Immigration issues

[Crafty_Dog]

"We understand the notions of both ethnic pride and hyphenated Americanism, but many of us are still bewildered about contradictory impulses: the emotional need to display Mexican decals on cars and hang Mexican flags on houses and businesses — or boo an American team at a soccer match — coupled with equally heated expressions of outrage that anyone might suggest that those who broke American law in coming to the United States would ever have to return where their hearts would “always be.” That paradox is the most disturbing — and ignored — aspect of the immigration debate: the contradictory impulse to fault the United States for a litany of sins (exploitation, racism, xenophobia, nativism) without commensurate attention to why any newcomer would wish to reside in a place that is so clearly culpable. Has anyone ever heard an immigration activist, as part of his argument for amnesty, explain why so many Mexicans do not like living in Mexico and must leave their homeland, or, alternatively, why the United States is such an attractive alternative that it demands such existential risks to reach it? How strange that most of the elites who resent ideas like the melting pot and assimilation are often those who most successfully have abandoned the protocols of the way life is lived in Mexico."

[DougMacG]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/350034/fact-based-immigration-discussion-thomas-sowell

 A Fact-Based Immigration Discussion
We shouldn’t base immigration policy on abstract notions about abstract people.
By Thomas Sowell

One of the many sad signs of our times is the way current immigration issues are discussed. A hundred years ago, immigration controversies were discussed in the context of innumerable facts about particular immigrant groups. Many of those facts were published in a huge, multi-volume 1911 study by a commission headed by Senator William P. Dillingham.

That and other studies of the time presented hard data on such things as which groups’ children were doing well in school and which were not, which groups had high crime rates or high rates of alcoholism, and which groups were over-represented among people living on the dole.

Such data and such differences still exist today. Immigrants from some countries are seldom on welfare, but immigrants from other countries often are. Immigrants from some countries are typically people with high levels of education and skills, while immigrants from other countries seldom have much schooling or skills.

Nevertheless, many of our current discussions of immigration issues focus on immigrants in general, as if they were abstract people in an abstract world. But the concrete differences among immigrants from different countries affect whether their coming here is good or bad for the American people.

The very thought of formulating immigration laws from the standpoint of what is best for the American people seems to have been forgotten by many who focus on how to solve the problems of illegal immigrants “living in the shadows.”

A recent column in the Wall Street Journal titled “What Would Milton Friedman Say?” tried to derive what the late Professor Friedman “would no doubt regard as the ideal outcome” as far as immigration laws are concerned.

Although I was once a student of Professor Friedman, I would never presume to speak for him. However, I will point out that he was a man with the rare combination of genius and common sense, and he published much empirical work in addition to the analytical work that won him a Nobel Prize. In short, concrete facts mattered to him.

It is hard to imagine Milton Friedman looking for “the ideal outcome” on immigration in the abstract. More than once he said, “The best is the enemy of the good,” which to me meant that attempts to achieve an unattainable ideal can prevent us from reaching good outcomes that are possible in practice.

Too much of our current immigration controversy is conducted in terms of abstract ideals, such as “We are a nation of immigrants.” Of course we are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of people who wear shoes. Does it follow that we should admit anybody who wears shoes?

The immigrants of today are very different in many ways from those who arrived here a hundred years ago. Moreover, the society in which they arrive is different. The Wall Street Journal column ends by quoting another economist who said, “Better to build a wall around the welfare state than the country.”

But the welfare state is already here — and, far from having a wall built around it, the welfare state is expanding in all directions by leaps and bounds. We do not have a choice between the welfare state and open borders. Anything we try to do regarding immigration laws has to be done in the context of a huge welfare state that is already a major, inescapable fact of life.

Among other facts of life utterly ignored by many advocates of de facto amnesty is that the free international movement of people is different from free international trade in goods.

Buying cars or cameras from other countries is not the same as admitting people from those countries. Unlike inanimate objects, people have cultures, and not all cultures are compatible with the culture in this country, which has produced so many benefits for the American people for so long.

Not only the United States, but the Western world in general, has been discovering the hard way that admitting people with incompatible cultures is an irreversible decision with incalculable consequences. If we do not see that after recent terrorist attacks on the streets of Boston and London, when will we see it?

“Comprehensive immigration reform” means doing everything all together in a rush, without time to look before we leap, and basing our policies on abstract notions about abstract people.

[DougMacG]

Cruz: 'No Choice But to Oppose' Gang of Eight Legislation    June 4, 2013

Ted Cruz (R., Texas) joined three Republican Senators on Monday in strongly denouncing the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill. In a letter to colleagues, Cruz, along with Senators Mike Lee (R., Utah), Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), and Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), wrote that the proposed legislation would “leave our borders unsecure and our immigration system deeply dysfunctional.”

The letter contains a detailed explaination of amendments offered during the bill’s markup in the Judiciary Committee that the senators argue would have significantly improved the legislation, but were rejected, as well as a number of amendments that were adopted, but simpy “exacerbated” the “already serious flaws” with the existing bill.

The letter criticizes the Gang of Eight directly, and the “deal” struck by its members to ensure that “the core provisions of the bill remain the same,” arguing that the legislation, like Obamacare, was “negotiated behind closed doors with special interests.”

The senators list the following reasons for their decision to oppose the bill:

    It provides immediate legalization without securing the border.
    It rewards criminal aliens, absconders, and deportees, and undermines law enforcement.
    It contains extremely dangerous national-security loopholes.
    It facilitates fraud in our immigraiton system.
    It creates no real penalties for illegal immigrants and rewards them with entitlements.
    It delays for years the implementation of E-Verify.
    It does not fix our legal-immigration system.
    It advanced through a process predicated on a deal struck before markup.
    It rewards those who have broken our laws by offering a special path to citizenship.

The senators stress that they do not oppose the concept of immigration reform; they just cannot support the Gang’s proposal. ”We need immigration reform, but the American people deserve better than a 1,000-page bill that makes our immigration system more complex and less accountable without truly ensuring border security,” they write. “[The proposed bill] fails to deliver anything more than the same empty promises Washington has been making for 30 years.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/350117/cruz-no-choice-oppose-gang-eight-legislation-andrew-stiles

Link to the letter:
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=342980

[ccp]

Senator Cruz was on Levin basically stating the proposed sell out bill gives Napolitano discretion on enforcement which means essentially no enforcement and a sell out to Democrats.   Even Black groups are against it.  They realize it hurts their workers.

[DougMacG]

The bill should have been amended to address most of these objections.  Now all we have is a bill that has no chance in the House, little chance in the Senate, wouldn't solve the problem if passed, and keeps the issue on the table for the Democrats.  I hope Rubio votes against it and joins a different gang.

[Crafty_Dog]

You mean the Reps got outplayed , , , AGAIN?!?  Who would have thought this could happen?   

For me a shrewer compromise would be legal status with no hope of citizenship and no bootstrapping of relatives into the US.

[ccp]

Check mate.  We lose. 

Rove and the other establishment Republicans to spend 100K promoting the immigration bill from the 8.   More or less, if it is not approved Obama will simply grant amesty.
Rubio reported to speak to Latinos saying we need immigration "reform" first then we secure the border.  That's it folks.  All of here legally citizen or not have just been sold out.

Done deal:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/karl-rove-backed-crossroads-gps-runs-pro-immigration-145420109.html

[ccp]

I can understand Michele Obama's "I am not proud of my county" comment.   As a taxpaying citizen who tries to be honest and play by the rules I feel like my rights are unendingly trampled. 

[DougMacG]

$100,000 is not very much money in politics or national advertising.  The Obama campaign just spent something approaching a billion on reelection. That is not a very impressive endorsement list IMHO.  Someone has been running radio ads promoting a conservative pro-immigration agenda on conservative radio, Americans for a Conservative Direction.  Wouldn't you know they are actually liberals who are paying for the message to divide conservatives:  http://www.alipac.us/f12/mark-levin-exposes-liberal-front-group-americans-conservative-direction-277982/  Maybe I will start the group, Liberals calling on Obama and Biden to step down and go away or Liberals for a low, across the board, flat tax.

The current Senate Republican reform strategy of Rubio and others is to vote for the bad bill, shift the focus to a Republican bill in the House and hope to fix it in conference.  I think the House will pass a pretty good bill.  Can anyone imagine Schumer, Durbin and Harry Reid caving in conference?  The issue ends somewhere near it started with nothing passed and both sides saying the other is blocking the road to reform.  The point from the beginning was simply that is a slightly better visual for the election than refusing to deal with it at all.

In the 2014 elections, not in Washington but in places like Montana where the Max Baucus open seat will be contested, we will find out what the people think.

[ccp]

And to put this in perspective this is only Mexicans.  Include people from Central and South America, Caribbean, Africa, Asia....

Aren't there reports of 50K illegal Irish in NY?

It really is simple.  Stop people from hiring them.  They will stop coming.  Is that in the 1000 page bill?

http://www.vdare.com/posts/pew-survey-of-mexico-40-million-more-mexicans-want-to-immigrate-to-us

[ccp]

My second post on this thread today.   I am an Ann Coulter fan again.  This is the best piece I have read of hers.  I
couldn't agree more.

My thoughts first:

1)  Republican party is run by fools.  Rove has got to go.  The Bushes are done.  Great Americans I like them all but H gave us Clinton and W gave us even worse.

2)  The Latino vote after Reagan's pardon went DOWN!  So why will it work now.  It won't.   Most are low wage and like most low wage workers Anglo or not they will vote for the party of government checks.

3)  Polls show Latinos are more interested in jobs - not more competition.  The very same argument I make to Blacks.  Why the hell are Blacks voting for a party that wants to open the more borders for foreigners to compete with them and drive down wages?  

4)  I think Republicans should start making these points.  Do we really want to flood the job market with more workers particularly low wage?  Overflow our schools systems even more?

5)  Get rid of this guy Rove - make Caddell chief if he will convert to our party.  Where did this guy Rove come from anyway and why does he seem to have so much influence.  Fox dumped Morris after his wrong call on the election yet we see Rove being asked about his opinion every time I turn on the tube.  OK he got a guy who couldn't string two sentences together President twice.  Good job.  What have you done lately?

*****Ann Coulter - June 12, 2013 - IF THE GOP IS THIS STUPID, IT DESERVES TO DIE
Home My Life Book a Speech Links Forum Follow Me on Twitter Archives  
IF THE GOP IS THIS STUPID, IT DESERVES TO DIE

June 12, 2013
 
Democrats terrify Hispanics into thinking they'll be lynched if they vote for Republicans, and then turn around and taunt Republicans for not winning a majority of the Hispanic vote.

 This line of attack has real resonance with our stupidest Republicans. (Proposed Republican primary targets: Sens. Kelly Ayotte, Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio.) Which explains why Republicans are devoting all their energy to slightly increasing their share of the Hispanic vote while alienating everyone else in America.

 It must be fun for liberals to manipulate Republicans into focusing on hopeless causes. Why don't Democrats waste their time trying to win the votes of gun owners?

 As journalist Steve Sailer recently pointed out, the Hispanic vote terrifying Republicans isn't that big. It actually declined in 2012. The Census Bureau finally released the real voter turnout numbers from the last election, and the Hispanic vote came in at only 8.4 percent of the electorate -- not the 10 percent claimed by the pro-amnesty crowd.

 The sleeping giant of the last election wasn't Hispanics; it was elderly black women, terrified of media claims that Republicans were trying to suppress the black vote and determined to keep the first African-American president in the White House.

 Contrary to everyone's expectations, 10 percent more blacks voted in 2012 compared to 2008, even beating white voters, the usual turnout champions. Eligible black voters turned out at rate of 66.2 percent, compared to 64.1 percent of eligible white voters. Only 48 percent of all eligible Hispanic voters went to the polls.

 No one saw this coming, which is probably why Gallup had Romney up by 5 points before Hurricane Sandy hit, and up by 1 point in its last pre-election poll after the hurricane.
 Only two groups voted in larger numbers in 2012 compared to 2008: blacks aged 45-64, and blacks over the age of 65 -- mostly elderly black women.

 In raw numbers, nearly twice as many blacks voted as Hispanics, and nine times as many whites voted as Hispanics. (Ninety-eight million whites, 18 million blacks and 11 million Hispanics.)

So, naturally, the Republican Party's entire battle plan going forward is to win slightly more votes from 8.4 percent of the electorate by giving them something they don't want.

 As Byron York has shown, even if Mitt Romney had won 70 percent of the Hispanic vote, he still would have lost. No Republican presidential candidate in at least 50 years has won even half of the Hispanic vote.

 In the presidential election immediately after Reagan signed an amnesty bill in 1986, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote actually declined from 37 percent to 30 percent -- and that was in a landslide election for the GOP. Combined, the two Bush presidents averaged 32.5 percent of the Hispanic vote -- and they have Hispanics in their family Christmas cards.

 John McCain, the nation's leading amnesty proponent, won only 31 percent of the Hispanic vote, not much more than anti-amnesty Romney's 27 percent.
 Amnesty is a gift to employers, not employees.

 The (pro-amnesty) Pew Research Hispanic Center has produced poll after poll showing that Hispanics don't care about amnesty. In a poll last fall, Hispanic voters said they cared more about education, jobs and health care than immigration. They even care more about the federal budget deficit than immigration! (To put that in perspective, the next item on their list of concerns was "scratchy towels.")

 Also, note that Pew asked about "immigration," not "amnesty." Those Hispanics who said they cared about immigration might care about it the way I care about it -- by supporting a fence and E-Verify.

 Who convinced Republicans that Hispanic wages aren't low enough and what they really need is an influx of low-wage workers competing for their jobs?

 Maybe the greedy businessmen now running the Republican Party should talk with their Hispanic maids sometime. Ask Juanita if she'd like to have seven new immigrants competing with her for the opportunity to clean other people's houses, so that her wages can be dropped from $20 an hour to $10 an hour.

 A wise Latina, A.J. Delgado, recently explained on Mediaite.com why amnesty won't win Republicans the Hispanic vote -- even if they get credit for it. Her very first argument was: "Latinos will resent the added competition for jobs."

 But rich businessmen don't care. Big Republican donors -- and their campaign consultants -- just want to make money. They don't care about Hispanics, and they certainly don't care what happens to the country. If the country is hurt, I don't care, as long as I am doing better! This is the very definition of treason.

 Hispanic voters are a small portion of the electorate. They don't want amnesty, and they're hopeless Democrats. So Republicans have decided the path to victory is to flood the country with lots more of them!

 It's as if Republicans convinced Democrats to fixate on banning birth control to win more pro-life voters. This would be great for Republicans because Democrats will never win a majority of pro-life voters, and about as many pro-lifers care about birth control as Hispanics care about amnesty.

 But that still wouldn't be as idiotic as what Republicans are doing because, according to Gallup, pro-lifers are nearly half of the electorate. Hispanics are only 8.4 percent of the electorate.

 And it still wouldn't be as stupid as the GOP pushing amnesty, because banning birth control wouldn't create millions more voters who consistently vote against the Democrats.

 Listening to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus burble a few weeks ago on "Fox News Sunday" about how amnesty is going to push the Republicans to new electoral heights, one is reminded of Democratic pollster Pat Caddell's reason for refusing to become a Republican: No matter how enraged he gets at Democratic corruption, he says he can't bear to join such a stupid party as the GOP.

 COPYRIGHT 2013 ANN COULTER
 DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106; 816-581-7500*****

  

[DougMacG]

Coulter makes good points, especially the one CCP points out, that amnesty last time did not increase vote share for Republicans and does not work for McCain. Other factors abound, but a very strong point.  That said, the choice isn't court Hispanic versus court blacks who went 98% for Obama.  It is more like, IMHO, do what is right and start messaging better to all of them.

Coulter and others, Mirengoff at Powerline who has become obsessed with ripping Marco Rubio, are great dividers.  Yet the work of writing a good bill where the gang of 8 failed still remains.  The House needs to write a good bill and let the Obama and Harry Reid be the obstructors.  Take some of what gang of 8 came up with like a 14 year delay with no federal benefits and then cut out the BS and add border security, real border security.  Answer the family ties question too, where the numbers seem to jump from 11 to 40 million.  If half the 11 million take the pathway, work and don't take federal benefits (or state), we are in good shape as a country.  If a third world country floods us, we are not.

Let a good bill from the House live or die on the obstruction or cooperation of Democrats, then move on with Hispanics and talk about empowering an entrepreneur economy and educate people on how economic freedom is world's only successful welfare system.

A successful Republican Presidential candidate in 2016 needs to gain ground in ALL these groups and will need to point how he was both fair and tough on immigration to both sides of the debate.  To the extent that Rubio is wrong on details, I am not seeing the critics step forward with better plans, just do more of the same and expect a better result.
---
An earlier point was stop the hiring and they will stop coming.  My clarification would be to stop the compensation for not working and they will stop coming for the wrong reasons. 

[DougMacG]

Thomas Sowell addresses a question brought up here regarding hiring and immigration.  My view, mentioned often, is that our worker 'shortage' is completely intertwined with the reality that we pay more than 100 million not to work.

Regarding getting tough on employers, simply require employers to inform the government who they are hiring along with copies of whatever documents one is required to present.  Law enforcement is government's job.  With notification of hiring, they will know where to find them.  A similar question comes to landlords.  Am I supposed to rent to illegals or discriminate against them and risk a far greater penalty from government?  What I know is that I am not qualified to discern the difference between legal and false documents and should not and cannot ask Hispanics for documents that I don't require of Scandinavian-Americans.
-----
Economics vs. 'Need'

By Thomas Sowell - June 11, 2013

One of the most common arguments for allowing more immigration is that there is a "need" for foreign workers to do "jobs that Americans won't do," especially in agriculture.

One of my most vivid memories of the late Armen Alchian, an internationally renowned economist at UCLA, involved a lunch at which one of the younger members of the economics department got up to go get some more coffee. Being a considerate sort, the young man asked, "Does anyone else need more coffee?"

"Need?" Alchian said loudly, in a cutting tone that clearly conveyed his dismay and disgust at hearing an economist using such a word.

A recent editorial on immigration in the Wall Street Journal brought back the memory of Alchian's response, when I read the editorial's statement about "the needs of an industry in which labor shortages can run as high as 20 percent" -- namely agriculture.

Although "need" is a word often used in politics and in the media, from an economic standpoint there is no such thing as an objective and quantifiable "need."

You might think that we all obviously need food to live. But however urgent it may be to have some food, nevertheless beyond some point food becomes not only unnecessary but even counterproductive and dangerous. Widespread obesity among Americans shows that many have already gone too far with food.

This is not just a matter of semantics, but of economics. In the real world, employers compete for workers, just as they compete for customers for their output. And workers go where there is more demand for them, as expressed by what employers offer to pay.

Farmers may wish for more farm workers, just as any of us may wish for anything we would like to have. But that is wholly different from thinking that some third party should define what we desire as a "need," much less expect government policy to meet that "need."

In a market economy, when farmers are seeking more farm workers, the most obvious way to get them is to raise the wage rate until they attract enough people away from alternative occupations -- or from unemployment.

With the higher labor costs that this would entail, the number of workers that farmers "need" would undoubtedly be less than what it would have been if there were more workers available at lower wage rates, such as immigrants from Mexico.

It is no doubt more convenient and profitable to the farmers to import workers at lower pay than to pay American workers more. But bringing in more immigrants is not without costs to other Americans, including both financial costs in a welfare state and social costs, of which increased crime rates are just one.

Some advocates of increased immigration have raised the specter of higher food prices without foreign farm workers. But the price that farmers receive for their produce is usually a fraction of what the consumers pay at the supermarket. And what the farmers pay the farm workers is a fraction of what the farmer gets for the produce.

In other words, even if labor costs doubled, the rise in prices at the supermarket might be barely noticeable.

What are called "jobs that Americans will not do" are in fact jobs at which not enough Americans will work at the current wage rate that some employers are offering. This is not an uncommon situation. That is why labor "shortages" lead to higher wage rates. A "shortage" is no more quantifiable than a "need," when you ignore prices, which are crucial in a market economy. To discuss "need" and "shortage" while ignoring prices -- in this case, wages -- is especially remarkable in a usually market-savvy publication like the Wall Street Journal.

Often shortages have been predicted in various occupations -- and yet never materialized. Why? Because the pay in those occupations rose, causing more people to go into those occupations and causing employers to reduce how many people they "need" at the higher pay rates.

Virtually every kind of "work that Americans will not do" is in fact work that Americans have done for generations. In many cases, most of the people doing that work today are Americans. And there are certainly many unemployed Americans available today, without bringing in more foreign workers to meet farmers' "needs."

 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/11/economics_vs_need_118758.html#ixzz2W6Dn03Zj

[ccp]

The 40 million is a number from surveys done of Mexicans who would like to come to the US.

Do we know how many from other countries would like to come here?   

I agree not to bash Rubio.  I don't agree with not bashing Rove who seems to have the power to run things HIS way or the highway.  He is the guy who doesn't listen. 

As for the Bushes they are misguided.  They don't get we are in a ideological battle for the future of this country.  They play they are so high minded and nice and compromising.  Yet the Dems don't paly that way and they are slowly winning the battle.   The Bush philosophy is a losing philosophy.  So is Rove's it seems to me.

As for asking employers to as for an ID card before hiring someone doesn't seem like too much to ask.  If an employer makes a reasonable effort to check ID that should be enough.  He/SHe can't be blamed for being presented a false ID.

Doug do you let anyone rent from you without their name, maybe previous address, or their employer?

The government cannot do it alone when we are talking millions and millions of people here illegally.  (Even if they wanted to;  which they don't).

As for those already here and entrenched - ok hey can stay - but no family members being allowed in after them.  They can never be citizens for breaking the law the second they walked in over the boarder.

As for the children there is really only one choice.  They stay and are citizens.  They were born here. 

Now we can put this bill on a single page or two and burn in effigy the present 1000 page boondoggle of a bill with all sorts or payoffs hidden in it somewhere.   And so confusing so only armies of lawyers can figure it out and the politicians don't even know what's in it.  Let alone us.

[ccp]

With regards to verifying who people are doctors offices do it all the time.   Usually they ask for insurance card and SSN.  I absolutely do not agree that it is our business what a person's SSN is.  I really don't know how that got started and seems to have become a standard. 

With the HIPPA laws being so strict about privacy it is probably reasonable we ask for some ID to ensure a person is who they say they are.

The 50%??? of us who pay taxes and work and who hire knowingly illegals for our gardens, our maids, our Kentucky Fried Chickens, our farms, our nannies.  We are just as much to blame as the those who go on the dole.   

Maybe some of all the above would be avoided if...

If government would simply make a simple and fair and lower across the board tax system, freaking simply enforce law already on the books and make them simpler and easier for everyone to understand maybe some of the stealing, the cheating, the graft, the skimming, the bribery, etc.  Maybe just SOME of it would go away. 

Does anyone follow what I am saying?  And I don't mean that in a confrontational way.  I am not sure if I am expressing my ideology my thoughts very well.

I would like a leader who wants a free and fair society with simple ethical and legal and clear cut boundaries.  One in which people are not encourage to cheat , those who do are held accountable (including the 1%).

The private sector cannot be allowed to run rampant or we get robber barons.  But government cannot operate on its own or we get tyranny.

Neither the left or the right seem to have the right balance.  NOR does the misguided middle which is all about "compromise".

There is another path.  Another way to get there.  The Tea Party is closer to it, but not completely. 

[DougMacG]

CCP, good stuff. 

The status quo combines complex laws with almost no enforcement.  That and negotiating with weasels makes finding a solution next to impossible.

"we can put this bill on a single page or two and burn in effigy the present 1000 page boondoggle of a bill with all sorts or payoffs hidden in it"

When it started looking like Obamacare, I knew they had it wrong.  All those pages and it doesn't include guaranteed border security?  Back to the drawing board.  Don't pretend you will negotiate better later after giving up all leverage.

"Doug do you let anyone rent from you without their name, maybe previous address, or their employer?"

If 50% don't work, isn't asking where you work discriminatory?    By law, unlike the government, I have to treat everyone equally so I try to get a consistent and thorough amount of information from each person.  We ask for a 5 year history of where they have lived and worked, or other information to back up who they are and verify income.  I look to see if the landlord reference actually owns the property.  (Unlike state voting law that requires nothing.)  The worst people come in without putting their names on the application or lease. Then, laws that make eviction nearly impossible make enforcement of the lease nearly impossible too.  In the case of non-citizens, will the same government who approves and pays non-citizens public assistance back me up when I deny them housing?  I don't think so.  Non-citizens easily get drivers licenses in MN, by either disclosing their status or by simply checking the citizen box and getting it on their license.

"The 40 million is a number from surveys done of Mexicans who would like to come to the US."

40 million is also within the range of what some predict is the total that would get in under reform, mostly by way of the friends and family plan.  Reform must include a closing of that opening, starting perhaps with an amendment to clarify  that no rights are created just by giving birth while visiting.  If most of your family is in, uh, Canada, let's say, and uniting your family is the top priority, then go home and be with your family.  If you left your family by choice then so be it.  We didn't split your family and we don't owe you more tickets.

[ccp]

"Non-citizens easily get drivers licenses in MN, by either disclosing their status or by simply checking the citizen box and getting it on their license."

What a joke!  On us.

"If most of your family is in, uh, Canada, let's say, and uniting your family is the top priority, then go home and be with your family"

Exactly.  People come here and have babies ok the baby is a citizen by having been born here but the parents never will be.   Ok you can stay with your baby in this country but you will never have the privileges of citizenship and never be eligible for any government benefits.  No one is forcing you to stay and no one forced you to come here. 

I can hear it now - oh but your only hurting the children.  What about the country we are leaving to our children and those who came here legally. 

We don't even have leaders who are standing up to this.  Only those who are appeasing. 

BTW, what is this gay marriage amendment doing in an immigration bill?  I want this abuse of us to stop. 

[Crafty_Dog]

America's Assimilating Hispanics
The evidence shows they are following the path of earlier immigrants.



As immigration reform moves through Congress, one claim by opponents is that this time immigration is different because the country's latest arrivals aren't assimilating. On the contrary, however, the evidence overwhelmingly shows that today's immigrants are acculturating and moving up the economic ladder like previous generations.

The media's tendency to report "averages" in educational attainment, English-language skills, income and other traditional measures of assimilation can make it difficult to determine whether immigrants are making gains. Since Latino immigration continues, averaging together the poverty rates or homeownership levels of large numbers of people who arrived recently with those who have been here for decades can provide a skewed view of progress.

Measuring assimilation properly requires following the same immigrants over generations. And the good news is that longitudinal studies that take this approach show that Latino immigrants have made gains similar to other groups who preceded them.

Consider the claim that Hispanic immigrants are rejecting English in favor of a separate Spanish-speaking culture. Census data from 2005 show that only one-third of immigrants in the country for less than a decade speak English well, but that number climbs to nearly three-quarters for those here for 30 years or more.

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Getty Images

A 2007 Pew study of 14,000 Latino adults showed that while just 23% of immigrants report being able to speak English very well, "fully 88% of their U.S.-born adult children report that they speak English very well. Among later generations of Hispanic adults, the figure rises to 94%."

All of this follows the traditional three-generation model of linguistic assimilation that characterized European immigrants in the last century. Typically, English is the dominant language of the second generation, and by the fourth generation fewer than a quarter can still speak the immigrant tongue.

Educational progress among Latino immigrants is also evident, and it too fits a pattern shown by previous ethnic newcomers. Nearly half (47%) of foreign-born Hispanics lack a high-school diploma, but that number falls to 17% among their offspring. And 21% of second-generation Hispanics are college graduates, compared with 11% of foreign-born Hispanics residing in the U.S.
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Latino immigrants who have been in the U.S. for three decades or more are also more likely than recent arrivals to own a home, live in a family with an income above the federal poverty line and marry outside of their ethnic group—all common measures of assimilation. According to 2012 Census data, the median household income for second-generation Hispanics is $48,400, versus $34,600 for Hispanic immigrants and $58,200 for all groups.

A Pew report from February on Hispanic and Asian immigrants—who comprise about 70% of foreign born adults in the U.S.—found that the second generation of both groups is more likely than immigrants to have friends outside of their ethnic or racial group, to say their group gets along well with others and to think of themselves as a "typical American." Pew also noted that "second-generation Hispanics and Asians place more importance than does the general public on hard work and career success."

Like many Mexicans today, Italian immigrants who came in large numbers in the late 1800s and early 1900s valued work over education. Italy had one of the highest illiteracy rates in Europe at the time—62% in 1871—and illiteracy was especially pronounced in southern Italy, where most Italian-Americans trace their ancestry. In 1910, just 31% of Italian immigrants aged 14 to 18 were enrolled in school, compared to 48% of the Irish and 56% of the Jews. Today, Italian-Americans exceed national averages in educational attainment and income.

Fears that the newest arrivals are overrunning America and changing it for the worse have a long pedigree. "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs," wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1751.

Big Ben wasn't paranoid, but he was living with a flood of German immigrants into Philadelphia. Street signs were printed in German, and German-language newspapers proliferated. In 18th-century America, you could travel from Pennsylvania to Georgia and speak only German.

It's true that many on the left promote a separate Hispanic identity, but their impact is small compared to the great assimilating maelstrom of American culture and economic life. The stultifying attractions of the welfare state are also a barrier to upward mobility, but that is best addressed with reforms, not by limiting immigration. Despite fears and much bad data, immigrants continue to be the American asset they have always been.

[G M]

The key thing being LEGAL immigrants.

[Crafty_Dog]

Umm yes, there is that isn't there? 

That said, I thought the piece added points of merit to our search for Truth.