Anyone else think that the pro-illegal immigrant faction has overplayed

[cantstandbush]

their hand? If you think the clampdown is tought now after marches with flying Mexican flags and demands for amnesty, wait until May 1. If there is a successful boycott started on May first, I bet the Bushbots will be locking up illegals left and right.

[Cleita]

1. There is no pro-illegal alien faction.

So stop saying that to stir up the pot.

[MercutioATC]

5. I disagree.

You're still "pro-illegal immigrant" if your solution is simply offering all of the illegal immigrants amnesty.

Waving a magic wand does not change the fact that these people broke the law and entered the U.S. illegally.

[Cleita]

8. Pro-illegal means you approve of the status quo. No one

except rich people in Beverly Hills and Walmart are for that. Reading all the posts on this board should make that crystal clear.

It's those who want to frame the argument that way who aren't being very honest. It's like being pro-life, when in truth you are anti-choice for women.

Words are funny things. You can twist them any which way, but in the end they will stand on their own.

There is a solution to this and it probably includes amnesty but if you are going to paint with a broad brush, at least paint the whole picture, not just a piece of it.

[MercutioATC]

14. Let's try this...

"There are people here at DU who are in favor of supporting illegal immigrants."

Would that statement be fair? As things currently stand, they ARE illegal immigrants.

[laheina]

52. Let's try this

There are people at DU that see these people as people, despite what label with negative connotation you may try to pin to them.

[MercutioATC]

54. Of course they're people. People who have broken the law.

I think that should be addressed.

[IndyJones]

13. It also doesn't change the fact that until Mexico is held accountable

for their own problems, the issue isn't going to go away. Illegal immigration is a symptom of the problems in Mexico. When is the US going to hold Fox accountable for Mexico's problems? There is plenty of money and plenty of oil in Mexico. Unfortunately, the corruption there is what the main problem is. How come no one is asking Fox what he's doing to change all of that?

Maybe it will take the 11 million marching back into Mexico with their Mexico flags knocking on the politicians' doors to demand change for it to happen. Granting amnesty isn't going to change one thing.

[RagingInMiami]

16. Illegal immigration is a symptom of NAFTA

"NAFTA provided a radically different competitive environment for many of Mexico's domestic industries that caused severe dislocations. The most widespread may have been in the agricultural sector where millions of campesinos depended on the sale of grain for income. Farmers who could not afford motorized equipment found themselves in competiton with the great grain producing combines of the U.S. and Canadian Midwest. Previous to NAFTA, the communal farming lands (Eijidos) had been secured to the campesinoes "in perpetuity" by Article 27 of the Constitution of 1917. Regarding this as economically inefficient, the planners of the Salinas regime revoked this provision as part of the implementing legislation for NAFTA. Thus NAFTA implementation meant not only that many of Mexico's small farmers became economically obsolete but that their ancestral lands could be seized by the large landowners for debts. An analysis of the impact by Professor Calva (3) indicated that a total population of 10 million small grain farmers would be at risk of being forced off the land due to NAFTA. Indeed the grain imports from the U.S. and Canada had by 1995 already captured over one third of the Mexican grain market. The impact of the invasion of U.S. businesses on other domestic Mexican businesses was also severe. After NAFTA, retailers like Walmart expanded rapidly in Mexico to much U.S. publicity. This expansion was fueled by their ability to sell goods at prices significantly lower than their Mexican competitors. Walmart managed to cut a wide swath in domestic Mexican retailers until an investigation revealed that their goods were largely manufactured in China and the Mexican government imposed a 300% duty on all goods imported from China. After the economic depression in the second year of NAFTA, Mexico had lost well over a million jobs in a country where over a million young people enter the job market every year (5). It's not surprising that under these circumstances the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico has sharply increased."

http://www.siliconv.com/trade/tradepapers/immigration.html

[sandnsea]

20. Who supports amnesty?

Show me the legislation with the word amnesty in it. I don't think there's even one legislator in DC who has supported out and out amnesty.

[MercutioATC]

24. The issue was the statement "There is no pro-illegal alien faction."

I wasn't addressing proposed legislation.

[sandnsea]

26. What else matters???

The only faction that matters is the faction writing the laws. So what faction supports amnesty?

[MercutioATC]

28. Again, not the issue, but I do have an answer to your question...

...I view the proposed expansion of the guest worker policy as a form of amnesty. Rather than deport people who broke the law, we're proposing giving them legal status in this country.

...and I see that as "pro-illegal immigrant".

[sandnsea]

33. So there's no amnesty??

Nobody is saying head down to the nearest INS office where we'll be handing out 11 million green cards, right?

[MercutioATC]

35. Has actual legislation been written THAT way? Not to my knowledge.

...but that wasn't the contention to which I took objection. Nor does it minimize the argument that expanding the guest worker program to include many illegal immigrants is, in effect, a form of amnesty.

The statement was that there was "no pro-illegal alien faction". One doesn't need to be a Congressman to be a member of a "faction". There are plenty of people who support amnesty (in some form) for illegal immigrants.

[sandnsea]

48. There's no amnesty

You can't point to anything that indicates amnesty. You choose to use a very inflammatory word instead of discussing the reality of the legislation and immigration. There are varying options being presented, none of them are amnesty. Citizenship requires paying a fine, a punishment, which is not amnesty. I don't support guest worker without citizenship anyway, but it requires a fine too. There would be background checks, tax requirements, education requirements. NO amnesty.

A handful of people who believe in complete open borders is hardly a faction. It's like saying there's a legitimate faction who support complete 2nd Amendment freedom, rocket launchers, cannons and all. There's not. And there's no "pro-illegal alien faction" either.

[MercutioATC]

49. Our opinions evidently differ (as they usually do)

I feel that legislating a program that would forgive those who entered this country illegally and allow them to gain legitimate employment status here is a form of amnesty. It forgives the illegal act and grants the transgressor what they attempted to illegally gain.

As far as your attempt to define a specific number of participants needed to qualify as a "faction", it's a silly arguement at best. I stand by my previous statements.

[sandnsea]

51. So when I pay a fine

for breaking a law, you think I've gotten amnesty??? If I have to make restitution, be on probation for 10 years, maintain consistent full-time employment, that's amnesty?? Are you a round 'em up and build a fence guy?? How much taxes are you willing to pay for that? I bet it would cost more than to just write them all a check every month.

I support National Fart Day. Am I a faction? :eyes:

[MercutioATC]

57. Yes, that's amnesty...

...if you've been pardoned for breaking the law, even if that pardon involves conditions, you've been granted amnesty.

As far as the fart thing, I hope tht works for you. If farting is an issue and you have a few like-minded supporters, yes, you meet my definition of "Queen of the pro-National Fart Day faction ".

[sandnsea]

61. Paying a fine is not getting a pardon

A pardon completely removes the crime, as if it never happened. That isn't what happens when one pays a fine.

As with amnesty and pardon, just because you make up a definition it doesn't make it so, and a faction is not a couple of like-minded people ranting about National Fart Day or anything else.

[countryjake]

63. Solidarity with pro-fart factions...

and making an issue of farting makes about as much sense as your wanting severe measures taken against people who came into this country to find work. Such a hard-headed stance of life-changing punishment for those who have committed a minor civil crime, similar to sneaking across a line in the sand to earn an honest living and support one's family, has nothing to do with justice or law and order in a nation that stands for democratic principles.

I, for one, will continue to uphold basic human rights in my country and protest every attempt by the government apparatus to turn it into a police-state, in which cops would be given even more power to single-out and brutalize our already oppressed minorities.

[laheina]

53. Then you should go complain to the Freepers

They've only gotten everyone's panties in a twist in order to push their guest worker program. If you are anti-guest worker program then we are on the same page.

[MercutioATC]

55. I'm definitely anti-guest worker...

...I'm also not in favor of 11th-hour programs designed to legally "forgive" illegal immigrants for entering the country illegally.

We still on the same page?

[laheina]

59. Probably not.

But I also allow that the situation is not as black and white as you seem to be propounding.

[Lexingtonian]

36. what a joke

You have no actual principle there. What do you propose to do about the millions of people who were amnestied and became citizens in the Nineties? Felons all, huh? Or the illegals' true blue flag-waving Republican employers?

I have more than enough to do with Immigration, and the truth of all this stuff is that it's a transacting in legal fictions.

[MercutioATC]

40. You're attributing extreme positions to me that I'm not advocating.

"What do you propose to do about the millions of people who were amnestied and became citizens in the Nineties?"

Have I made any statement about LEGAL U.S. citizens, regardless of how they attained that status? The discussion is what to do with current ILLEGAL immigrants. I have never advocated stripping a legal immigrant of their citizenship...and suggesting that I'd endorse that is a cheap shot.

"Felons all, huh?"

Who suggested charging them with felonies? Certainly not me.

"Or the illegals' true blue flag-waving Republican employers?"

I have repeatedly suggested (right here at DU) that the most efficient means of dealing with illegal immigrants would be to cut off their ability to be employed by heavily penalizing companies that hire them. However, I think that border-enforcement and deportation policies are also necessary.


If you'd like to get off of your high horse and discuss the issues, I'd be happy to do that. If not, I'd at least appreciate your refraining from putting words in my mouth.

[Lexingtonian]

47. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy

of banging on the table about enforcing the laws for one group of illegal entrees and not the other, groups whose only meaningful distinction lies in whether they were present in the country in 1996 versus in 2006.

There simply is an inherent due process or equal protection problem to your argument about a need to punish lawbreaking. I thought Democrats were above that.

[MercutioATC]

50. I can't change the past. I can change the future.

That's not hypocrisy, it's an expression of a desire for change.

I might not agree with past practices, but there is little I can do about them. It's not hypocritical to disagree with a past practice while realizing that you have no power to change it while desiring to make different decisions in the future.

[Lexingtonian]

64. If you're going to be insisting on the justice of enforcing a law

that is controversial, you definitely need to account for the instances of its use and misuse and rationales for annulment of it with integrity.

There have been a few mass deportations in American history and some major mass incarcerations/placement on reservations, which are not meaningfully different. All of them, under whatever rationale they were done at the time, are now retroactively understood if not admitted to have been injustices and bad solutions.

Amnesties or permitted reentries, however unwilling, have in fact been the modus vivendi. That is not to say that the laws are not serious, but deportation of groups turns out to be a very different matter- purely political- than the deportation of individuals, in which justice is a meaningful concept.

[MercutioATC]

67. I don't dispute that.

However, I think current immigration law is appropriate. I would like to add greater penalties for companies that employ undocumented workers, though.

[bemildred]

9. Ditto that, what horseshit. nt

[UTUSN]

34. Thank you for "NO-ILLEGAL faction here" n/t

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ret5hd]

3. what about that pro-late-term-abortion group?

pot stirring is a specialized field best left to the professionals.

[Vincardog]

4. Why don;t the Gold Star families and the Peace groups join them?

If we join together and all protest the Fascist policies of the Greedy Old Party maybe we can get the Corporate Controlled Media to show the truth for a change.

[seg4527]

11. WE ARE!

Here in the twin cities anyway, we're making some awesome connections with the latino community. See my post a few below for more details about the upcoming anti-war walkout friday, general strike on monday.

We're working hardcore with the chicano student group on campus. considering that the government pushes illegal immigrants to join the military and make a sacrifice most americans aren't even willing to make, this is a solidarity that needs to be.

edit: check my post in the MN forum for more details, if interested.

[laheina]

56. That sounds awesome!!

I love to see posts like this, not only because they represent progressive values, but because they draw a sharp line of contrast against the trolling freepers. :)

Well done!

[MercutioATC]

58. Keep in mind, some of us "trolling freepers" are long-time DUers....

...we just disagree.

[laheina]

60. Silverhair was a long-time DUer.

But even if we disagreed, I could respect a person's position if it was well researched and well reasoned.

All I see are the same one-liner talking points and semantics based arguments.

[RagingInMiami]

6. Locking up illegals left and right?

With what fucking army? In case you have not noticed, most of our military is in Iraq.

And it's going to take more than the Border Patrol to round up the millions that have been protesting nationwide.

Keep dreaming.

[MercutioATC]

15. Nope, just shipping them back from whence they came as we find them

Applying for a driver's license, enrolling in school, seeking medical care, getting a speeding ticket.

Of course, the most efficient way to deal with the problem is to meaningfully go after companies who employ them, and you're right...we don't have the resources to scour the country for every single illegal immigrant. We do, however, have the ability to deport them as we come across them.

[RagingInMiami]

17. We do that already and they simply walk back across the border

[MercutioATC]

19. Actually, we don't.

I used to work for a Sheriff's Department in a rural area of Ohio. There was a cabbage grower with fields under our jurisdiction. Frequently, we would detain an illegal immigrant for a traffic violation or disturbing the peace. INS wasn't interested.

Border security would obviously have to be part of the plan, too.

[RagingInMiami]

23. Well to be honest with you

I feel much safer knowing that my local law enforcement agency is actually spending their time seeking violent criminals rather than deporting illegal immigrants who they've stopped for a traffic violation.

But that is just me.

[MercutioATC]

25. It's not an either/or situation.

We had the resources to do both. In effect, we had deputies doing nothing instead of enforcing laws.

(well, not NOTHING...they were driving around looking for LEGAL residents who were speeding)

[RagingInMiami]

27. Well I can't speak for your town

But I know that in some cities, if local law enforcement decides to play the role of immigration officials, then they'll have their hands full deporting non-violent immigrants at the price of averting resources from the violent criminals who happen to be US citizens.

[MercutioATC]

31. ...and there are jurisdictions that have that problem with legal citizens

In law enforcement, as in most professions, prioritizing is occasionally necessary. If there's a domestic disturbance or a robbery, officers stop enforcing traffic laws and handle the higher-priority situation.

Nobody is advocating making immigration enforcement the primary focus of local law enforcement.

As things stand now, however, they can't effectively enforce immigration laws even when they have the time and resources.

[Berserker]

18. How about all the Americans

that don't want ILLEGALS there is your Fucking army!

[RagingInMiami]

21. How about all them ILLEGALS

That are already in the Fucking Army fighting in Iraq?

And I guess the Minutemen are still accepting applications, if that is the army you are referring to.

[Berserker]

30. WOW hey everyone

ALL THE ILLEGALS are fighting in Iraq?. Well hell we have nothing to worry about but bullshit lies like that. Don't put me in your hate filled category as the nazis and rebel flag garbage thats really shallow. If anyone deserves it it's you. As you pointed out and called a person a fascist in another thread it's you who is a fascist. Can't handle anyone who disagrees with you? Keep going your making friends now.

[RagingInMiami]

39. Do you know how to interpret an English sentence?

I said, "How about all them ILLEGALS that are already in the Fucking Army fighting in Iraq?"

Perhaps it's not the most grammatically correct sentence, but it is also a far cry from what you said I said: "ALL THE ILLEGALS are fighting in Iraq."

Then you go on to say: "Don't put me in your hate filled category as the nazis and rebel flag garbage thats really shallow."

But in the previous post, you said, "How about all the Americans that don't want ILLEGALS there is your Fucking army!

You said it, I just posted the pictures of the only civilian "army" that is taking a stand against illegal immigration. Can you say Sieg Heil?

Then you said: "As you pointed out and called a person a fascist in another thread it's you who is a fascist."

Yes, I called someone a fascist in another thread because he wanted to punish illegal immigration by giving them life in prison. Entering this country illegally is a fucking misdemeanor. What's next, cutting the hands off shoplifters? Concentration camps? Gas chambers for homosexuals?

Then you said:

"Can't handle anyone who disagrees with you? Keep going your making friends now.

Trust me, the last thing I'm trying to do right now is make friends.

Oh, and about those illegal immigrants fighting in Iraq while me and you are arguing on an Internet message board?

As of April 2003, there were more than 34,000 foreign-born people who were not citizens serving in the military, according to the National Immigration Law Center.

"As of April, 2003, there were 68,826 foreign-born persons serving in the United States armed forces -- almost 5 percent of those serving. And about half of these are not citizens."

http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/DREAM/Facts_About_Immi...

In fact, the first soldier to die in this war was US Marine Lance Corporal Jose Gutierrez, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/23/60II/main550779.shtml

And here is a link about recruiters who was arrested for selling fake documents to illegal immigrants in order for them to join the military.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0540,gillison,68594,2....

There is your Fucking army.

[MercutioATC]

44. One small bone to pick...

There are many people in the U.S. who are not U.S. citizens who are still here legally (not "illegal immigrants").

I'd be interested where you came to the conclusion that there were a number of "illegal immigrants" fighting in the U.S. Armed Forces.

[seg4527]

10. there were more usa flags anyway. and on may 1st

I'm really excited for May 1st. Here in the twin cities, we are doing an anti-war walkout on campus and high schools the friday before, and the rally last semester had 2,000 kids. We are thinking 4,000 this time. And we're going to be calling for the 4 day weekend, and telling kids where to rally on monday.

[NNN0LHI]

12. Many Jews know all about Kristallnacht. They have seen it before n/t

[MercutioATC]

22. There's a HUGE difference between Kristallnacht and what we're discussing.

Kristallnacht was a state-supported attack on a defined group of LEGAL citizens.

What does that have to do with the issue at hand?

[ugarte]

32. With a stroke of the pen the Nazis made the Jews illegals

so I guess at that point you could say Jews were breaking the law by being in the country.

[MercutioATC]

38. You honestly don't see the difference??

1930's Germany enacted policies that made LEGAL citizens illegal. It was never their intent to break the law. They were law-abiding citizens until their government changed the rules on them.

The present U.S. situation involves people who intentionally broke the law to enter this country who never were citizens. We're not changing the rules on them, we're enforcing the laws they broke to enter the U.S.

[AlphaCentauri]

68. he he he There is no difference

1848 USA enacted policies that limited Mexican citizens their freedoms in the southwest and what about Blacks in the 1930's when whites called for blacks to be fired from any jobs as long as there were whites out of work.

[MercutioATC]

70. Those were legal U.S. residents.

We're not talking about Hispanic U.S. citizens (or U.S. citizens of any race). We're talking about illegal immigrants...people who have no legal right to be in the U.S. in the first place.

[pinto]

29. Who's the "pro-illegal immigrant faction"? n/t

[mmonk]

37. KBR has the camps ready.

We can get rid of all of our problems by putting them in concentration camps.:sarcasm:

[MercutioATC]

41. I don't believe anybody's advocating that...

...shipping them HOME would suffice.

[mmonk]

45. It's in somebody's mind.

Or at least the detention centers are being built for someone.

[MercutioATC]

46. Actually, they're not being built (as far as I've heard).

It's a contingency contract. No facilities might EVER be built.

If you have more recent data, I'd be interested. I've just never seen any reports of this being anything other than a contingency contract.

[mmonk]

65. So you're saying there's no plans for these being built?

[MercutioATC]

66. I'm saying none have been built...maybe none ever will.

That's what "contingency contract" means...

[Ksec]

42. I dont think they overplayed their hands

I just think they dont have the public support numbers on their side .
And nobody is going to change their mind on this . People have dug in /

[Mountainman]

43. You refuse to make any sense out of the issue.

What should be done? Seal the borders? Round up illegals and deport them? Keep their children who are citizens here and send their parents back to Mexico? Raise the price of food migrant workers pick? Have a permanent underclass of guest workers? Say it is more just to deport people then to provide the chance for a better life?

Your post is what I would expect from someone who has no solution only criticism of others.

[rman]

62. There is no pro-illegal immigrant faction

We've been over that already. There are those who support immigrants, both legal and illegal, in saying that they to have Human Rights. But "immigrant" is not the same as "immigration".
If a few here on DU do actually support illegal immigration they are to few to be called a faction.

If anyone is pro illegal immigration it's the big corporations and their cronies in Congress, because it provides cheap labor which allows for continued profit growth which benefits the rich at the expense of the non-rich.

[alcibiades_mystery]

69. This entire discussion on IMMIGRATION is moot

Capitalism doesn't care for borders, as we learned a long time ago. That the general flow of capital also causes massive flows of people should be clear enough. What is at issue is actually flows of labor that are set off by flows of capital; immigration - because it assumes the separation of nation states, everywhere despised by capitalism - is an out-dated way of thinking about the issue. In fifty years everyone will laugh at this time in our history, and the trite "politicization" of these flows within the old system that is thoroughly discredited already, in the same way that people secretly laugh about a trading company operating under charter of the King. We have no vocabulary or systematized way of thinking about these new flows of capital and people, so we try to annex them to the old systems: the nation state and nationality, ethnicity and race, the labor struggle as a problem of wage work - all fast disappearing vestiges of a modernity on the wane. Not that this residual thinking will be any less bloody for all that - King Leopold showed us how violent the fading sovereign power could be when it applied itself to the labor problems of global production. But the nostalgia currently on display on all sides of this issue should at least cause us to crack a smile now and again, as if any of this is about borders, flags, national identity, or even race, or even - and yes, maybe - wage labor. The entire debate is a comedy of errors, with plenty of nostalgic clowns to go around.