Good or Bad for the Jews

"Good or Bad for the Jews"

Many years ago, and for many years, I would travel to Morocco to visit uncles, cousins, and my paternal grandmother. Some lived in Tangiers;...

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

On Trump, Immigration, Deportation, and "Flip-Flops"

The media and the pundits are trying to trap Trump into appearing to flip-flop on his hard-line immigration stance. Trump seems to be helping them do it as his message is getting muddled, and the media focus on that instead of on the growing email and Clinton Foundation scandals.

I have written previously about immigration, and cannot understand how smart politicians and commentators let themselves get fouled up in that debate. It is not that hard to keep things straight.

As I noted before, some three years ago, in fact,
I do not hear discussion about whether we need none, little, some, or a lot of immigration, and if we do, what type of immigration we should seek. Do we need millions more of semi and unskilled people from Mexico and other poor countries? Absent widespread elimination or reduction in minimum wage, taxation, public assistance, and zoning laws, how will these people contribute to the economic growth of our country? This is not nineteenth century America with small factories and workshops on every street corner, and belching smokestack industries eager for cheap workers. This is the America of EPA regulations, OSHA bureaucrats, job killing minimum wage and health insurance laws, outsourcing, and of a growing ethos that sees single parents living on the public dole as an honorable existence. It is also the America of multiculturalism whereby immigrants are encouraged never to become Americans.
And, again,
[W]e need a good discussion of how much immigration WE NEED. Not how many people want to come here, but how many and what sort WE need. I see nothing wrong with a bit of selfishness when it comes to protecting our national defense, our cultural values, our jobs, and our tax resources. Do WE need one million legal immigrants? Off the top of my head, I would say, no. What types of immigrants are they? By far, today, the majority are of the low-skill "family reunification" type. Do WE need that? I, for example, find it absurd that an adult immigrant can file for his or her adult siblings and their family members. That sets up an endless cascade of "family reunification." We no longer enforce the "public charge" provisions of our immigration law; that needs to restart ASAP. Do WE need hundreds-of-thousands of unskilled and low wage-earning immigrants? Do WE need immigrants who adhere to a totalitarian murderous cult that passes as a religion? Do WE want to replicate the German, French, and Scandinavian experience with bogus refugees?
Once we establish what type and how much--if any--immigration our nation needs, then we can move on.

To have that debate, however, we have to be able to conduct it without waves of immigrants and "refugees" pouring in.

That means,

-- Temporarily suspending all immigration;

-- Securing the border, including a wall which can be paid for by a tax on remittances and fees on certain consular and border services;

-- Enforcing our existing laws, which would include deporting people caught here illegally--especially felons; and,

-- Having a system of verification in place that ensures illegals do not work, vote, or draw public benefits.

In other words, make the environment hostile for illegal migration. That would lead to large numbers of those illegally here departing on their own. Combined with the deportation laws already on the books, we should see a dramatic reduction in illegal aliens pretty quickly--even if we do not deport 12 million people.  It would, above all, make it less likely that illegals would continue to come here.

There is no Constitutional or internationally recognized right to immigrate to the United States (or anywhere else). We have in the past excluded fascists, Nazis, Communists, anybody adhering to a philosophy advocating the violent overthrow of our way of life, sexual deviants, criminals, etc. We can do it again.

Bottom line: Our nation has the right to have whatever immigration system we want.

Not hard to keep straight.

Don't let the progs  get away with their usual fog of confusion.

26 comments:

  1. Try to see it from the Democrat's pont of view. There isn't enough money to meet Democrat welfare promises and provide reasonable amounts of graft. The Dems need votes. They are importing those votes among people who will be happy to live on the low levels of welfare available in the future. This is a win-win.

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  2. and it included for a while- so nobody is perfect, right?

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  3. I agree 100%. We also need a SCOTUS determination of anchor babies and citizenship. We need to stop immigration until we sort out our policies. The Ted Kennedy 1965 immigration law set us up for this problem. The Dems can't be trusted. What they did to Reagan on amnesty and not border closure told me a lot in 1986. I have a long memory.

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    1. CAVEAT: From someone who has, as a consular officer, "busted" immigration fraud cases and said "no" (based on what the law says):

      We had a SCOTUS decision on "anchor babies" in 1896 in US v. Wong Kim Ark. The decision--with John Marshall Harlan the elder dissenting--held that since Wong Kim Ark had been born in San Francisco to non-naturalized Chinese parents who were not in diplomatic status, he was a US citizen by birth, and could not be barred from re-entering the US under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 after returning from China, where he had married (later, his son, conceived and born in China, entered as the son of a US citizen). Justice Harlan's dissent was essentially that the "birth in the US" portion of the 14th Amendment applied only to the offspring of freedmen, and not to the Chinese, whom he saw as "unassimilable" (a sentiment which grates on me, since my wife is of Taiwan birth and upbringing).

      For the record, if some furriner comes here on a student visa, gets lonely for his wife while working on his Ph.D., brings her over, they have a kid here, and then go home after the degree is given (and Sonny is all of 2 years of age), and Sonny wants to go to Dad's alma mater 20 yrs later, Sonny will be told to go across the hall to deal with a citizenship claim when he comes to AmEmbassy wherever to apply for his F1. It's there in the law, and all consular officers are trained in it (all based on the decision in US v. Wong Kim Ark).

      I'm for enforcing the immigration laws we have. But I've got nothing against people who come here legally and obey the law while they're here. I live in a community full of Sinosphere and East Europeaan immigrants, many of whom were "anchored" not by a baby's birth, but by the father's rare and useful skill (although kid brother, less educated, runs an eatery that is actually pretty good)-- and some because they simply couldn't go back to Mainland China after June 4, 1989. I've seen West African families (often Christian, and sometimes GOP after naturalization) where I teach whom I frankly see as more desirable to the USA than some lily-white European "Cultural" types and same-sex "spouses".

      Re Ted Kennedy's bill: I frankly think he was so stupid that he thought we'd be getting a new wave of fecund papistical Irish. There was even a brief period in the late 1970's and '80's when the Dems were anti-immigration, because the "ungrateful" Far Eastern immigrants were tending slightly towards the GOP (which the 1st generation rightly saw as tougher on Communism).

      As for the "anchor baby" issue, I cannot see a way to get around it without the lengthy and difficult process of Constitutional Amendment; and then, if we can do it, how would we define what makes someone an American by birth?

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    2. these days, sadly, it's far easier to simply pack the court and overturn... when in doubt, invent a new 'right'.

      - reader #1482

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  4. Just a stricter enforcement of labor law would cut the incentive to come here, and the incentive to stay to a much lower level. I don't think you would even need a wall or a fence.

    All in all, though, I think Trump is actually doing a smart thing the last couple of weeks, and isn't aiding his opposition in doing so. No really believed he was going to deport the illegals in a mass program, even his supporters knew that was not going to happen, so beginning to flesh out a realistic program is a good thing, and it will still keep light years between himself and Shelob on this issue.

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    1. My concern is that he is giving the appearance of debating with himself, and making changes in his policy, all of which draws media attention that should be on the growing Hillary email-Foundation scandals.

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    2. No, the MSM is giving the appearance of him making changes to his policy. He has always said to build the wall, enforce the laws, send back the criminals and restrict people from areas where they can't be vetted.

      So the MSM and Dems focus on mythical illegals that have been here for 20 years and presumably having been sending their money out the their home country. These are the people that evil Trump wants to deport. This is a lot like the "should a woman that has an illegal abortion be punished" question they did earlier in the year. It's a grey area and it's not something we need to immediately address. Trump said no amnesty and we will work something out. It's a punt and good enough for now. Hillary doesn't detail exactly what all those hundreds of thousands of immigrants are going to do for a living after all.

      Personally, I'd like to see a requirement to learn English for anyone staying in this country. We've always asked that of immigrants in the past.

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    3. The Anderson Cooper interview last night pushed Trump for answers and he stuck to the "enforce existing laws" line pretty well. He also pushed back on the phony 11 million number. Also pointed out the unfairness of the current mess to the people waiting in line legally. https://youtu.be/iQgMZaEVlds

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    4. "Personally, I'd like to see a requirement to learn English for anyone staying in this country."
      Absolutely !

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  5. The GOP has a problem with the Chamber of Commerce types who resist real reform. Like E-Verify. Trump is probably the only one with any credibility.

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  6. When in Guangzhou, I refused an immigrant visa for the minor child of a recently legalized "smuggle-ee" (Fuzhou area, where else?) on public charge grounds. The father lived in NYC and reported a yearly income of $1k--no more. Later, it went through--after the petitioner honestly reported his income.

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  7. What will work is to make it a crime/felony to be in this country illegally. Right now that is not perfectly clear to be a crime. Then enforce the laws. Make it illegal to hire anyone who is here illegally and enforce it with substantial fines to the employer. make it illegal to give any federal aid to anyone here illegally. Provide necessary medical care but bill the country of origin and make them pay it.

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    1. "...make them pay it." How?

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    2. Every year we give Mexico a substantial amount of cash aid. We can decrease that by the amount paid for healthcare for their citizens. Every year billions is 'wired' to Mexico from mexicans who live and work here. We could tax that 10% to pay for health care for Mexicans. Everyday millions and millions worth of products enter this country from Mexico; tax it 10%.

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  8. Trump is smarter than he looks when the ladpog media keep going all in for the "chaos / contradiction" ploy against him.

    Sooner or later every time they have to ask their best girl what her immigration plan is.

    *crickets*

    Especially after Trump's called her a bigot, said she "works" for immigrants and blacks without ever delivering anything, etc.

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  9. We don't NEED immigration, so why not stop it (temporarily) as has been done in the past. We all need to become Americans, not some hyphenated group which only makes for division. We need unity. When we are unified, we will be strong again.

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    1. You are correct but the Left will never allow what you want. They thrive on disunity.

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    2. If we don't *need* it now, we will *need* it soon with our dramatically slipping birth rates.
      Why have kids when you can go to college until you're 40?
      Why have kids when celebrities tell us we can just have kids when we're 50?

      - reader #1482

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  10. Just a clarification. It is today 'technically' illegal to cross the border without going through the check points. It is 'technically' illegal to actually be in this country having come here illegally. BUT neither of these things will typically get you sent to jail or sent back to your home country. We have laws on the books where the legal system cannot ignore breaking of the law. For example; domestic violence. If the police come to your home for domestic violence someone is going to jail and will be charged, tried and punished even if the other party refuses to charge. That is what is needed for the crime of being in the U.S. illegally. No option for law enforcement, no option for the prosecutor or the judge. They must arrest, must charge and must deport, period. A law like this would stop the mad rush we are seeing on our borders.

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  11. I personally know a German master plumber who, with his nurse midwife wife, waited years for their number to come up in the immigration lottery. He told me that he would never have been able to have his won business in Germany. He and his wife had over 60,000 Euros saved when they arrived. He has a thriving business in Tucson.

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    1. not long before he can't have one here either... businesses are entrenched, and they're in the mode to cement their entrenchment through the usual payoffs to our politicians so they can get fat on protected business. Not long now.. the regulations are ever increasing.

      - reader #1482

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  12. Evergreen remark:

    "The media and the pundits are trying to trap Trump ... Trump seems to be helping them do it as his message is getting muddled, and the media focus on that instead of on the growing email and Clinton Foundation scandals."

    Not to say that we told you so, but we told you so.

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  13. Hey Diplomad!

    Hope you'll write something on Trump in Mexico.

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