See other Immigration Articles
Title: Illegal Immigration Myths
Source:
City Journal
URL Source: http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2006-05-01hm.html
Published: May 1, 2006
Author: Heather Mac Donald
Post Date: 2006-05-31 09:45:22 by Phaedrus
Keywords: None
Views: 2258
Comments: 96
As the nation braced for another demonstration of illegal alien power today, the press has been trotting out “fear engulfs the illegal alien community” stories, following the arrests last month of over 1,000 illegal aliens working for IFCO Systems North America. For instance: IMMIGRANTS PANICKED BY RUMORS OF RAIDS, reported the New York Times; ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FEAR ROUNDUP, announced the Wall Street Journal; TALK OF IMMIGRANT ARRESTS IN AUSTIN FUELS FEAR, blared the Austin American-Statesman; and PATIENTS, FEARING INS RAIDS, DON’T SEEK HEALTH CARE, the Contra Costa Times warned. And what exactly is wrong with that? The premise of all such stories is that the government has acted unconscionably in causing illegal aliens to fear deportation, however remote the risk. Worrying about deportation is a cruel burden that no illegal alien should have to live with, the reporters imply—and their sources state outright. “It doesn’t help society or anyone to have these people running scared,” Mexican consul general Jorge Guajardo told the Austin American-Statesman. The stories sympathetically reported on illegal aliens too nervous to attend karate class, shop, get their free medical examinations, or pick up their subsidized prescription drugs. Somewhat braver illegals go out only to pick up their children from taxpayer-subsidized school or Head Start programs. After Border Patrol agents arrested a few hundred illegal aliens in southern California cities in 2004, the Los Angeles Times ran similar stories bemoaning the resultant fear among illegal aliens and quoting advocates and politicians blasting the Border Patrol’s outrageous behavior. This ubiquitous journalistic conceit exposes two myths and raises a public policy question. The first myth is that illegal aliens live in the shadows. The “shadows” claim then becomes an urgent reason why Congress must pass a legalization plan: so that 11 million people can come out of hiding. In fact, illegal aliens live in the full blaze of day. Only when confronted with the merest hint that immigration enforcement is even possible do they curtail their movements—and then elite thinking immediately declares such curtailment a gross injustice. But even if it were true that illegals lived in the shadows, why is that unfair? The bargain they chose was clear: if you come here illegally, the law says that you should face deportation. It is a measure of how surreal our immigration practice has become that it is now “mean-spirited” simply to raise the possibility in an illegal’s mind that his deportation risk is real, much less actually to deport him. The second myth is that the only way to reduce the illegal alien population is through “mass deportations”—assumed by the enlightened to be patently cruel. The fear stories make clear, however, that the illegal alien population has burgeoned precisely because illegals assume that they face no risk of enforcement. As soon as there is any move toward upholding the law, calculations change. Were enforcement actions to continue, the calculations made by illegals already here and those planning to come would change even more radically: many illegals would go home and many fewer would enter. As Jessica Vaughan points out in a recent report for the Center for Immigration Studies, after the Department of Homeland Security deported 1,500 illegal Pakistanis after 9/11, 15,000 more illegal Pakistanis left the country on their own. We have no reason to believe that illegal Hispanics and other populations would not follow a similar course. For this voluntary flight to happen, however, the threat of enforcement must be credible. Perversely, the federal government makes sure that the opposite is the case. As soon as “illegal alien fear” stories appear, immigration policy-makers repudiate any intention of more widespread legal action and reassure illegal aliens that they have no reason to worry. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Virginia Tice told the Wall Street Journal last week that rumors of arrests of illegal aliens were “baseless. We don’t conduct random raids.” Many immigration officials even fear the “d” word. A CNN reporter called me last year for a comment on whether an illegal Chinese man, trapped in an elevator in New York for several days, should be deported. A Department of Homeland Security spokesman had referred the reporter to me, because he was unwilling to offer any opinion himself on whether deportation was in order. When the Denver Post, in 2002, took up the cause of Jesus Apodaca, an illegal alien in Denver denied in-state tuition to the University of Colorado, Congressman Tom Tancredo was the only public official who suggested that deportation might be more appropriate. ICE stayed mum. And that leads to a key question, usually ducked: What does the country want regarding deportation? If an official from the agency responsible for protecting our borders is unwilling to call for the removal of a single illegal alien once the illegal has a face and a name, where does that leave us? Right-wing talk radio hosts and their audiences complain about border-breaking and informal legalization measures like driver’s licenses and matricula consular cards. But they usually avoid the next question: if not legalization, then, what? If ICE were to start upholding the immigration law and regularly removing illegals, the press would go into overdrive, painting each removal action as a heart-wrenching injustice. It is a calculated falsehood by the open borders lobby that mass “round-ups” are the only way to stop the invasion of illegals. But it is true that consistent enforcement actions will be necessary to broadcast that our national sanctuary policy has come to an end. Some polls suggest that the public would support such actions, and virtually all polls show that the American people certainly have a far stricter stance toward illegals than do the press and the political class—something to keep in mind before we devise our next feckless immigration bill. What Would Mexico Do with Protesting Illegals?
Poster Comment: Cutting through the illegal immigration "debate" BS. Heather McDonald is a gutsy, insightful commentator who deserves much wider recognition.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 48.
#3. To: Phaedrus (#0)
The huge marches that were staged is not what I'd call "living in the shadows." They're everywhere - they're everywhere! for crying out loud.
Look out What'll I do I can stand the sight of worms
We came not so long ago and ended thousands of year of existence of cultures. We couldn't stand the fact they weren't Christian. Doctrine of Discovery was a policy we used to say non-Christians had no sovereignty. It said that they must be made lie us, be subjugated or die. And Manifest Destiny, the white man rules, stewards those more darkened in the skin as the human body protects the owners of this corporeal form from the sun, was a refinement of that policy passed to Pope to European leaders that helps sustain the genocide of people and culture. Death, intolerance, hatred and more is what your poem is about. A history of self-righteous greed, whose latest chapter with fascist militiamen and bigots to guide it is what is far too much for me. The word Minutemen is used now for Redcoats, President Bush for King George III, if you want to squash the Mexicans, and the simple truth is, and I back it with my very life - as do many others; you have to go through people like me first before a nationwide lynching of people can occur. The immigrants are staying, if you don't like it, tough shit.
At least that's what it's called when white people do it. White is beautiful, brother! Manifest Destiny God was on the side of the guys with the bigger guns (or any guns.) Nothing special here, just normal human history. A history of self-righteous greed, Yeah, colonialism was a bum deal. Now we got all these strangers within our gates. On this whites have been quite dumb. But the degree of it is an historical aberration, and will end one way or another. Either whites will continue to slowly suicide, or get some backbone. If you want to squash the Mexicans, and the simple truth is, and I back it with my very life Got kids? Whites tend to have few these days, another weakness. Kids are a big motivator. Capital can only go so far as a substitute for labor, and cannot buy true loyalty. you have to go through people like me first before a nationwide lynching of people can occur. Yes, whites with a clue do realize that many of our own are actively working for the enemy and against our own children and will continue to do so. Race-betrayal, too, is mostly a white thing.
Or the most and worst spectrum of diseases? God was on Europeans side so he made sure they brought over more pathogens then were passed back to them? This is flawed logic, and the Creator speaks for the creator, not human beings. Was God on the side of the Nazis because he gave them enough control to commit genocide, you are foolish, and willfully ignorant. Yeah I do, his Mom is African American, and his Dad is Irish Puerto Rican. You are obviously a White Nationalist, what's the matter? Got bored with Don Black's Storm Front site and came over here to recruit some more racists to make life more interesting for you and yours'? There is only one race, the human one. No one ethnic or racial group is any better then any other. In a few generations, these racial and ethnic divisions will be far more blurred then they are today. That is just a simple fact, part of the realities of the principle of physics called defusion.
Yeah, but he gave Hitler syphillis too, so it all worked out in the end. Irish Puerto Rican Whaddya know! Just like my daughter. She looks pretty darn white though, unlike her mom. You are obviously a White Nationalist Well, duh. Got bored with Don Black's Storm Front site Yeah. They've got a clue, but they'll never get over my choice of spouse. And actually it was here that led me there. There is only one race, the human one. LOL!! Here is your treat: No one ethnic or racial group is any better then any other. But apparently some one is worse than any other. Or so we've been told. As for "better" -- we don't love our children because they are objectively better than the children of others. A stranger's child might be demonstrably superior to our own in some quality that we value. But subjective reasons are sufficient. We love our children because they are ours, and that is enough. In a few generations, these racial and ethnic divisions will be far more blurred then they are today. On the contrary, as the supercycle bear market gets going, they will become all the more important. That is just a simple fact, part of the realities of the principle of physics called defusion. Ah, but the system is not closed.
The Creator does not intercede to create good or bad reality, the physical universe operates in complete dispassion to what is good or bad about something happening. Many humans try to manipulate others by telling others their arcane and self generated insight into what the Goddess' intentions and principles are. But that never makes them that, it just shows that after many thousands of years, humans have ultimately not changed very much when it comes to building a base of support of followers.
Ayup!
There are no replies to Comment # 48. End Trace Mode for Comment # 48.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#4. To: lodwick, Phaedrus (#3)
They're everywhere - they're everywhere!
Look out
Brown immigrants on parade
Here they come, hippity hoppity--
They're here, they're there, brown immigrants everywhere!
What'll I do
What an unusual view
And look at microscopic germs
But cinnamon-colored guest workers
Is really too much for me!
#5. To: Tauzero (#4)
#8. To: Ferret Mike (#5)
Death, intolerance, hatred and more is what your poem is about.
#11. To: Tauzero (#8)
"God was on the side of the guys with the bigger guns (or any guns.)"
"Got kids? Whites tend to have few these days, another weakness. Kids are a big motivator."
"Race-betrayal, too, is mostly a white thing."
#40. To: Ferret Mike (#11)
Was God on the side of the Nazis because he gave them enough control to commit genocide
#44. To: Tauzero (#40)
"Yeah, but he gave Hitler syphilis too, so it all worked out in the end."
#48. To: Ferret Mike (#44)
after many thousands of years, humans have ultimately not changed very much
Replies to Comment # 48.