The topic of illegal immigrants is a hot one since the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill was debated last year. This piece in American Thinker states the issues fairly although I disagree on a couple of points.Here is the story of the Clinton approach. That happens to be about the Canadian border but, remember, the last two terrorist attempts, The Millennium Bomber and Jose Padilla, both came from Canada.What about the Mexican border? The numbers crossing are controversial.As of 2003, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services put the number at 7 million. Since then, United States immigration officials have said the number has grown by as much as 500,000 a year. That would suggest 500,000 cross per year. However, in a letter to a constituent in 2004, Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona wrote: “According to the US Border Patrol apprehension statistics, almost four million people crossed our borders illegally in 2002.”Which is it ? I suggest that both numbers are right and that contributes to a solution. In the Cheech and Chong movie , “Up in Smoke,” there was a funny scene in which Mexican residents of East LA were planning to attend a wedding in Mexico. The problem was transportation for 30 or so family members who wanted to attend the wedding but couldn’t afford a bus ticket. Someone called the INS and reported 30 illegal aliens in East LA. The Border patrol picked them all up in a bus and dropped them off in Tijuana. After the wedding, they all snuck back into the US and returned home to East LA. Problem solved.The obvious answer to the question of how many are crossing from Mexico is twofold. About four million per year cross but only 500,000 stay. The rest go back and forth. Building and enforcing a border fence will dramatically slow the problem and may even go a long way to solution. If the fence were there and were enforced, the word would spread rapidly among the illegal community. Since the recent discussion of stepped up enforcement, the number of illegals coming in has dropped. And some have even returned to Mexico.The problem is easier to solve than amnesty advocates would have you believe. Enforce the law and a large part of the problem would go away. Deportation is a bogeyman used by amnesty advocates to muddy the water. Nobody is going to deport 12 million people. Some of them may deport themselves. Eventually, when we have control of the border, we can consider what to do with those who are living here illegally but who have had long term commitments to the community, like homes and children.There is a basic rule of holes. The first step in fixing it is to stop digging it deeper.
Hi Dr. K. Immigration is a terrible mess. What is worse is how genuine problems get exaggerated, polarized, and politicized. We are “evil” and “racist” to impede illegal immigrants, while if Americans attempted to sneak into Mexico, that government would respond…ah…quite differently. Differently in terms of public support. Differently in terms of schools, medical care, bank loans, and so on.
I am a great reciprocicist.
The Reconquista folk do not impress me, given the history of Mesoamerica…particularly pre-European Mesoamerica. Folks of Mexican descent do not have the claim on California that, say, Native Americans have…yet I don’t see television stations and pseudopolitical movements speaking up for them. Instead, the claims are all based on the bones of the Spanish Empire, which is ironic. I would thus argue that the “Mexican” influence in the Reconquista movement is actually just as imperialistic as the Europeans ever were—both during the Mexican period and now.
And the Nahua and Mexica (called the Aztecs in my youth) were…ah…no better. They just didn’t have gunpowder and horses. And they were never a force in what is now California.
So perhaps the scattered remains of the Hokan, Miwok, Ohlone, Chumash, and other *authentic* “original” inhabitants of California ought to tell the Mexican immigrants to get the dickens back to their historical territories. After all, notice the Reconquista folk never dream of taking, well, Mexico back from Mexico!
Maybe I am a cultural relativist after all!
¿Dónde esta mi amor Donna B.?
I hope that you can Reconquista her heart, TBC.