Immigration Enforcement Works - Even When It's a Hoax
The New York Times reports that immigrant communities were seized in a paralysis of fear as rumors of immigration enforcement measures terrorized these defenseless residents. And if you think the previous sentence was a tad overwrought, you should read the article.
Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami, is still looking into rumors. "The community is paralyzed," she said. "I haven't seen this kind of fear in the immigrant community ever. Immigrants are afraid of going to work, of taking their kids to school, of leaving the home. People are not going to important medical appointments. There are pregnant women canceling their prenatal care appointments because they feel immigration will be waiting for them there." Some immigrant advocates see an eerie reversal of the groundswell that emboldened tens of thousands to take to the streets in protest last month, and a frightening glimpse of the future if Congress enacts pending measures that would require the local police to enforce federal immigration law and add criminal penalties to what are now civil violations. [emphasis helpfully added to point out the reporter's own use of loaded terms]The only reason "massive deportation of the people here is not going to work" (to quote the President) will be that people won't be able to stand hearing about pregnant women missing doctor appointments and kids being torn out of their Head Start classes - not from being genuinely touched by them, but just not being able to stand hearing the nonsense over and over and over again. The Times did at least give the last (if only) word to an immigration opponent who pointed out that this is good news.
Supporters of the measures say that illegal immigrants should feel fearful. "People should feel uncomfortable about breaking the law," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation of American Immigration Reform, which advocates sharp restrictions on immigration. "If we have a policy that is demonstrated to be consistent, many people will get the message and decide that remaining here in the United States illegally isn't worth the price that they have to pay."Now, if only ICE would follow this up with some real raids - particularly some random ones, we might actually make some real progress.
posted by ziel | 4/29/2006 09:10:00 PM
7 Comments:
Is it just me or is this story a huge contradiction? For nigh on 6 years the left has been railing about what incompetent bunglers this administration is (okay, therre may be some truth to that but let's put that aside for now). Yet somehow they've now developed the skill and organization necessary to all at once plant traps for nearly every illegal immigrant in this country. So, most of the time they are idiots but when it comes to evil intents, they all of a sudden have the ability to know every location that harbors or employs illegal immigrants. Amazing.
Reminds me of my down-the-street liberal neighbors who, after the close-by Limey housewife (legal immigrant doing quite well in the USA) joking remarked to them that she saw them having sex on their deck on Google Maps satellite view, immediately seized upon this as being true and justification that the govermnent was out to get them. A tad unrealistic perhaps? Apparently not, to some.
That's an interesting way to get a cou[le to reveal that they are having sex on the deck.
Maybe it's true - liberals do have a better sex life.
Ziel,
I hate to rain on the parade here, but the better enforcement against illegals is going to accomplish absolutely nothing over the long term if the legal immigration numbers stay as high as they are, approaching 2 million every year. I know there are exceptions (probably yourself among them), but the vast majority of the legals are chain migrants of people either amnestied earlier, or allowed in through other sketchy means. Because of chain migration provisions, third-worlders are allowed to abuse the system with impunity.
The hard truth is this-- if we don't clamp down fast on the legal immigration numbers, then whites will be a small minority in the USA very soon, just as some other people have been predicting. That would be the end of the USA as a superpower and even as a unified nation-- no such bitterly ethnically divided nation has held together very long, and it will break up very fast.
FWIW, the House bill with tough enforcement provisions is *not* going to pass-- both the President and the Senate are adamantly opposed to it. However, the Senate's guest worker bill won't pass either, due to opposition by the House. So what we'll wind up with is a minimalist compromise that forks over a few extra hundred million for border enforcement, which is fine and dandy except that it won't do a thing to reduce the unsustainable legal immigration numbers.
It's ironic that you yourself came from Germany in the US (pls correct me if I'm wrong, sorry), since lately, I've been meeting scores of American Whites who are going in the opposite direction, to Germany or Austria or Italy or somewhere else in Europe that, whatever its problems, isn't being deluged by third world waves to the same degree as the US or Britain are. I sense the key difference is this: Both European and US Whites are suffering drastic declines in their birthrates (latest estimates for White TFR in the US, less than 1.5). However, Europe has real immigration restrictionist parties that are having at least some impact in putting the lid on 3rd world inflows, while pushing pro-Natalist policies and encouraging work from E Europe, where they have no qualms about seeing ethnic solidarity with the workers. In the US, we have two parties each of them under the control of war and pro-open-borders business branches, both parties unresponsive to our interests, and we're being flooded with millions upon millions of third world immigrants every year. IOW, we're screwed here in the US, and the bread and circuses are bad enough that there's no prospect for change through the electoral system. So, people are moving to European countries.
Colonel - no, I am 3rd generation American on both sides - father's family from Germany, mother's from Ireland - both great grandparents arrived here in the 19th century.
But you are right about legal immigration. Legal immigration is in some ways worse than illegal. Illegal immigrants, as the cliche says, come here to work. Many if not most legal immigrants come here for 'family reunification' - a really stupid criterion for admittance. The last thing we want to do is build strong extended family ties among immigrants - that only serves to reduce the inclination to assimilate. But - as many have pointed out - that's what makes legalizing the 12 million illegals would be so disastrous -that will lead to another millions more related legal immigrants in fairly short order.
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