A Few More Thoughts on Illegal Immigration

I knew it! A Rasmussen poll published today echoes my previous blog (I swear I wrote the blog last night, even though I didn't post it until this afternoon!) suggesting that real progress could be made on immigration reform if we focus on enforcement first. According to this poll, only 20% of Americans want the immigration bill that failed in the Senate last week. However, 51% would like legislators to "take smaller steps towards reform". Even more important is the fact that a whopping 69% would like to see an approach that focuses "exclusively on securing the border and reducing illegal immigration". Very telling!

Another dirty little secret: One dirty little secret that you don't hear much in the mainstream media is that quite a few lawmakers and business people actually don't want to "fix" illegal immigration, especially the porous border problem. That's partly why there is such resistance to the wishes of a clear majority of the American people on this. Why? Follow the progression:
- illegal workers become legal workers
- newly-legalized workers demand higher pay now that they're legal
- many newly-legalized workers join unions (who are suffering from major shortages in participation and dues), who demand further wage increases and additional benefits
- many newly-legalized workers will vote in large numbers for whoever gives them the biggest increases and handouts
- businesses still want cheap labor, but the newly-legalized workers are now too expensive, so they go back to hiring illegals (a whole new set that has just arrived to fill the new vacuum of low-skill, low-wage jobs)

It's exactly what happened after the 1986 amnesty, and we can plainly see that it's a never-ending cycle that won't go away until the flow of incoming illegals is stopped at the source. That's why any real reform has to start with border security.

Besides, if low-skill, low-educated, low-wage workers are truly a requirement for our prosperous American society, wouldn't that hold true for other countries around the world? And if that holds true, shouldn't Mexico (and other 3rd-world countries) be pretty much a land of paradise? And yet, they still keep coming here...hm...

Here's proof: Judicial Watch posted a story today about a raid by immigration officials in Portland, Oregon where over 165 illegals were arrested. Get this: "At least 90 employees had fraudulent Social Security cards and many used the real Social Securities of juveniles, the elderly and the deceased. Others had fake green, or residency, cards and at least three are convicted felons who had been previously deported." Remember what I said in my first blog about identity theft? Here's a perfect example. But wait, there's more: Tom Potter, the Mayor of Portland, was outraged. Not at the illegals, not at the business that had hired them, and not even at the rampant identity theft. No, Mr. Potter "was outraged by the immigration raid, saying that it is bad policy for federal officials to go after local workers who are in his city", calling them "Portland residents". Thank you, Mr. Potter, for illustrating the liberal mindset beautifully.

But it gets even worse: Michelle Malkin writes a story in Jewish World Review describing how the legal system is abused by illegal aliens and their attorneys. She recounts how four men -- a child molester, two killers and a racketeer, all of whom had previously been found guilty, lost numerous appeals, and ordered deported -- just won a federal case in New York allowing them to stay in the US. She uses this story to illustrate a growing problem of our representatives in Congress (from both sides of the aisle) pushing special legislation through to provide "private relief" from deportation. As much as Kennedy and other open-borders proponents gripe about due process being violated in these circumstances, both the illegals and their lawyers know how to game the system in their favor. As Malkin says, "it ain't over 'til the alien wins".

These are outrageous actions, and any representative who does this should be voted out of office in the next election! Want to know who's doing it? Follow the instructions here to find the bills in question, then look to see who introduced the bill. See anyone who 'represents' you?

There's my two cents.