User Comments

cc on Oct 15, 2009 at 14:10:31 said:

to "True Speaker", our ancestors came over here legally, they had to go through the whole process of becoming citizens. Which is exactly what these illegal hispanics are not doing. So don't accuse other people of being hypocritical when you don't have your facts straight.

Stephen on Sep 22, 2009 at 12:06:48 said:

If you thought it was impossible to pass amnesty before, just wait until they try it in this economy. Americans are suffering in a recession and will revolt against ANY form of amnesty. We have 15 million Americans out of work. Our states and nation are bankrupt with 10 trillion in debt. We can\'t support millions of poor and uneducated illegal aliens. Fix YOUR country instead of being a parasite in the US. Americans must demand a ZERO tolerance towards ALL illegal immigration.

MadMommy on Sep 22, 2009 at 11:13:54 said:

We have plenty of guest worker programs already. We have over a million LEGAL immigrants coming here from the four corners of the world. What we need is immigration enforcement, not amnesty. The government needs to keep the promises made to the American people in 1986 and secure our borders, deport illegal alien criminals and fine all employers if they have illegal workers on their payrolls. Only then will there be any security in our country. Deportation by attrition.

True Speaker on Sep 20, 2009 at 18:37:34 said:

I woud just lke to bring it to all of your attention... Your saying how the illegal immagrants shouldget out yet your ancestors were illegal immigrants. So I guess if you went back in time you would deny those people as well. The indians were here first and then everyone else MIGRATED over here!

Anthony on Sep 18, 2009 at 17:09:52 said:

Easier said than done. How are we gonna pay and deport 12 million people? Be realistic.

Delaware Bob on Sep 17, 2009 at 03:46:58 said:

ENFORCE THE LAW! NO AMNESTY!!!

What is it the illegal aliens don't understand about this and the racist group La Raza don't understand!

It's time for these illegal aliens to pick up their anchors and ship out!

urrite on Sep 16, 2009 at 19:38:06 said:

you know everyone is rite to say what they sad deport them all send'em back cure the cancer unclog the system make the life better for everyone of us;we dont need the tax they could pay or the money we are gonna loose after they leave or the amount of cash needed to deport them .and about those kids that going to be left over here we put them in orphanage we have money we are america we dont need anybody and freedom mean free our city of this people and live in an america with no immigrants like before .wake up and look within your self and shall see why they are here .maybe for the same reason america is ...

Beast on Sep 16, 2009 at 13:41:41 said:

Those who came here illegally should not be rewarded with anything. I have no pity for any family that is broken up, they knew there breaking the law when coming here illegally. Deport them all.

Never has the immigration law been enforced until now, and people are in an uproar about it. We are not weak, if you come here illegally, you will be caught, documented, and deported. Come here again, and you will spend time in prison for it.

You should see the immigration laws in Mexico, they are Draconian. Go fix Mexico.

Richard Pagano on Sep 16, 2009 at 12:05:07 said:

Certainly Mr. Griswold states the need to reform our mmigration laws very well. But he does not go far enough. We should abolish any and all immigration laws, therefore no one would be in fear of breaking the law. We would not have to deal with anchor babies or family reunification. Everyone would be welcome. I would suggest that we apply Griswold's same reasoning to issues like the use of drugs, shoplifting and wifebeating also. We might also apply this reasoning to wall street, but I think that they already understand the concept: "let us make laws that are compatible with how people actually arrange their lives."
Basically we should live in a society where the end justifies the means and we should thus change our laws to allow us to act as we please.
Mr. Griswold applies an economic solution to the problem of illegal immigration. Hispanic organizations are concerned because being more loyal to a hispanic constituency than to an American constituency they understand the ramifications of legalizing millions of hispanic aliens in regard to their own political power and the spread of hispanic culture and language in the USA. Mr. Griswell does not mention how we will end illegal immigration after we give Amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. Nor does he address the many social and cultural issues that will follow as we greatly enlarge the hispanic population through first, amensty and then the follow up programs of family unification. We already have millions of American Mexicans living in the USA, American Mexicans in that physically there live in the USA but their heart still turns toward Mexico. With amnesty, there will be fewer and fewer reasons for them to become Americans and more and more reasons for them to identify with their hispanic brethren. Already too many individuals feel like it is more important to be hispanic than it is to be American. The solution to the problem of illegal immigration is the most important issue we as Americans face. It may well be the facing off of the two metaphors, the melting pot vs the tapestry. The outcome will dictate what America will be in the future. Are "all men created equal" or will some be more equal than others. Will we be a nation of one people, or will we be a nation of many people united only because we live in the same nation.
Would those who support illegal immigration, basically the hispanic coalitions, also favor using the hispanic illegal immigration numbers as a benchmark and allowing immigration of an equal number of individuals from each of the following areas:Africa, Asia, Europe, the Pacific zone, and the non-Spanish speaking western hemisphere. The government could hold a world wide lottery and pay for the transportation costs of the winners. Such a program would allow us to follow up with a draconian freeze on all immigration for at least a decade for we certainly would have sufficient cheap labor, sufficient increase in population, and a greater diversity in population than the present flow of illegal immigration is achieving.
Finally, this article addresses the economic benefits to be derived from legalizing those who are presently here illegally. It does address how such a large group with the same cultural orientation and the same language will effect and redirect American society. It offers no solution to the continuation of massive illegal immigration even if another amnesty is allowed. It does not offer any direction to the real danger of America balkanizing into cultural, linguistic and ethnic enclaves. It does not explain how we can avoid the tyranny of the minority. It does inform us of the difference between continuous illegal immigration from the south and passive cultural and linguistic invasion from the south.
Many American may well consider that economics is not the overriding factor in solving illegal immigration. Perhaps they will see assimilation, and cultural and linguistic unity as being more important. Hispanics certainly understand that cultural affinity and language unity are important, that is the basis of the term "hispanic". But they fail to see that many of us, especially those of us whose ancestors gave up their old world culture and language to become Americans, vehemently oppose the new attitudes as seen in the hispanic embrace of illegal immigration.
We want more assimilation and less accomadation: more exalting of the joy of being American and less exalting of the joy of being hispanic.

Doug R. on Sep 16, 2009 at 10:55:24 said:

These are people who only want in the USA for what it offers. It is a form of invasion not immigration. These are people who can not even put the USA FIRST not second behind the countries they left. They treat the USA like a motel and wonder why US citizens are angry with them.

Enforce the laws and deport. Many of these people will leave on their own if life is made hard enough for them. They are a cancer on the USA.

david on Sep 16, 2009 at 10:14:51 said:

Bleeding hearts OMG.

So just because they can walk crawl or swim to the U.S.A. makes it OK. while we keep out other that wish for the same thing? Go figure how some of you add 1 + 12,000,000 to equal LEGAL.

My wife is a Filipina and we did it the right way so don't try to even tell me how hard, expensive and timely it is ..I Already KNOW and we have done it.

Everify all employment slowly bring on more and more companies until everyone is ON DHS Everify.

David

Truth on Sep 16, 2009 at 07:49:26 said:

Daniel Griswold: Immigration law should reflect our dynamic labor market


Daniel Griswold is director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington. His writings on immigration can be found at www.freetrade(DOT)org; e-mail him at dgriswold@cato(DOT)org.

Daniel Griswold, Director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies, says he believes that the key to immigration reform is a guest worker policy. He also explains that the competition between U.S. citizens and immigrants over low skilled, low paying jobs will not escalate since the number of U.S. citizens with a high school diplomas is rising. This means that the pool of native citizens who work as low skill laborers will become smaller

Before balming the Undocumented Immigrants consider two thoughts:

One, if low-skilled, illegal immigration is the single greatest cause of California’s woes, how does the author explain the relative success of Texas? As a survey in the July 11 issue of The Economist magazine explained, smaller-government Texas has avoided many of the problems of California while outperforming most of the rest of the country in job creation and economic growth. And Texas has managed to do this with an illegal immigrant population that rivals California’s as a share of its population.

Two, low-skilled immigrants actually enhance the human capital of native-born Americans by allowing us to move up the occupational ladder to jobs that are more productive and better paying. In a new study from the Cato Institute, titled “Restriction or Legalization? Measuring the Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform,” this phenomenon is called the “occupational mix effect” and it translates into tens of billions of dollars of benefits to U.S. households.

Our new study, authored by economists Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer, found that legalization of low-skilled immigration would boost the incomes of American households by $180 billion, while further restricting such immigration would reduce the incomes of U.S. families by $80 billion.

That is a quarter of a trillion dollar difference between following the policy advice of National Review and that of the Cato Institute. Last time I checked, that is still real money, even in Washington.

Among its many virtues, America is a nation where laws are generally reasonable, respected and impartially enforced. A glaring exception is immigration.

Today an estimated 12 million people live in the U.S. without authorization, 1.6 million in Texas alone, and that number grows every year. Many Americans understandably want the rule of law restored to a system where law-breaking has become the norm.

The fundamental choice before us is whether we redouble our efforts to enforce existing immigration law, whatever the cost, or whether we change the law to match the reality of a dynamic society and labor market.

Low-skilled immigrants cross the Mexican border illegally or overstay their visas for a simple reason: There are jobs waiting here for them to fill, especially in Texas and other, faster growing states. Each year our economy creates hundreds of thousands of net new jobs – in such sectors as retail, cleaning, food preparation, construction and tourism – that require only short-term, on-the-job training.

At the same time, the supply of Americans who have traditionally filled many of those jobs – those without a high school diploma – continues to shrink. Their numbers have declined by 4.6 million in the past decade, as the typical American worker becomes older and better educated.

Yet our system offers no legal channel for anywhere near a sufficient number of peaceful, hardworking immigrants to legally enter the United States even temporarily to fill this growing gap. The predictable result is illegal immigration

In response, we can spend billions more to beef up border patrols. We can erect hundreds of miles of ugly fence slicing through private property along the Rio Grande. We can raid more discount stores and chicken-processing plants from coast to coast. We can require all Americans to carry a national ID card and seek approval from a government computer before starting a new job.

Or we can change our immigration law to more closely conform to how millions of normal people actually live.

Crossing an international border to support your family and pursue dreams of a better life is not an inherently criminal act like rape or robbery. If it were, then most of us descend from criminals. As the people of Texas know well, the large majority of illegal immigrants are not bad people. They are people who value family, faith and hard work trying to live within a bad system.

When large numbers of otherwise decent people routinely violate a law, the law itself is probably the problem. To argue that illegal immigration is bad merely because it is illegal avoids the threshold question of whether we should prohibit this kind of immigration in the first place.

We've faced this choice on immigration before. In the early 1950s, federal agents were making a million arrests a year along the Mexican border. In response, Congress ramped up enforcement, but it also dramatically increased the number of visas available through the Bracero guest worker program. As a result, apprehensions at the border dropped 95 percent. By changing the law, we transformed an illegal inflow of workers into a legal flow.

For those workers already in the United States illegally, we can avoid "amnesty" and still offer a pathway out of the underground economy. Newly legalized workers can be assessed fines and back taxes and serve probation befitting the misdemeanor they've committed. They can be required to take their place at the back of the line should they eventually apply for permanent residency.

The fatal flaw of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act was not that it offered legal status to workers already here but that it made no provision for future workers to enter legally.

Immigration is not the only area of American life where a misguided law has collided with reality. In the 1920s and '30s, Prohibition turned millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans into lawbreakers and spawned an underworld of moon-shining, boot-legging and related criminal activity. (Sound familiar?) We eventually made the right choice to tax and regulate alcohol rather than prohibit it.

In the 19th century, America's frontier was settled largely by illegal squatters. In his influential book on property rights, The Mystery of Capital, economist Hernando de Soto describes how these so-called extralegals began to farm, mine and otherwise improve land to which they did not have strict legal title. After failed attempts by the authorities to destroy their cabins and evict them, federal and state officials finally recognized reality, changed the laws, declared amnesty and issued legal documents conferring title to the land the settlers had improved.

As Mr. de Soto wisely concluded: "The law must be compatible with how people actually arrange their lives." That must be a guiding principle when Congress returns to the important task of fixing our immigration laws.

Daniel Griswold is director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington. His writings on immigration can be found at www.freetrade.org; e-mail him at dgriswold@cato.org.

bill breaux on Sep 16, 2009 at 06:56:43 said:

congress and the president are supposed to protect american citizenry from enemies foreign and domestic....shame some of the enemy is housed in halls of congress among groups like the "hispanic caucus"...our country has no room for hifinnated americans! this country is "by the people"=legal citizens!!! and the constitutions needs ammending to end birthright citizenship of illegal alien offspring as well!!!