Interesting Info on Immigrants

Nothing wrong with that mission statement.

The baseline data for that report comes from USC:

http://csii.usc.edu/

The report focuses on immigrants from *all* parts of the world. Now that net migration from Mexico is zero, I like how data was included for other groups in SB such as Asians.

The significance of immigration from Asia (which includes India/Pakistan) is growing as recently documented in a new study from the Pew Research Center:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...

I took a tour of their website and clearly they are a pro-illegal immigration group.

Let's cut to the core: The word "immigrant"--when used in these forums--means illegal immigrant from Mexico and Central America. Conditions in those places are horrible and as a result people are willing to risk being raped by "coyotes" (slang term for unscrupulous people who smuggle these people across the border) and then possibly die in the heat of the desert while crossing, and then be subjected to the
nudge-nudge-wink-wink policy of being worked in slave like conditions for cheap wages while the Chamber of Commerce and politicians talk out one end of their lying mouths about "coming in the right way" but then saying how they are "the backbone of our economy".

Last time I looked our economy is failing. The children of these people "immigrants" as they are called, have almost zero hope of a future because Mom and Dad are working two to three jobs and aren't around to raise them. These people have no realistic hope of being anything other than cogs in a corrupt machine of poverty pimps, business leaders, and system which guarantees the "cadena perpetua" of "at risk youth" while more and more of our youth drop out of school and get involved in crime. While we are fed the lie about "the backbone of our economy" our "progressive" leadership talks about "gang injunctions" and a "Gang Czar" (http://www.independent.com/news/2010/...) to the tune of an $80,000 annual salary because what they all overlook is the reality that this economy is now based on exploiting illegal immigrants, and as Matt pointed out in another recent article, the alcohol industry.

If people were truly interested in the welfare of these people, they would talk about the abysmal conditions and corruption of Mexico and stop enabling it by pandering to the pro-illegal immigration forces. The economic arguments for illegal immigration are not only immoral, and fly in the face of truly progressive labor rights, but are ultimately a huge Ponzi Scheme designed to benefit the wealthy and those whose jobs depend on the crime and poverty that result from this exploitation.

Look around and wake up, I know that "progressives" don't want to run afoul of the militant open borders contingent, and they may think they are doing people favors by letting them come into the U.S. and giving them everything in Spanish, but in the end the suffering gets worse on both sides of the borders, while politicians, business owners, and poverty pimps laugh their way to the bank.

You have made a lot of statements with absolutely no statistics to back it up. Yet you criticize the report that has at least tried to get numbers. LOL.

Btw, Mexican migration, as stated above, is mostly non-existent.

Statistics are easily manipulated. Not every statement requires math equations to back it up.

Sadly, everyone is a little correct.

Supply: We need to help improve the economics and politics throughout Latin America. But helping the economies is easier than politics. We need to take a 30 year view.

Demand: We allow employers to work beneath the law. We lose the taxes and illegals are seriously exploited. But employers also need labor that our own unemployed won't provide.

The immigrants that are here are here to stay unless blackshirts remove them. I can't allow that culture in my country.

Most make a living and contribute and are good people. Wee continue to ignore solutions to include them in the USA and our tax system. Ronald Reagan tried once.

With 10-15 million illegals, we need to focus on those that really threaten the fabic of our society. The true criminal elements definitively needs to deported or jailed. The others just need to pay taxes.

We do need to work past emotion, focus on reality and get cracking and at least get a 95 % solution.

There was a chance in Mexico, NAFTA was sold as the solution but all it did was entrench multi-national corporate hegemony (and slave labor) in Mexico while robbing the US of jobs- which in turn exacerbates the acrimony between Latin American immigrants (legal or not). Pile on top of that the Drug War which has further decimated a country that already had a government riddled with corruption.
But today, as of all decades past- the bulk of illegal immigration comes from Canada and Europe.
The past 25 years has seen an increase in illegal immigration by Chinese nationals- some one might consider refugees- many in service of their masters in Beijing.

A candy coated clown for everyone.

One needs to remember the prime attraction for people coming here; to escape the caste systems in their homelands so their kids have a better chance. We say things are bad here. But they are fantastic compared to other places. I like the motivation of most immigrants I meet. But something really needs to be done

Tabatha: Since your comment was the next after mine I will assume you are referring to what I posted.

As for having nothing to back up what I said, I can see it all around me. I have eyes, ears, and read the news and the low test scores, gangs, and poverty are corrallated to the cheap labor scheme and since Mexico A: Is next door, B: Has a large population, and C: has a large percent of its people living in abject poverty any reasonable mind would understand why this is an issue.

I don't know if you are joking or really believe what you post, but at least I am trying to address root causes where all you do is attack which by doing, offers no solutions.

I would ask Tabatha that you look at the history of this country and examine the fact that the pro-slavery movement made the same argument to justify that injustice as the pro-cheap labor supporters are making today, which was that the cheap labor provided by slaves was needed to support the Southern economy. Fast forward 147 years and the south did not fall apart when slavery ended.

Also, neither of the two major political parties wants to touch the Done Deal of NAFTA and how it affected the Mexican economy. When fringe politicians such as Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Ross Perot, and Pat Buchanan raise the point, they are simply set aside for the simplistic platitudes of abortion, education, and all the other stuff the two-party duopoly throws at us. (I believe the Green Party also is not in favor of NAFTA)

Anyway, we can keep doing the same thing over and over and scapegoat A: People in the country illegally, or B: Those who question the politics behind illegal immigration, or we can address root causes and get off the hyperbole of finger-pointing and some of the other bloggers are raising excellent points.

All I want is that everyone--in all nations--have a shot at a decent life. Is that so wrong?

I meant to say "A AND B" not "A OR B".

The South pulled out of its post-civil war depression only during WW 2 and truly got moving forward after the 1964 civil rights act. Lesson learned: serration holds back progress. Now it seems we are degrading illegals who happen to be contributing.

Aren't criminals by definition "degraded"?

When you say that there is currently no migration from Mexico, it obscures the fact that there are still millions of illegal immigrants from Mexico in California. As someone who has worked in maintenance landscaping, restaurants and construction, I also understand that employers have used illegal immigrants to hold wages down in these trades and others. Millions of illegal immigrants hold jobs in these trades, and in meat packing and hotel trades as well. In fact, employers have all but ruined the meat-cutters/butchers union this way.
Construction framers and laborers make little more than I did 30 years ago in this work because employers can take advantage of illegal immigrants. The plan to allow illegal immigrants to keep the jobs will do little to restore the wages since supply and demand will still have about 12 million immigrants competing for the work.
In addition to having worked in most of the trades most impacted by illegal immigrants, I have spent a lot of time in the their homelands — Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. I was an international election observer a few years ago in El Salvador, a country with more than a quarter of its citizens in the United States.
In a meeting with President Barack Obama, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes replied to Obama’s pledge of immigration reform by asking for restoration of opportunity in El Salvador. He is aware that U.S. trade and aid policies have destroyed that opportunity and that immigration has been destructive to the social fabric of El Salvador, taking its most ambitious citizens, breaking up families and communities, depriving citizens of the right to vote in their homeland elections and leading to gangs because of the broken families.
I continue to think the only reform that will work for U.S., Mexican and Central American workers is reform that rebuilds the small enterprise and farming in the homelands of the immigrants. Obama promised to renegotiate NAFTA. He should do so and include CAFTA and examine foreign aid as well. We should use microloans to assist in this! A microloan equivalent to one visit to the emergency room, the only health-care option they have, would do it.
Rowland Lane Anderson

Lane: Would the program in Mexico (perhaps among others) be the Elido (sp?) program.

Also, how do you feel about Obredor? A well-informed source tells me that if he were elected in Mexico he could make much-needed reforms which would re-invest capital in Mexico instead of it flowing out. Your thoughts?

Hi Bill,
No, the Ejido program was enacted by Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico's equivalent of FDR and worked well until Salinas gutted it after cheating President Cardenas' son out of the elections in a clearly fraudulent election. Salinas is so hated for this he lives in Ireland or would be killed in Mexico. The same kind of fraud robbed Obredor of the presidency last election. Obredor is a good man and would probably solve as many problems as any man could.
Rowland Lane Anderson
(from Antipolo, Rizal, Philippines)

The supreme court pulled a good one today! Go ARIZONA!

When my GG Grandfather left Ireland in 1831 and landed in Vera Cruz, Mexico.

He spoke no Spanish, received no Government assistance. He made his way to Guadalajara and studied/worked for the Jesuits learning French and Spanish.

After fulfilling his obligations he immigrated to the Republic of Texas in 1840.

Established himself with the local Celts and then immigrated to Northern California in the 1840’s after a stop in New Orleans to become a U.S. Citizen.

He settled in Los Angeles in 1851 and put down roots, as one of only a half dozen Anglo Families in town but fully versed in the Spanish language and culture.

At NO time during all these travels did the many Governments offer anything but opportunity. No monies, no housing, no health care – just an opportunity.

Ireland was a land of no opportunity for a Catholic, could not own land, toiled for and suffered discrimination by the English masters, no life at all.

Immigration should be a Natural Right but it gets perversely warped when Government decides to operate as a Charity.

Until Government gets out of the Charity business and re-assumes its correct role, people are going to keep coming to get the free meals, housing, health care, it is human nature, I cannot blame them.

Immigration is not the issue; it is the Welfare State that they seek that is the problem.

It is the Keynesian Welfare State that has created massive Immigration throughout the Western World and who can blame them.

As Keynesian Economies slide into Bankruptcy immigration will and has slowed, now what will happen with millions of people with no jobs and no welfare, that is the million-dollar question?

Immigration YES, it is a Natural Right, Government Assistance NO.

We need to get back to the land of Opportunity, not the Land of Welfare.

Water will then seek its own level, naturally.

howgreen - Perhaps you should go ask the guy picking the strawberries you can afford how much he has been "given" by our government.

I would rather have fair wages, than low priced strawberries.

You could probably have fair wages and low priced strawberries if corporate farms didn't pour on the chemicals and the mutant fruit. They never talk about that, mostly unnecessary expense.

How green: I seem to remember from one of Walter Thompkin's books that one of SB's earliest non-Hispanics in 1830 or so was an Irishman who jumped ship because of SB's catholic faith. (and girls on the beach)

Another point: How do countries such as Japan and the Scandinavian countries have such a high standard of living without a huge influx of cheap labor?

Hispanic Opinion on (Illegal) Immigration

The opinion of Hispanics in the U.S. regarding immigration policy is often portrayed by the media as monolithic and in support of amnesty for illegal aliens and expanded legal immigration. In fact, the opinion of Hispanics in the U.S. is as diverse as the population itself. While Hispanic opinion as a whole is more favorable to proposals that include amnesty for illegal aliens, when the survey sample is limited to Hispanic citizens, the views expressed tend to be much more in line with those of the rest of the American population.

The following are key findings of recent polls of Hispanics on immigration to the U.S.:

Oppose increasing overall levels of immigration:
A clear majority of Hispanics in the U.S. oppose increasing current levels of immigration. Forty-three percent believe that levels should remain the same, while 13 percent want to see levels reduced. Only 31 percent favor immigration increases. (Attitude toward Immigrants and Immigration Policy, Pew Hispanic Center survey, Aug. 2005.)

Oppose benefits for illegal aliens:
By a 60 percent to 29 percent margin, native-born Hispanic Americans oppose granting driver's licenses to illegal aliens. (Attitude toward Immigrants and Immigration Policy, Pew Hispanic Center survey, Aug. 2005.)

Sizeable minority opposes a guest worker program:
Fifty-four percent of registered Hispanic voters support a guest worker program, but a significant minority - 40 percent - oppose such a plan. (National Survey of Latinos, July 2004, Pew Hispanic Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation.)

Immigration is a low priority among Hispanic voters:
Among issues of concern to Hispanic voters, immigration ranks eleventh. Education (54%), jobs (51%), health care (51%) were cited as the most pressing issues among Hispanic voters. Immigration was only cited as the most important issue by 27 percent of respondents.

Oppose a "pathway to citizenship" for illegal aliens:
A majority of Hispanic voters (52.4% to 38.2%) support ". . . legislation stating that any person living in this country illegally cannot become a United States citizen unless they reapply for citizenship legally from their country of origin." (The Latino Coalition Poll, January 2006.)

Support enforcement of employer sanctions law:
A plurality of Hispanic voters (49.9% to 41.2%) support new laws to make sure that employers can only hire workers who are in the U.S. legally. (The Latino Coalition Poll, January 2006.)

http://www.federalobserver.com/archiv...

@Num1UofAn,

Your point is? My FIL picked strawberries during WWII to pay his way through UCBerkley, earning a degree in Chemical Engineering.

Myself and friends did a little berry work in the summer during HS. Some of us bagged at Gagway and worked at Big Macs Steakhouse also.

Ever picked berries? How about loading concrete flash from new foundations or dragged piles of 5/8 green board upstairs.

AndersonLane, that was very interesting and helpful.
Howgreenwasmyvalley, if your GG grandfather was Irish, then he most definitely was not Anglo. Especially not in the 1850s.

Nitz must be referring to the dreaded Ginger Horde.

I picked strawberrys at a farm on Hollister during summer in high school and worked as a hod carrier during college. Pay enough and eliminate the competition from illegal immigrants and anybody will do any job.

And who are the high school drop outs our society will be supporting in the future?

"The overall dropout rate masks considerable variability among demographic groups.  Large disparities in dropout rates exist among major ethnic groups as shown in Figure 1.  In 1998, the dropout rate for White, non-Hispanics was 7.7 percent, compared to 13.8 for Black, non-Hispanics and 29.5 for Hispanics (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2000, Table 108)"

At least 30% of those Hispanic drop outs are the sons and daughters of illegal immigrants.