Guest Post! The Power Of Words: “Illegal Immigrant”
| September 5th, 2007[This is a guest post, reprinted with Carmen’s permission from the blog All About Race. Thanks, Carmen.]
In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court ruled that people of African ancestry were not, and could never become, citizens of the United States of America. The Dred Scott decision asserted that blacks were property. And because no state or federal government could take a citizen’s property away from him, this decision meant that any slave who managed to escape to a “free state” would be hunted down and returned to bondage and his or her “owner.” This decision enraged many of the most vocal abolitionists and politicians in the North and was an important precursor of Abraham Lincoln’s election to President.
But still, even among those who philosophically opposed slavery, I imagine dinner conversations sounding something like this:
“That Dred Scott decision is appalling.”
“Yes, it’s simply awful.”
“But, you know, those Negroes who just up and run away? I mean, they are breaking the law.”
“Yes, and our country cannot tolerate law breakers.”
“Just to think, what if everybody just went about doing whatever they wanted to do?”
“The whole Union would collapse into chaos.”
“Absolutely!”
The issue of immigration in America is cause for this kind of conversation now. Many well meaning and good natured people are not critically examining what it means that the media uniformly and incessantly blares the term “illegal immigrant” as if the people who risk physical harm to get to America to work, are only that. The media would have you believe that these are not the same people America has welcomed to come to build and clean our houses, harvest, prepare and serve our food, and raise our children.
In the South, the American Civil War was termed “the War of Northern Aggression.” During the 1960’s, those who made the trip south to support Southern grassroots movements in their protests for an end to Jim Crow and racial terrorism, were called “agitators.” Now, it is all so clear. But, as the events of America’s Civil Rights movement unfolded, many decent people, with hearts in the “right” place, felt “Negroes are pushing too hard, for too much. These things take time.”
I support strong and secure borders, period. And with that, I believe that if we as a nation welcome people to come and clean our houses, harvest, prepare and serve our food, and raise our children, then I believe we must provide a path for those people to become full citizens of the United States sharing all of the rights and responsibilities that citizenship entails.
There was a time in America when it was illegal to gather and discuss independence from England. There was a time in America when it was illegal for an American of African descent to vote or own property or drink from certain water fountains. There was a time in America when it was illegal for Americans of Japanese descent to live in their homes. Instead, Japanese Americans were legally evicted from their homes and moved to internment camps.
So, I have a question for you. When you say “illegal immigrant,” other than relating a fact of American citizenship status, what are you saying? What do you want me to know about the people you describe in this way?
September 5th, 2007 at 6:53 am
A tangentially related article. You know that claim that if there were no undocumented immigrants to work the fields unemployed Americans would just take over the jobs? Well…(from the linked article) “‘The bottom line,’ Mr. Levy said, ‘is that most unemployed workers are not available to replace fired, unauthorized immigrant workers,’ in part because very few of the unemployed are in farm work.” Apparently not.
This comment was written by Dianne.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 7:02 am
Do you think that you should be able to move to, say, Mexico, or Switzerland, and just take up citizenship, or work, and ignore the border guards on the way in, and refuse to leave because you have a “right” to be there because you felt like moving to that other country?
In other words, do you think everyone has an inherent right to live anywhere on the planet they please, ignoring any laws that might keep you out of any particular country?
This comment was written by Disgusted Beyond Belief.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 7:16 am
DBB, I think Amp covered that under the second bolded section above.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Do you think that you should be able to move to, say, Mexico, or Switzerland, and just take up citizenship, or work, and ignore the border guards on the way in, and refuse to leave because you have a “right” to be there because you felt like moving to that other country?
Why not? Why should people live in one place or another because of an accident of birth? (Actually, I do have an answer to the question “why not”, but I’m curious to see what yours is.)
This comment was written by Dianne.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 7:54 am
In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court ruled that people of African ancestry were not, and could never become, citizens of the United States of America.
…
The issue of immigration in America is cause for this kind of conversation now.
Straw man. Slavery is appalling and immoral and illegal in and of itself. Slaves were not “illegal immigrants”. Illegal aliens are not slaves. They are not brought into the United States unwillingly and with the use of force. They are not forced to labor against their will. They are not kept in the United States against their will. This is an entirely false analogy.
Many well meaning and good natured people are not critically examining what it means that the media uniformly and incessantly blares the term “illegal immigrant”
And many others have. The conclusion that they have reached is that the MSM uniformly uses the term “illegal immigrant” as a blanket term to cover all people who have snuck across our borders in order to promote a particular political agenda. That agenda being to try to influence the American public to see these people as “immigrants” instead of criminals and to favor granting U.S. citizenship as a reward to a group of people who have shown that they will put their own self interests above the law.
“Illegal immigrant” is not a term that demonizes illegal aliens. It’s a term that favors them. It’s a term that tries to protect them from facing the consequences of their actions.
as if the people who risk physical harm to get to America to work, are only that. The media would have you believe that these are not the same people America has welcomed to come to build and clean our houses, harvest, prepare and serve our food, and raise our children.
Welcomed them? I haven’t welcomed them. Who has welcomed them? The employers who use them to undercut the wages they’d have to pay American citizens to work an honest job welcome them. The rest of us don’t. We’d much rather see Americans harvesting crops and preparing and serving our food in restaurants. But most Americans are like me. They don’t prepare and serve my food at home. They don’t clean my house. They don’t raise my children. And it’s my guess that the number of people whose houses they clean and whose children they raise are a very small proportion of the American public; those who are wealthy enough to afford it. Favoring the interests of the wealthy class who can afford to hire servants and stay in hotels and eat out a lot over those of the average American is certainly a new position for this blog.
When you say “illegal immigrant,” other than relating a fact of American citizenship status, what are you saying? What do you want me to know about the people you describe in this way?
I’m saying that I’m ignorant of the fact that a great many of these people are not immigrants; they don’t come here to become citizens and integrate into American culture, they are only here to make money and go home when the season is over. I’m saying that I don’t realize that at least 1/3 of all illegal aliens are unemployed. I’m saying that I either have or am ignorant of the political agenda that is advanced by using a term that describes a subset of the people that this debate is all about, instead of using the term that describes all of them and the term that is actually used in the U.S. Code.
[rant]
I too favor secure borders. But I also reject rewarding criminal behavior with American citizenship. For one thing, it’s an outrage. For another thing, it will simply encourage more criminal behavior - you get what you pay for. One way to secure the borders is to use physical and technological barriers, increase the number of personnel monitoring them, and give them greater power to act. But the other way is to increase (not decrease) the penalties for breaking the laws.
New laws are not needed for this; what’s needed is the will to enforce existing laws. Ironically, the most effective way to do this is be to go after American citizens; the ones that are employing illegal aliens. This could be the CEO of the company that owns the meat packing plant in Iowa filled with illegal aliens (and that is now filled with American citizens after ICE raided the place; it turns out that Americans DO want those jobs). This could be the guy who lives next door to me. I say “could be” because I don’t know the citizenship status of the crew that mows his lawn and cleans the leaves off his yard (in part by blowing them onto mine, but that’s a separate issue …). Throw some CEO’s ass in jail and you’ll see the illegal alien problem dwindle quickly. We won’t have to deport them; they’ll leave, because they won’t be able to get jobs.
We tried solving this problem in 1986 by passing a set of laws that included amnesty and enforcement provisions. The amnesty provisions were gleefully taken advantage of. The enforcement provisions were suppressed by the wealthy interests that profited by doing so. Now we see people such as Sen. Ted Kennedy, who promised that amnesty would never be proposed again, propose amnesty. But this year the American public let their legislators know that they remember this, and that they absolutely do not trust them to do anything different if they get their hands on the laws again. The laws don’t need reforming; they need to be enforced.
[ rant ]
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Myca, I don’t see how Amp addressed DBB’s comment. Could you explain?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 8:10 am
I support strong and secure borders, period. And with that, I believe that if we as a nation welcome people to come and clean our houses, harvest, prepare and serve our food, and raise our children, then I believe we must provide a path for those people to become full citizens of the United States sharing all of the rights and responsibilities that citizenship entails.
We have such a path. It’s called “applying for a visa and coming here through the legal path like most of the other 300 million of us”.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 8:36 am
I don’t get what you’re saying here. (I also don’t get what on earth physical risk has to do with it, or why you’d mention it in this context. I can only assume it’s a sympathy plea, but it seems like a red herring in this sentence)
Obviously an illegal immigrant isn’t “only” an illegal immigrant; they’re also a man/woman/child, each with their own individual status. But if the discussion is about illegal immigration and if we need to distinguish between illegal immigrants and other people, then their immigration status is often the most relevant descriptor.
This is perfectly normal. All prolifers are individuals, too, but I refer only to their prolife status when discussing them, as a group, in an abortion debate. Don’t you?
So you’re giving a choice: Either stop “welcoming” them to work, or start allowing them to become citizens. Either kick them out, or open all the closed doors.
That’s an interesting proposition. How would you feel if we as a country elected the “well, let’s not welcome them; let’s kick them out instead” option?
Also, it seems apparent to me that the “strength and security” of a border is a different thing from the decision process for who goes through it. We can have a very strong border but make a decision to admit everyone with a Mexican passport and nobody with a Swiss passport; the strength and security are measured by how well we meet the goals we have set for admission.
However, you seem to be using “strong and secure borders” to mean a certain type of due process, quid pro quo, or other aspect of the DECISION. Do you think your use matches common usage, especially in the immigration debate? Or are you trying to “reclaim” the phrase for the pro-illegal-immigrant camp?
I’m saying that they are someone who, for whatever reason, decided to violate the law and come into the U.S. without permission. What else would you expect someone would want you to know?
It’s really not about American citizenship status. The vast majority of the planet are citizens of somewhere other than the U.S.; only a tiny fraction of those are also illegal immigrants into the U.S. (there are other countries into which people immigrate illegally, of course.)
It’s about citizenship status combined with where they are (in the U.S.) and how they got there (illegally).
Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with immigration. Immigration is a good thing. We need citizens; we (in some industries) need workers and taxpayers; etc etc.
But my guarded support for immigration is contingent on the U.S. getting to choose who immigrates. Assuming that not everyone will get in, that means there is some selection process.
It might be economic; it might be intelligence, or education, or physical health; it might be work skills, or languages; or connection to the U.S., or avowed interest in assimilation; or agreement to serve in the U.S. armed forces… But given any group of meaningful size, there will ALWAYS be the “top picks” and the “bottom picks.”
I’m all for letting the top picks in, whoever they may be. And I”m all for keeping the bottom feeders out, whoever they may be. Illegal immigration destroys our ability to choose the top picks, and substitutes luck, willingness to get caught, funds to pay a coyote, etc. That’s not a good thing. That’s not what we should be doing.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 8:52 am
I strongly challenge the idea that the only viable alternatives are to either kick illegal aliens out or offer them citizenship. Here’s another:
If an illegal alien has a criminal record outside of immgration and employment violations that includes anything other than the equivalent of a parking ticket, deport them.
If an illegal alien has been unemployed or on welfare for ‘x’ amount of time, deport them.
If an illegal alien has a good employment record and has no criminal record outside of immigration and employment violations, grant them permanent resident status. They get to stay in the U.S., obtain a legal Social Security number and work, own property, operate a business, etc., etc. They do NOT get to vote. They do not get to serve on juries. They are NOT citizens, and can be deported if they engage in crime, etc. Their children DO become citizens if born on U.S. soil.
American citizenship must never be the reward of criminal acts.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 9:02 am
RonF,
American citizenship must never be the reward of criminal acts.
Of course, the criminal act to which you are referring is entering or staying in the US. A horrible, horrible crime.
But why not stop making coming to or staying in the US illegal? Why not allow anybody who passes a criminal background check to legally live and work in the US? Why not allow any of those who pass the background check and don’t get a criminal record (over some defined period of time) once they’re here to become citizens?
Why are you not suggesting making it legal for all who pass a criminal background check to live and work in the US? That would allow anybody who fits your criteria to become a US citizen resulting in a net gain (hoorah!) for the US?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Why not allow anybody who passes a criminal background check to legally live and work in the US?
Because the number of people who would immigrate would be larger than the number of new citizens we wish to accept.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 9:23 am
I’ve probably told this story before, but my grandmother was an illegal alien. She got a quota visa from France in 1939. (Like a lot of other Jews, she’d fled to France after the Nazis took over her country.) But at the time, the U.S. barred immigrants who had had T.B., which included her. She would probably have been killed unless she got out of France, so she lied and claimed never to have had T.B. She deliberately broke the law and perjured herself, and she could have been arrested, stripped of her citizenship and deported. Like other illegal European immigrants, she was amnestied sometime in the ’50s, and she was a peaceful and law-abiding citizen until she the day she died. I had a friend in high school whose father was very fond of holding up my grandmother as an example of a “good immigrant” who could be contrasted with those more-recent “bad immigrants” from Asia and Latin America. Little did he know that she was once one of those nasty “illegals.”
I think that the kind of moral absolutes that Robert and RonF deal in are luxuries of the very, very privileged. I’m pretty sure that they’d break the law, too, if their children were hungry and if they couldn’t see how breaking the law was going to hurt anyone. It’s just that they can’t imagine ever being in that kind of situation. They can condemn “looters” in New Orleans, because they have SUVs and know they’ll never be stuck in a flooded city with no food or clean water. They can laugh at Mexican women who die from back alley abortions, because they know they’ll never be poor and pregnant in a country where abortion is illegal. People who sanctify “the law” are generally people who feel confident that the law will always favor their interests.
I think that’s unlikely to happen, because too many powerful people benefit from illegal immigration. But I also think it would be really difficult to get rid of all illegal immigrants without resorting to measures that would violate the rights and civil liberties of a lot of legal immigrants and American citizens. If you prosecute landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, illegal immigrants will just get fraudulent documents. And if landlords aren’t confident that they can detect fraudulent documents, then they’re just going to discriminate against anyone with an accent. It’s illegal, but funnily enough legal residents of the U.S. also sometimes violate the law when their interests are at stake. I don’t think it’s possible to kick out all illegal immigrants without violating fundamental American principles of justice and equality that I hope we all agree are vital to preserve.
And since there is no way to get rid of illegal immigrants, I think we’re better off giving them a path to citizenship. It’s not healthy for a society to have large numbers of permanently disenfranchised people. It violates the entire social contract theory on which the modern state is premised. People are more likely to follow laws if they have a say in making them. They’re more likely to respect a society if they feel that they’re permitted to participate in it fully. Unless there’s a realistic way to get rid of illegal immigrants, it just seems a lot more sensible, from a strictly pragmatic standpoint, to allow them to participate fully in American society, rather than to render them permanent outsiders.
This comment was written by Sally.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 9:28 am
I’m an American citizen. My residency permit to live in the Netherlands expired 5 days ago. Which means I’m not allowed to apply for a student visa to study in england next year (except by returning to the US, which I don’t have time before before the term starts). Which means that I’ll be entering England very shortly on a tourist visa, even though I intend to study.
Which means that of I, a music student, play a gig while studying at my British University, I’m taking away an opportunity from a British citizen and am undermining their economy.
Wow, clearly all sorts of bad things should happen to me. The Dutch or the British should deport me ASAP. Maybe after putting me in jail.
Cuz I didn’t just get caught in a snafu partly stemming from semesters in different countries starting at different times. No, I am an ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT and a threat to humanity.
Y’all should try living abroad for a while.
This comment was written by Les.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I still can’t get exactly what some people are suggesting.
Is the goal open borders, for everyone? i.e. should we let every single person who wants to come to the U.S. and who wants to become a citizen, do so, no matter what? Because as soon as the answer is no–even just a little bit “no,” we’re going to have a class of people who we don’t want to be here, but who will do their best to get here.
I can see debating where the line should be; who should get in, and who should not. But the rhetoric from the pro-illegal-immigration folks sometimes seems to suggest that there should be completely open borders. In other words, no line at all.
Which is it? Are the pro-illegal-immigrant people debating the size of current assignments to the class of “illegal immigrants”, or are they debating the existence of the class? Those are two entirely different conversations to be having.
Oh, and Les: Certainly you’re not assuming that anyone who doesn’t share your position lacks your personal expert knowledge? That would be silly. I’ve lived abroad and worked, for example–using a legal work visa–when I worked in Europe. I’ve also lived abroad (as a tourist) a variety of places and declined work because I didn’t have a visa. It’s not that hard, really.
Should you be deported? I’ll leave that to you. You’re rich enough to go to school in Europe; I don’t feel much sympathy if you try to make a few bucks playing in London without permission.
And I don’t believe your “nobody gets hurt” claim. There is not room for an infinite number of musicians in any band, and if you assume there’s always room for you (and that you’d never, ever, exclude someone who has more of a right to be there) that’s just your self interest talking. It’s a bit like taking one of eight handicapped spaces, and assuming that no more than seven people will need them while you’re in the store.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Because the number of people who would immigrate would be larger than the number of new citizens we wish to accept.
1) Yes, but in the context of RonF’s preferred program (which is what I was addressing), the only difference is whether or not people would be citizens. RonF’s entire problem is that they broke the law (the law prohibiting them from being here) and therefore they shouldn’t be allowed to become citizens.
2) Yes, but is that really true? I hear a lot of “Americans aren’t having enough babies” from the same group that is against unlimited immigration. I don’t hear a lot of “we need to up the number of immigrants” from that group. Therefore, I suspect that there is a strong component of racism in the anti-immigration contingent.
If that’s really a concern (and the number of illegal immigrants is over that unspecified number), why aren’t we enforcing the existing laws? I suspect that there are a number of reasons. Those reasons would include the desire of businesses to be able to pay sub-minimum wages without fear of prosecution as well as the fact that we haven’t reached that vague “too many people” threshold. If that second guess, in particular, is true, then I think that your statement isn’t the real reason.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 9:59 am
The post itself isn’t by me; it’s by Carmen, of “All About Race.” (This comment is by me.)
I don’t have time to really contribute to this discussion right now, but I can’t resist responding to bad statistics. Ron wrote:
Following the link, I don’t find any figure given for unemployment, so Ron must have calculated unemployment from the other statistics available at that link The problem is, I don’t think Ron knows the correct way to calculate unemployment.
According to the .pdf file Ron links to, “The number of unauthorized migrants living in the United States has continued to increase steadily for several years, reaching an estimated 11.1 million based on the March 2005. … About 7.2 million unauthorized migrants were employed in March 2005, accounting for about 4.9% of the civilian labor force….”
Since 7.2 is 65% of 11.1, my guess is that this (or something very much like this this) is how Ron is getting his “1/3″ figure.
So what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong is, the figure of 11.1 million includes 1.8 million children, as well as many other people who aren’t in the labor force (such as stay-at-home mothers who are supported by their husbands and aren’t looking for work), and so shouldn’t be included in any calculation of unemployment.
Correctly calculated, the unemployment rate among immigrants is less than 5% — currently, immigrants are actually less likely than the rest of us to be unemployed. That figure includes both unauthorized and authorized immigrants, but there’s no reason to believe that unauthorized immigrants — who generally come to the US to work — are more likely to be unemployed than other immigrants.
By the way, let’s calculate the total US employment rate the same way I’m pretty sure Ron calculated his “1/3″ unemployment figure: Total US population is 303 million, while the total number of employed Americans is 146 million. So although “at least 1/3 of all illegal aliens are unemployed,” according to Ron’s definition, by the same definition 52% of all Americans are “unemployed. ”
So even if we calculate unemployment the way Ron did, unauthorized immigrants are significantly more likely to be working than the rest of the population.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Which is it? Are the pro-illegal-immigrant people debating the size of current assignments to the class of “illegal immigrants”, or are they debating the existence of the class? Those are two entirely different conversations to be having.
I really think that those two parts of the same conversation. The goal (or, perhaps, ideal) is to have completely open borders. But that’s never going to be achieved in one step, so it’s important to make clear why the current system is both illogical and unfair. Maybe we’ll never have completely open borders, but the ideal shouldn’t prohibit us from clarifying the discriminatory or illogical or unhealthy aspects of current policy. In fact, the ideal may be useful in attempts at clarifying the problems with immigration policy even if one doesn’t have open borders as their ultimate goal.
Because as soon as the answer is no–even just a little bit “no,” we’re going to have a class of people who we don’t want to be here, but who will do their best to get here.
This actually leads to a very interesting discussion of morals and ethics. For example, should we prohibit non-citizen criminals from entering the country while not deporting citizen criminals and stripping them of citizenship? Why is one less desirable than the other? What crimes should disqualify one from citizenship? Is merely breaking any law in the country of origin reason enough (as RonF seems to suggest)? Even if we in the US find the law broken to be abhorrent? Is it ethical to create an underclass of people by use of selective immigration laws and enforcement?
I’m not sure that this conversation can happen here, but I certainly think it is one worth having.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Are you sure that conversation can’t happen here? Because that is one damn interesting conversation to be having ;) and you seem like an interesting person to have it with.
That said, we’re clearly moving away from the intent (race) of the original post. So to avoid derailing, I have created a link to this post on my blog and anyone who wants to join in is invited to continue the discussion over there.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 10:47 am
The reason that I think that conversation can’t happen here is that it would require heavy moderation. If you want a good discussion of ethics and morals, you need to moderate out those who are adamant about their opinion being absolutely correct. You need to moderate out those who are more interested in winning a debate than having an in depth discussion about moral and ethical codes and the inevitable conflicts between what is ethically good and what realistically can be achieved.
Alas, for all the things that it is, is not heavily moderated.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I’m sick of this “I didn’t invite them” crap.
“I” didn’t want to wage a stupid, wasteful, ill-considered and poorly planned war in the Middle East, but America sure is doing that.
I don’t want to prosecute sex workers. But my town, county and state do that.
I don’t want to rape women, but my culture does that.
I didn’t want to hold millions of people in chattel slavery, kidnap them from their homes, ship them in deadly conditions across an ocean, and force them on pain of death to provide uncompensated agricultural labor to support an economy of cash crops. But America sure did that.
It’s more than a little silly to stand there, like my preschooler, with arms folded and refuse to deal with the consequences of what we did because “I wasn’t for it.”
We did what we did.
We have, tacitly by our policies, allowed employers to use undocumented immigrants as a cheap and easily intimidated workforce for decades. We’ve basically waived enforcement of immigration laws, in my view. Now that people have acted in reliance, uprooting their lives for economic opportunity based on our willingness to ignore enforcement in deference to the labor needs of American companies (whether I was for it or not), we have to deal with the situation as it stands. We have a bunch of people here that crossed the border illegally to work, when it was generally understood that crossing the border illegally was FUCKING TURNSTYLE JUMPING. Now some nativist zealots with either populist/nativist delusions of rising wages or simply a racist bone to pick want to treat border crossing like it was armed robbery.
And they say, when it was turnstyle jumping, “I didn’t welcome them.”
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
The Dred Scott comparison is a very interesting one. In general, I follow your point, but I have to offer that there is indeed a group of people in the country who are here illegally. Now, there are two ways we can deal with them, the humane and the strict-interpretation-of-the-law way. For arguing for the humane, I support you.
This comment was written by david.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Of course, the criminal act to which you are referring is entering or staying in the US. A horrible, horrible crime.
Do not presume to put words in my mouth. That’s the first crime. I don’t know if you are an American citizen or not. If so, shame on you for distorting the facts to fit your narrative. If you are not an American citizen, here’s what the crimes are.
1) Entering the United States without permission, or
1a) Entering the United States with permission and then violating the terms under which you were admitted.
This consumes extra tax money that has to be allocated to enforce the laws that are meant to prevent this. Every taxpayer is a victim of this crime. It also victimizes the people who followed the legal process to enter the United States.
Then:
If you do not obtain employment and are not being supported by someone else:
2) Obtaining public assistance that you are not entitled to via fraudulent means, cheating the taxpayer and reducing the amount of money available to people who actually are eligible for it.
2a) Committing whatever crimes are necessary to support yourself outside of either public assistance or honest employment.
If you do obtain employment
2) Obtaining a false Social Security number. When the illegal alien’s income is reported under that number, the real holder is prosecuted by the Internal Revenue Service for not reporting income, threatened with jail time and huge fines. Their credit rating is destroyed. The onus is on the victim to prove that they didn’t earn the money and store it where the IRS can’t see it, it’s not up to the IRS to prove that it was the victim and not someone else who actually had the income. The IRS is legendary for it’s lack of compassion and understanding. This causes huge problems and consumes a lot of time and money on the part of the victim of this crime that there is no way to recover.
3) Obtaining a false Drivers License (even if you don’t drive, it’s pretty much a universal ID in the United States, you have to show it to cash a check and for other reasons), and then committing fraud each and every time you use it.
4) Obtaining employment through fraudulent means (you have to be a citizen or a legal resident with the proper visa to legally hold a job), cheating the person who was legally eligible to apply for and hold that job.
Even if the illegal alien is employed, unless they have a high-enough income job that their taxes are more than the cost of the governmental programs they use (which is a lot less likely for illegal aliens than for citizens), there’s their and their dependents use of various public resources (governmental aid, health care, education) that they are not legally entitled to and that reduces the availability of those resources for citizens and legal residents.
Every day that an illegal alien wakes up, they’ve committed crimes before they go to bed.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Amp, I’ll grant your point regarding my use of the word “unemployed”. While it is technically correct, I agree that it was a poor choice as it could be confused with the word as it is used in the context of governmental unemployment figures. Consider my meaning to be “not employed” or “not working”.
As far as the proportions of people not working in the American public goes, that’s different. They are citizens. They have a right to be here. The obligations they have to the rest of the country and that the country has to them is much different than the obligations that the country has to people that snuck in here illegally.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I think this is a good idea. I’m all for open borders: anybody who wants to come can come and anybody who wants to leave can leave, but you cannot have open borders and a massive welfare state of the type that progressives are proposing. If you have open borders and a welfare state you are inviting in millions of people who will be a net drain on the system ( because many will be low-skilled and lack advanced education) and eventually bankrupt the welfare state.
As far as the idiom “illegal immigrant” goes, when I say that I mean exactly that–immigrants who come here illegally.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I think that the kind of moral absolutes that Robert and RonF deal in are luxuries of the very, very privileged.
How convenient of you to make presumptions about who I am, how I got that way and what “privilege” I have.
I’m pretty sure that they’d break the law, too, if their children were hungry and if they couldn’t see how breaking the law was going to hurt anyone.
Maybe so. But there’s way too much play in the assumptions underlying that statement to apply it to anyone or any particular situation, including the presumptions about what someone can see about how their actions affects someone else. Oh, and you might want to consider the implications of the phrase, “ignorance is no excuse”. One of the differences between adults and children is their understanding that it’s their responsibility to figure out how their actions affect other people.
They can condemn “looters” in New Orleans, because they have SUVs and know they’ll never be stuck in a flooded city with no food or clean water.
How convenient of you to put words in my mouth about the actions of desperate people in New Orleans without, of course, having a single clue about what my actual thinking is on the subject.
They can laugh at Mexican women who die from back alley abortions, because they know they’ll never be poor and pregnant in a country where abortion is illegal.
And here we have you making a monster of me, depicting me laughing at women dying of exsanguination or excruciating infections from perforated uteri.
People who sanctify “the law” are generally people who feel confident that the law will always favor their interests.
I sanctify the Lord. The laws of men and women have a worth and meaning, but not a holy one.
On the other hand, I pretty much disregard the opinions of people who participate in debates by creating lies about the other participants out of whole cloth so that they can fit them into the patterns of their own biases and stereotypes instead of trying to see their opponents as real people.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
“I” didn’t want to wage a stupid, wasteful, ill-considered and poorly planned war in the Middle East, but America sure is doing that.
I don’t want to prosecute sex workers. But my town, county and state do that.
Fair enough. But both are being done according to the law. The acts of illegal aliens are not.
I don’t want to rape women, but my culture does that.
B.S. Women are raped in all cultures. Cultures don’t rape women, rapists do.
I didn’t want to hold millions of people in chattel slavery, kidnap them from their homes, ship them in deadly conditions across an ocean, and force them on pain of death to provide uncompensated agricultural labor to support an economy of cash crops. But America sure did that.
Yup. And then America stopped doing that. Neither you nor I ever approved of that nor participated in it. I really don’t see how we are responsible for having done it and what the relevance is to this debate.
We have, tacitly by our policies, allowed employers to use undocumented immigrants as a cheap and easily intimidated workforce for decades. We’ve basically waived enforcement of immigration laws, in my view. Now that people have acted in reliance, uprooting their lives for economic opportunity based on our willingness to ignore enforcement
You are welcome to your view. I don’t see that the concept that putting a lack of the necessary resources to enforce the law against a group of people determined to break it justifies the criminals and their acts. It’s illegal to break into my home. If I leave it unlocked, a thief is justified in neither breaking in nor in keeping the goods he steals.
in deference to the labor needs of American companies
Needs? Desires, I can accept. It would seem many employers would rather turn a blind eye to the law and give their employees as little pay and benefits as possible. I well imagine that there are people on this blog who know a lot more about American labor history and law than I do and can talk about how this used to be done to American labor for decades or centuries. Did that justify giving the employers a pass on new laws protecting the labor force? Did it justify enforcing existing law more stringently and for past offenses?
Was it caused by the needs of American companies, or the desires of their owners to maximize profits on the backs of the American public? I say the latter, and I say that this desire does not excuse them or the people who snuck in here to take advantage of it. By calling these acts “needs”, it seems to me that you are minimizing the illegality of the self-serving acts of the U.S.’s wealthiest class. Again, hardly the position I’d expect to see on this blog.
we have to deal with the situation as it stands. We have a bunch of people here that crossed the border illegally to work, when it was generally understood that crossing the border illegally was FUCKING TURNSTYLE JUMPING. Now some nativist zealots with either populist/nativist delusions of rising wages or simply a racist bone to pick want to treat border crossing like it was armed robbery.
Actually, from what I can tell most of the current illegal aliens in the U.S. came here through processes that had and have a huge risk of loss of life and are nowhere near “turnstile jumping”.
I don’t know what nativist zealots or racists want. Nor do I want border crossing treated like it was armed robbery. But what I want is border crossing treated according to existing law; IIRC, the punishment for immigration law violation is a lot less stringent than what you get for armed robbery.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
In fact, the ideal may be useful in attempts at clarifying the problems with immigration policy even if one doesn’t have open borders as their ultimate goal.
I don’t know about that, Jake. If one does not accept “open borders” as an ideal, I’m not so sure that it’s all that useful in clarifying the problems with existing immigration policy.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
P.S., all: I imagine that this is going to go on for some time, but as it happens I’m soon going to be out of town until Sunday afternoon - I’ve got a trip to Philmont, and I’ll be in the backcountry and away from computers. And cell phones. And cars. And modern technology in general.
Sorry. I didn’t have the strength to stay away from this debate, but there’s non-refundable plane tickets and the opportunity to go where there’s more bears and antelope than people for a few days involved. And a chance to see the stars at night.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Yeah, I have enough money to manage the debt of going to school in Europe (the Netherlands tuition is actually a great deal, but England is pricey as hell. Too bad that I pretty much require a PhD and there aren’t so many places that teach my obscure interests).
I really like the suggestion that composers are a totally interchangable part. (”Eh, it’s all polka to me!”) That aside, it would be legal for me to gig if I weren’t in paperwork hell. I meet all of the qualifications to get a student visa, I’m just standing in the wrong country. I’m lucky in that I’ll be able to go to NYC soonish and sort it out.
For folks that are from half way around the world, a little paperwork screwup can be a huge deal. Somebody has problems with semesters not lining up, and suddenly they’re illegal and have to go half way around the world to work it out. Not everybody that studies overseas is rich. There’s a lot of financial aid out there, but even if they’re living off of savings, few have the budget to go home on sudden notice.
I’m not really worried about getting deported. Because I’m an American and because I’m white. Nobody gives my passport a second look. By contrast, a guy I know from Mexico just had to return home (voluntarily a day before they would have deported him) because he had finished his studies. Even though he’s married to a legal resident, who is also a student. The laws are different for folks that come from the US and for folks that come from Mexico. He and I both have the same educational background and class background, just different passports.
This comment was written by Les.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Ron, if you would prefer that people judge you by only your own words, I’ll oblige. In the Ireland thread, another commenter wrote and you responded:
For those not reading that thread, the topic was a town outside of Dublin that blocked 90 black children from the local schools and instead created a separate, segregated school to take them. The nominal issue is that Ireland may not want to be “multicultural.” But I don’t see how those kids can assimilate the color of their skin.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Jake Squid: Of course, the criminal act to which you are referring is entering or staying in the US. A horrible, horrible crime.
RonF: Do not presume to put words in my mouth. That’s the first crime. I don’t know if you are an American citizen or not. If so, shame on you for distorting the facts to fit your narrative. If you are not an American citizen, here’s what the crimes are.
1) Entering the United States without permission, or
1a) Entering the United States with permission and then violating the terms under which you were admitted.
Bwahaha! Is there really any other response to “I didn’t say that! I said exactly what you said I said.”
2) Obtaining a false Social Security number. When the illegal alien’s income is reported under that number, the real holder is prosecuted by the Internal Revenue Service for not reporting income, threatened with jail time and huge fines. Their credit rating is destroyed. The onus is on the victim to prove that they didn’t earn the money and store it where the IRS can’t see it, it’s not up to the IRS to prove that it was the victim and not someone else who actually had the income.
I hate to have to say that you’re full of crap, but you are. This statement is so false and so flies in the face of commonly reported fact that I can only believe that you’re lying.
If there is somebody else using your SS# for employment, chances are that you will never find out about it. SS taxes are collected on that income but not accrued to you. SS doesn’t report the fact that your SS# is being used by somebody else because they are legally prohibited from doing so. Since the SS admin doesn’t report the use to anybody, it never appears on your credit report.
However, if somebody is using your SS# to obtain credit you can have some big problems. Fortunately, people using a stolen SS# for use in procuring employment rarely fuck up your credit rating because they don’t want to get caught.
Here is one article on the issue: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/02/ss_secret_stash.html
After that sack of lies, I’m done interacting with RonF.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
In case anyone but Ron misunderstood, I was comparing the legal treatment of border crossing to turnstyle jumping; i.e. a lightly regarded and largely unpunished offense. I was not comparing the actual journey to turnstyle jumping.
Since he brought it up, though, once upon a time, it was an easy walk into the San Diego area, and an easy walk back. Only increased enforcement in the last few years has made the crossing an increadingly deadly journey through rugged, remote deserts or in desparate conveyances; an expensive and dangerous endeavor that, since nobody wants to repeat it, deters and undocumented from going home.
Ron, your comment on slavery makes my point. There is a population in this country that has had to deal, for their entire history here, with the consequences of slavery: the slave trade, and slave system, its Jim Crow successor that lasted until just forty years ago, and the continuing impacts of racism in American society. You seem to prefer to wash your hands of it, saying that you didn’t participate in it and didn’t approve of it. That, as I said, is like my preschooler folding his arms and pretending things were as he wished. Just because you didn’t choose the path that got us here doesn’t mean we’re not here. We are here. We have a huge population of undocumented immigrants, and that’s what the American economy and political system did. We have to deal with where we are: wishing that different decisions had been made earlier in our immigration story no more solves that problem then wishing we hadn’t had slavery solves the problem of racism.
Of course, a guy who thinks Ireland should quarantine black children to protect its culture is a tough customer to sell on the idea that those who benefit from the continuing consequences of slavery should do something to help fix the inequality.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
I have to quit reading this discussion, since I’m freaking out that my own shaky immigration status will get me deported.
There’s a rally today (thursday) in Amsterdam to support the rights of undocumented immigrants. It’s at 13:00 near the city hall.
This comment was written by Les.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
1. It’s been said before: “We as a nation” didn’t invite illegal immigrants in. We as a nation invite LEGAL immigrants in via the legal immigration process. By definition, illegal immigrants are the ones who came to the US uninvited by “we as a nation.”
To be sure, some specific individuals – including individual US citizens – benefit from illegal immigration, just as some are harmed by it. That’s true of most crimes. I guess one could say that because a lot of crime occurs in the US, “we as a nation welcome crime.” I don’t know that it helps anyone’s understanding of the issues, though.
2. Even if “we as a nation” did invite people in to do various tasks, what has that got to do with receiving citizenship? If the nation of France hired me to paint a mural on their capitol building, I’d expect to get paid. Period. I wouldn’t expect to receive French citizenship. And I sure as hell wouldn’t expect to become subject to being drafted into their armed forces. Labor and citizenship are distinct concepts to me.
I sense that the author thinks it would be NICE to offer citizenship to the people who provide services to us. That’s a fine opinion; everyone’s entitled to their opinion. But if the statement is intended to reflect more than mere opinion, I’m not seeing it.
Yup, some laws look pretty bad in retrospect, and the fact that something violates the law does not render it immoral. Otherwise, I’m not sure I get the point of this list.
Nothing; it’s merely a statement about immigration status. Again, the fact that something’s illegal does not mean it’s immoral. I don’t hate illegal immigrants. But I do prefer legal immigration. So I don’t ignore the fact that illegal immigration is, well, illegal and renders the immigrant subject to sanction.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Acted in reliance on what, exactly? An expectation of receiving citizenship? Or an expectation of working as a member of a cheap and easily-intimidated workforce for decades without citizenship?
This is an interesting argument for maintaining the status quo and NOT granting citizenship. It’s a curious argument in the context of this discussion.
According to racist nativist zealot Jorge Borgas of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard:
- By increasing the labor supply between 1980 and 2000, immigration reduced the average annual earnings of U.S.-born men by an estimated $1,700, or roughly 4 percent.
- Among those born in the United States who did not graduate from high school — roughly the poorest one-tenth of the work force — the estimated impact was even larger, reducing wages by 7.4 percent.
- The negative effect on U.S.-born black and Hispanic workers is significantly larger than on whites, because a much larger share of minorities are in direct competition with immigrants.
Racist nativist zealots Paul Krugman and Robert Reich have made similar arguments.
I haven’t found any proposals for increasing the penalties for illegal immigration to the penalties of armed robbery. Doubtless it’s being covered up by a conspiracy of racist nativist zealots. They’re everywhere.
To be clear, I read RonF to imply that Ireland DOES quarantine black children to protect its culture. I have not understood anyone to endorse the practice.
Finally, if we want to redress the harms of slavery, I can’t see why we’d want to adopt policies that tend to depress the wages of black Americans. Otherwise, the relationship between this discussion and slavery eludes me.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
nobody.really, I’ll respond at length later, but RonF was endorsing the practice, as I read it. He was clearly arguing for Ireland to guard its culture, saying that multiculturalism had produced poor examples elsewhere in Europe. That’s an endorsement, or at least an excuse.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
We are also one of the few (I won’t say only because I don’t know all the different national laws of the world) countries that gives birthright citizenry. Actually, we have the most lax immigration laws of almost any country.
With that said, laws are laws, like them or not. If you break a law, you should expect to be punished for it. I don’t like that my road is set at 35MPH, that doesn’t mean that I can just do 50MPH and expect to get away with it. We can vote to change laws, and if we successfully do that, then the new rules apply.
The point is that we shouldn’t encourage or accept people breaking laws, regardless of how we feel about said law. If we don’t like the law, then we change the law. I have noticed a few people argue on the grounds of state’s rights in relation to the topic of immigration. I find it amusing considering how often state’s rights are ignored.
My point? We should secure the hell out of our border. After that, it should be up to the states to decide what to do with illegals. What is true for the local labor market in Texas most likely isn’t the same in Arizona. The fed should assist the states, whatever they decide.
I do however, see a downside to all of this. Our labor pool is extremely resistant to automation of production and adding more pople to our labor pool with only prolong this resistance. I often imagine what it would have been like if we resisted textile mills as much as we’re resistant to robotic assembly lines.
This comment was written by Bryan.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Bryan-
‘Scuse me, non-citizen immigrants can vote?
If you ask me, anyone who can prove residency should be allowed to vote, citizenship status notwithstanding. That’s what democracy is, right? Everyone affected by the laws gets a say in those laws? Hasn’t much of our history involved marginalized groups fighting to move the American system closer to that ideal? We should be very careful not to reify the concept of citizenship, as it changes with the times and with the blood of oppressed peoples, and has historically and contemporaneously served as a tool that the powerful use to perpetuate white male supremacy. Just look at nobody.really’s conception of citizenship: citizens are subject to the draft. Isn’t there a fairly large group of people that definition excludes? [Women, for those of you playing at home].
This comment was written by Shira.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Sorry, I didn’t mean to exclude anyone; I simply was not aware of any prohibition on drafting women. I know that the US has typically elected NOT to do so, but I don’t know that the US couldn’t choose to conduct the draft differently in the future.
I’m kind of fond of the idea that anyone who is affected by a government having a vote in it. That would pretty much eliminate much of the concept of citizenship, however, because damn near everyone would get a vote in damn near everything. Everyone in the world has an interest in how the US exercises its nuclear strength. Everyone has an interest in the depletion of the Amazon Rainforest. Everyone has an interest in the operation of any anything that produces air emissions – including, say, all mammals. Everyone has an interest in energy conservation, conceptually right down to how much time I’m wasting on the internet.
Not saying it would be a bad system, necessarily. But right off the bat, you could expect a lot of environmental, labor and other regulations to go out the window, because all politicians would need to start pandering to the Chinese; they control a quarter of all votes, you know. Given that the US is only about 5% of the world’s population, politicians could pretty much abandon campaigning here altogether. Which might not be all bad, either….
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 1:37 am
“The Chinese” are not a monolith beholden forever to the interests of the current multinational corporations that have most of the power in this specific sociopolitical context. Chinese workers are still human - what makes you think they would vote against fair labor standards in a system that gave them an equal voice?
Everyone does have an interest in the depletion of the Amazon rainforest - I’m not sure how this is an argument against giving influence to anyone who is affected by a certain policy. If everyone in Iraq had had one vote on the ’should the US blow Iraq up’ issue, surely their collective votes would have overridden the votes of the few who control the corporatized military-industrial complex.
Although frankly, it doesn’t seem like your argument is in good faith. We already have a jurisdictional system set up - my suggestion was to expand the influence of currently marginalized people living within and under this specific jurisdiction, not to expand the jurisdiction itself to include the entire planet. Those are two entirely different discussions.
This comment was written by Shira.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 2:01 am
If you have open borders and a welfare state you are inviting in millions of people who will be a net drain on the system ( because many will be low-skilled and lack advanced education) and eventually bankrupt the welfare state.
Because low-skilled workers who earn minimum wage don’t pay taxes.
Oh wait.
RonF n’em. (I’ll be referring to you anti-immigrant lot collectively for this): Why the fuck should you get to be a citizen just for being BORN here? That’s stupid. Why should so idiot motherfucker who just lucked into their parents being here when they got knocked up get to be American and thereby entitled to that largess?
No, EVERYONE has to pass the criminal background check. If you fail, we send you to a hellish moonscape of a land, like Australia.
In fact, let’s make citizenship contingent on actually providing something to the community: you’re only protected by the bill or rights if you’ve spent 3 years in public service (we’ll focus on serving as either an educator, a public worker, or a soldier) AND you’ve married and have a kid. Maybe tack an employment provision on there too. Why should anyone who isn’t contribuing to the perpetuation of this great nation allowed to benefit from it?
Of course, since you aren’t criminal for not having shot people for god and country or being sterile, we can go with plan B, instead of sending you to Perth (UGH.), you can just live in the Morlock Tunnels. Or we could just pass a No-Child-Left-Unconcieved law, making it illegal to not be a parent by a certain age.
This is a good plan. I like this plan. I think AMERICA likes this plan. Why do you hate America, RonF n’em?
This comment was written by karpad.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 6:40 am
Sailorman invited a calm discussion along these lines back at Post # 18. Inexplicably, Jake Squid immediately expressed doubts that such a topic could be addressed calmly in this forum. Go figure.
Here’s what I suggested in that discussion:
I find no inconsistency in refusing to admit immigrants with a background of antisocial behavior while not also adopting a practice of deporting people with a background of antisocial behavior for practical reasons. I understand ethics as reflecting context. In this context, to the extent that we face constraints in expelling people that we don’t face in admitting people, the two classes are not similarly situated.
In the absence of such constraints? Well, the relevant context would need to reflect the purpose of the state. If the state exists to promote the welfare of its citizens, for example, then we might well expect the state to discriminate between people who currently are citizens and people who currently aren’t. By the standards of the state’s purpose, these two classes would again not be similarly situated.
Now, to be sure, a state might well WANT to export its undesirables to the same extent that it excludes undesirables from other lands. England sent its undesirables to Australia and the New World; Castro allegedly sent his undesirables to the US in boat flotillas. I had never thought of the leaders of the countries defending these practices on the grounds of ethical even-handedness….
However, I could also imagine a state granting and retracting citizenship on the basis of “merit.” You might be expelled for antisocial behavior. Alternatively, you might be expelled simply because the Chinese now have access to the internet and you now have to compete against a billion more people who can file on-line applications for one of those coveted citizenship slots. It’d kinda be like being a member of a professional sports team or symphony: you’d never know when you might get cut from the team, replaced by a new rising star. And you’d never know if your mom or you kid might not make the cut. I might list a number of complaints to lodge against such a ruthlessly even-handed meritocracy, but unethical wouldn’t be one of them.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 7:49 am
I concede. If we assume we can grant a fair and equal vote to everyone regarding every policy that affects them, I’d guess that China would have more rigorous labor and environmental laws than it does now. So would the US, for that matter.
It isn’t. It’s merely an exposition of the consequences of a policy stating “[e]veryone affected by the laws gets a say in those laws….” In many ways I find such a policy admirable. But we would want to understand the policy’s implications.
I merely meant to illustrate that a policy stating “anyone who can prove residency should be allowed to vote” is not the same as a policy stating “[e]veryone affected by the laws gets a say in those laws….”
I argue, and Shria appears to agree, that this latter policy would have the effect of expanding the vote to the entire planet. So I don’t see two separate discussions here. Moreover, given that Shira says we should not “reify the concept of citizenship,” I don’t see the purpose of reifying the related concept of jurisdiction.
In short, I see merit in a policy of giving everyone in the world a vote on policies that affect them. But I could anticipate a lot of devils in the details, especially the devil of implementation. I also see the practicality of treating citizenship as membership in a club, and permitting only the members of the club to vote of club policy.
I’m not yet persuaded of the merits of causing all of a person’s rights, responsibilities and allegiances to change every time the person crosses a national boundary. Consider the draft example again: We might have concern for the plight of the Peruvian illegal immigrant in the US, but how much worse would his plight have been if he had been compelled to complete a citizen’s “national service obligation” in each of the nations through which he passed during his long journey north?
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Karpad: Hate to interrupt your frothing, barely coherent strawman rant, but let me bring up one point of fact: Low skilled minimum wage workers, in fact, DO NOT pay taxes, at least not income taxes. The tax code in this country is currently such that you have to be making a fairly significant yearly sum before you pay income taxes. And with the earned income tax credit most working poor get there’s a good chance that those low skilled minimum wage workers will get a check from the government that will exceed what they pay in payroll taxes as well.
But I’ve got a question for those of you who are both pro-immigration and, curiously enough, anti-American at the same time. Why? Why do you want innocent people from another country coming to this hellhole nation? If we’re such a neocon dictatorship of eroding human rights and freedoms ruled by a puppet president controlled by Haliburton, why would you want anybody from Mexico or anywhere else coming here to suffer with us? Mexico, particularly, has a socialist government and economic system right now. Isn’t that supposed to be perfect? You should be encouraging them to stay in paradise!
This comment was written by The Chief.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Strawman, much? I don’t believe you’re actually this stupid.
I do think that it’s worth noting that people come to the U.S. in search of economic opportunities, often because their local economies have been devastated by a global economic regime which insists that developing nations open up their markets for goods, while simultaneously protecting developed nations’ labor markets. If we’re going to have free trade, we should have free trade in labor as well as goods. And if powerful nations are going to protect their labor forces from competition, less-powerful nations should be allowed to protect their markets as well.
Edited, because I missed this:
And I wanted to preserve it for posterity in case you realized how ignorant it revealed you to be and edited it.
This comment was written by Sally.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Sally,
Dodge the question much? I DO believe you’re actually this disingenuous.
And for the record, there’s a difference between labor and goods. Goods get used up and dissapear. Labor–more specifically, people doing labor–stick around, have children, place a strain on social welfare systems if they don’t actually have the means to pay for those children, etc, etc.
This comment was written by The Chief.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
i’d like to add another voice to the “big grey zone between deportation and citizenship” chorus.
illegal aliens are criminals, by definition. by law, their crime is roughly felony level. we can debate how serious a crime it ought to be considered and what the proper punishment (if any) is, but short of forgetting the concept of “borders” entirely, it will continue to be a crime.
illegal aliens, by and large, aren’t bad people out to destroy the entire country. most of them only want a halfway decent job. making it possible for them to get that job legally and above-board would likely be a huge help for everybody, “them” and “us” alike.
but citizenship… that’s a whole other deal. that’s a much bigger deal, to me, as a legal immigrant. (my N-400 is in processing, currently.) i can see letting illegals adjust status to permanent resident, i can see any number of work-permit-only “amnesty” schemes. but letting somebody whose first interaction with the country was a demonstration that they don’t much care for our border control laws (which implicitly are part of the citizenship control structure) gain citizenship, would to me dramatically devalue U.S. citizenship. i’m not about to agree with that. the passport ought to be taken much more seriously than that.
This comment was written by Nomen Nescio.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
… letting somebody whose first interaction with the country was a demonstration that they don’t much care for our border control laws (which implicitly are part of the citizenship control structure) gain citizenship, would to me dramatically devalue U.S. citizenship.
Look at that. It’s the same argument that is used against SSM. Citizenship (or marriage) would be devalued for me if we allow people I deem unworthy to have it. Even though I would still enjoy the exact same privileges, rights and responsibilities and citizenship (or marriage) is not a finite resource.
I have to admit that I really wasn’t expecting that.
edited to add:
Since this already happens on a regular basis (and through several large amnesties over the decades), I guess US citizenship is already greatly devalued to you. Does this mean that you won’t become a US citizen? Or does the fact that all those millions “whose first interaction with the country was a demonstration that they don’t care much for our border control laws” do not change your rights, responsibilities and privileges play a stronger role and cancel out your estimated devaluation of US citizenship?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
The Chief wrote:
Warned about rudeness in the past; clearly the warning did not take; banned.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Jake, is there anybody you wouldn’t want to have U.S. citizenship? can you think of any act whatsoever that ought to preclude naturalization, and if so, what is it? i’m trying to find out if we have even the slightest common ground here, or if any sort of communication is impossible.
why are you blithely comparing homosexuality to breaking immigration laws? do you seriously claim the two are even the slightest bit alike? for that matter, why are you comparing marriage to citizenship? those aren’t cognate either.
and, since what already happens on a regular basis — illegal aliens naturalizing to citizenship? if that is indeed happening, then the USCIS is very severely failing to do their job. possible, of course, and would indeed devalue U.S. citizenship in my eyes, but i’ll need more than just your word for it, thanks.
past amnesties may or may not have been good ideas, but they largely happened before i ever arrived in country; they certainly all happened before i had any legal say in whether or not they ought to have happened (as i still do not have any such say). it’s quite possible that one or more of them harmed the value of citizenship (would you say U.S. citizenship has any value, Jake? if so, would you say there’s any way at all by which that value could be harmed or reduced? again, i’m trying to find common ground here), but i would have been unable to argue against them, and the past is the past.
the 1986 amnesty, i note, adjusted illegals to permanent resident status, and not to citizenship. i wouldn’t be averse to such an amnesty, provided that future citizenship was denied to people covered by the amnesty. the 1986 act was too lenient, in my eyes, only in that one respect; permanent residency and permission to work are not at all unreasonable things to grant someone who has violated no laws other than the immigration laws.
but breaking the immigration laws ought to have some punishment associated with it, some consequence above just a wagging finger and a tut-tut. if you can break those laws and not even be denied citizenship, then who could ever take the immigration laws the least bit seriously? what use would they be, any longer? (or are you arguing that we ought not have any restrictions on immigration whatsoever?)
This comment was written by Nomen Nescio.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
why are you blithely comparing homosexuality to breaking immigration laws?
I’m not. Read what I wrote again and you may, if you pay careful attention, see that I am comparing your argument against allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens to the arguments of the anti-SSM crowd. Your argument and their argument are remarkably similar.
Jake, is there anybody you wouldn’t want to have U.S. citizenship?
That isn’t the correct question based on our interaction thus far. The correct question would be “Is there anybody who, by becoming a US citizen, would devalue your US citizenship?” I can happily answer that the same way I would answer the question, “Is there anybody who, by getting married, would devalue your marriage?” That happy and easy answer is, “No.”
… illegal aliens naturalizing to citizenship? if that is indeed happening, then the USCIS is very severely failing to do their job.
Of course that’s been happening. That’s how my grandparents became citizens.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
the argument style is similar, yes. so what? the subjects being argued about are sufficiently dissimilar that an argument style that’s invalid when applied to one of them may still be valid when applied to the other.
if you’re merely making an observation about my argumentation style, without any implication that i’m somehow wrong because the same style of argument is bad when applied to a completely different subject, then what’s your point?
yes, there are people who, by becoming U.S. citizens, would devalue my (future) citizenship; people who began their road to citizenship by knowingly, deliberately, violating the law. this devalues citizenship by stating, in effect, that obeying the law is not an important part of being a citizen. and if obeying the law is not important to citizenship, then why shouldn’t i simply steal a natural-born’s identity and use that for my U.S. citizenship…?
we strip significant parts of citizenship (the franchise, the right to arms) from people who sufficiently badly break the law; we shouldn’t give citizenship to people who break th