head of the social security office were to send out the following letter to 21,999 employers,, all the problems he notes would disappear:
Dear Mr. CEO of Jones Roofing, Inc.
Either you or one of your employees are using a duplicate SS# and thereby committing felony fraud. If its not you; then, I suggest you notify your local state police office, who have been authorized by Executive Order #ABC to detain said felon pending his pickup by the FBI or ICE. Unless, of course, he can prove he really is Mary Jo Kopechne.
Regards,
President Bush’s Appointee
I expect such a letter would be immediately followed by an exmigration back to Mexico in short order, once word got around we had detained the first few hundred thousand felons and were busily convicting them and sentencing them to several year long penitentiary terms.
I do taxes in the spring. I work in the poorest section of Lexington by
choice. I could make more money elsewhere; but, I feel those people
need me. My average client is a 29 year old single black woman with 3
kids. She earned $11,500 last year and worked for 3 different
companies. The reason she works so many jobs is everytime one of her kids
gets sick, she gets fired. She only makes about $6.50 to $7.50 an hour
and will probably never move up the responsibility chain, because she
doesn’t stay at any one job long enough.
When I moved to Kentucky from Mississippi in 1992, every fast food joint
in Lexington had a sign on the window saying “Help Wanted- $6.50 an
hour.” You notice the pay hasn’t gone up despite 15 years of
inflation. The reason it hasn’t is because there are 15 Mexicans
standing in line for every non-technical job. If inflation alone had
raised her salary, my client would be making $10-12 an hour now and she
wouldn’t get fired everytime she has to miss work without a days notice
to take her kid to the doctor.
The Mexicans are killing the under class in the US. This is the reason
we need to close up the border and run all the Mexicans out. Can’t do
it? Too many of them? Well, Mexico certainly did it, we can’t equal
what Mexico has already done? Somewhere along the line don’t you
think we need to protect our economically weakest citizens before we try
to enrich everyone else?
Somewhere in there shouldn’t we be taking care of our own first?
Regards,
Sarah
May 21st, 2007 at 1:17 am
Anchoress:
Sorry that my first time to try to post here is to disagree with you.
A little background is necessary here. I am a native-born American. My wife is a legal immigrant from Africa (you would not know it from media coverage, but some immigrants are actually here legally). We were married in her home country while I was a missionary teacher there.
The application process for my wife’s visa and then her permanent resident card was a nightmare of bureaucratic bungling, unnecessary delay, staggering financial cost (in application fees and lawyer expenses) and flat-out lying by government officials we had to deal with. The USCIS (the government agency charged with immigration) gets our vote for the worst-run government entity in America. You have to experience it for yourself to believe it. It took the direct personal intervention of two different Members of Congress (one of whom had to directly contact the US Ambassador in my wife’s home country) to straighten out the mess.
I find it flatly impossible to believe that the massive incompetence in USCIS will be fixed by the bill the Senate is currently considering. If spending gobs of taxpayer money was able to buy competence, we would have the most efficient and smoothest-running government in history.
Here is what I predict will happen if the bill passes. A small percentage of illegals will actually apply for the new permits (the majority will wait on the sidelines, hoping for a better deal after the 2008 elections). Since USCIS cannot handle the relatively modest flow of legal immigrants currently in the system, I predict that an additional 1-2 million more will cause the system to buckle. Then the USCIS will simply start rubber-stamping applications in order to satisfy political pressures to “get the system moving”.
The alleged putative measures like a fine, sending illegals home to apply through regular channels, a time-limit on how long you can stay in the US once the permit is granted – just wait until our imperial judiciary gets a hold of these parts of the law. They will be overturned faster than you can say “habeas corpus”.
And improved security? Well, we might see another mile or two of border fence get built. Maybe.
It’s hard to read the proposed bill and not feel like a fool. Like millions of other immigrants my wife and I obeyed the law. Will this bill refund our application fees and lawyer expenses? Will it restore the many sleepless nights and anxious days we spent fighting the bureaucracy in pursuit of my wife’s immigration papers?
Our immigration system is badly damaged. But passing a bill like this makes as much sense as shooting a pedestrian who has just been hit by a car. “Doing something” might actually be a worse idea than doing nothing.
May 21st, 2007 at 8:25 am
What does it matter?
They could theoretically make the perfect solution to the issue. But if the lawmakers are unwilling to enforce the laws that are on the books now, what makes you think they’ll enforce the new laws?
This has been an issue since before the Regan administration! It should be obvious by now they they’re not going to ship out illegal immigrants. For any reason. Ever.
The only impact any of you will have with your debates is if you decide to take a direct hand in the matter.
May 21st, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Captain Ed…
. . . on why the current immigration bill represents progress, even if it doesn’t offer perfection: “It rewards illegal behavior; the penalty for illegal entry should be deportation.” There are 12 million illegals in the US. Let me explain……