Sharp post, Zach.

Regarding respect for the rule of law, I'd also add that it surely undermines that respect to have laws on the books that are wildly unenforced. And, since for many reasons (including many good economic reasons), we as a polity just plain lack the will to enforce them, respect for the law dictates our paring them back into a form that we would be willing to enforce.

Really good post.

Perhaps rather than simply thinking of this as an "illegal immigration problem" which tends to limit the discussion to lawbreaking, fences, and troops at the Mexican border, we might instead try to shift focus to what the hell is going on in Mexico that is forcing millions of people to abandon the place of their birth.

Report on Mexico, 2006 Index of Economic Freedom

This passage stands out:

In the same year, based on data from the Ministry of Finance, the government received 29.11 percent of its total revenues from state-owned enterprises and government ownership of property.

That the Mexican government has such sources of income is cause for concern.

This page lists the scores for all the rated countries. Mexico is just a smidgeon worse off than economic basket case Greece - and Greece has a much higher per-capita GDP.

Hmmm...Greece "received 0.34 percent of its total revenues from state-owned enterprises and government ownership of property"...if that means that Mexico has more nationalized industry than Greece does, that would explain part of that GDP gap, perhaps a big part. Nationalized industries are notoriously inefficient, by the degree to which governments are insulated to the laws of supply and demand. Efficient industries expand more - and thus employ more workers - than inefficient ones.

Defectors from russia and east germany during the cold war were also doing something "illegal" and yet we in the free world never tried to characterize them as "immoral."

In my opinion, U.S. laws attempting to keep people in Mexico and away from the opportunities available in our nation are of no more moral weight than russian and east german laws attempting to do the same thing. In both cases, people living in a miserable state are being forced to remain there by people who benefit by keeping the border locked. It's just sad that our country has come to a place where we have such laws on the books.

One way or another, it won't last. The immmigration rallies in the U.S. remind me of the rallys before the berlin wall was torn down by those the walll sought to hold back. You can't hold human beings away from opportunity for long. They will always eventually break through.

The immmigration rallies in the U.S. remind me of the rallys before the berlin wall was torn down by those the walll sought to hold back.

One difference: Some of the pro-illegal-alien rallies were organized by an organization partly run by Commies - namely, International ANSWER.

If ANSWER is the extent of the difference between the two, then we're pretty clearly in 'praising with faint damns' territory.

Great post, and I absolutely agree that the loudest debate on this subject is missing the more important points. As Ponnuru says, we need to decide which and how many people to allow into the U.S., and then we need to reform the immigration system so that good citizenship candidates can get in without undue hassle while keeping out criminals and terrorists.

BTW, another difference between this wave of immigration and previous influxes is that the American welfare state has exploded in the last 40 years or so. There seems to be an expectation that simply by living here, a person deserves to have their basic needs met (food, clothing, shelter, and the modern addition--health care). A large influx of immigration presents a potentially large burden to our welfare system.

The other problem no one is talking about is that U.S. immigration levels are far too high and need to be substantially reduced. The United States admits more than one million legal immigrants every year, and America's businesses claim that they cannot find qualified workers.

Yet we have this from the Washington Post on the immigration issue (article dated April 10, 2006):

"An Alabama employment agency that sent 70 laborers and construction workers to job sites in that state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina says the men were sent home after just two weeks on the job by employers who told them "the Mexicans had arrived" and were willing to work for less.

"Linda Swope, who operates Complete Employment Services Inc. in Mobile, Ala., told The Washington Times last week that the workers -- whom she described as U.S. citizens, residents of Alabama and predominantly black -- had been "urgently requested" by contractors hired to rebuild and clear devastated areas of the state, but were told to leave three job sites when the foreign workers showed up.

"After Katrina, our company had 70 workers on the job the first day, but the companies decided they didn't need them anymore because the Mexicans had arrived," Mrs. Swope said. "I assure you it is not true that Americans don't want to work.

"We had been told that 270 jobs might be available, and we could have filled every one of them with men from this area, most of whom lost their jobs because of the hurricane," she said. "When we told the guys they would not be needed, they actually cried ... and we cried with them. This is a shame."

There certainly are "better ways to be humanitarian." Reverse migration is one good way, as is legislation clarifying that "anchor babies" are not U.S. citizens because they (and their parents) are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction.

Then, too, we can foil the Judiciary Committee's insertion of language that will raise the annual cap on H-1B visas from the current 65,000 to 95,000, reissue unused immigrant work visas or green cards up to a maximum of 90,000, and exempt H-1B family members from the cap on employment-based immigration - a move which is estimated to increase permanent immigration into the United States by more than 350,000 aliens a year, at the expense of American jobs.

Then there's the Kennedy Diversity Visa Lottery, which admits 50,000 aliens a year mostly from non-Western countries.

The U.S. today is a different country than it was; instead of the sparsely settled territory of 150 years ago, we're faced with urban/suburban and even rural sprawl, overcrowding, and environmental stress.

If today’s rate of immigration is continued, it will add nearly 150 million people to our population over the next 80 years - how is that going to benefit anyone? How will that advance a single U.S. objective? Will it decrease traffic and other types of congestion, improve water quality and availability, decrease school overcrowding, cut oil consumption, reduce housing costs?

Stress clinics have a saying: you can't take care of others if you don't take care of yourself. No, that isn't license to engage in ridiculous consumption, but it's a telling reminder that no resource is limitless.

If the U.S. can expect to continue its role as a world leader, it has to take steps to protect itself and the quality of life of its citizens. The examples I've listed here - and those are just a few - are strong evidence that continuing along the current path will lead to our eventual collapse.

Like a lifeboat from a sinking ship, there is a limit to how many people can board it and survive. Considering our current position, we need to make some significant changes, and those changes have to include closing the doors.

There are other differences:

1) The visible presence of the reconquista movement that wants all Euro-Americans (except Hispanics) to go back to Europe.

2) The Mexican/Mexican-American protesters protest against the US having an immigration process. Berlin Wall protesters protested against East Germany enslaving its citizens under Communism.

3) German protesters didn't protest against anything irrelevant to what the Berlin Wall stands for. The pro-illegal-immigrant rallies feature a lot of anti-Bush protest. Bush appeases the illegals, so the protests are about more than just immigration policy. (The war, for instance.)

4) The US doesn't shoot illegal immigrants. East Germany shot ilegal emigrants.

5) The pro-illegal-immigrant protesters hoist the flag of Mexico, the nation from whose economic tyranny illegal immigrants wish to flee. That's like Enron employees putting up Ken Lay posters in their homes.

Forgot to say, but the difference cited in the last point should be obvious: Berlin Wall protesters weren't displaying Commie symbols.

1) The visible presence of the reconquista movement that wants all Euro-Americans (except Hispanics) to go back to Europe.

I first heard about the "Reconquista Movement" about 6 years ago and quickly determined that the term "movement" is an incredibly overgenerous term - a few dozen tough-talking "radicals" with internet pages is not a "movement". Its support comes almost entirely from privileged American born latinos of far leftwing political bent and it suffers from the main problem typical of such movements - it has almost no support amongst the overall population it claims to represent, especially working class latinos.

Why is it so "visible"? Did they do anything newsworthy? No. The reason it is "visible" its opponents have turn the spot light on it in order to generate fear of immigrant subversion.

Seriously, they are as much of a threat as the anarchists I knew in college.

The Reconquistas seem to be largely a campus movement, and at least one of their numbers had achieved political office - Cruz Bustamante, the Lt. Governor of California.

Oh, _please_. Getting all worked up about silly groups like ANSWER and right-wing fantasies like Reconquista indicate a fundamental intellectual unseriousness about these issues.

From the ever-excellent Dave Neiwert:
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/04/reconquista.html
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/05/reconquista-redux.html

Reconquista is not a campus movement, it is Minuteman/Council of Conservative Citizens white supremacist nonsense mainstreamed by the likes of Michelle Malkin and Lou Dobbs.

So, you're saying that Michelle Malkin is involved with promoting "white supremacist nonsense"? Do you think she realizes it?

I'm inclined to believe r4d20 when he/she says reconquista is not a movement to be taken seriously. But by the same definition, neither is white supremacism.

I'm not saying she's promoting, Eric. Just repackaging extremist ideas for mainstream consumption, stripped of overt racism.

"But by the same definition, neither is white supremacism." I really & truly wish that were true, Eric. But it's not just that these radical racialist groups continue to pose local threats in various parts of the country (well-documented by the SPLC). They're also infecting the broader political discourse. Let me recommend this excellent & timely post by Dave Neiwert, on the ways that such groups have transmitted an unwholesome racist element into our debates about immigration, Mexico, etc:

http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/05/24/weeding-out-the-racists/

Yes - it is a CAMPUS movement. And, given the history of campus movements, we should hardly give into fear just yet.

What have campus movement accomplished since vietnam? Hell, that was a nationwide movement that spaned all races and classes and, after its singular acheivement, it fell quickly fell apart into squabbling factions that are more pathetic than dangerous.

Why? Because for all their talk, the majority of americans - including the various marginalised groups they claim to represent - want nothing to do with them or their gradiose schemes for "revolution". They had support on Vietnam, and they were successfull, but their assumption that this support would continue for their more hare-brained schemes proved to be without any merit whatsoever.

So, what do we have? A bunch of American born, middle-to-upper class, Latinos finding their authenticity in a radical embracing of an ultimately mythical conception of their own past and heritage. They have no real understanding or conncetion to the vast numbers of immigrants who simply want better life and have no plans, let alone desire, to "rejoin" the country they just ran from.

JohnS,

What are you talking about? Have you even read about Reconquista? Or even visited Michelle Malkin's site, where she denounces the movement? Or is this your parody of Democratic Underground moonbattery?

What starts on campus doesn't stay on campus. Universities train our future politicians, who take with them the ideas nurtured by academia.

Reconquista (Mexico) - Chicano nationalist movement that claims a homeland to be carved out of the US southwest

Reconquista 101 - Michelle Malkin video; does an excellent job of refuting the claim that the US stole land from Mexico

Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan - the major reconquista organization; "MEChA chapters first took root on California college campuses and then expanded to high schools and schools in other states. It soon became one of the primary Mexican-American organizations, hosting functions, developing community leaders, and politically pressuring educational institutions."

El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan - explicitly states the goal of attaining an independent homeland:

"With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our brothers in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlan."

"[W]e can only conclude that social, economic, cultural, and political independence is the only road to total liberation from oppression, exploitation, and racism."

I think it's fairly clear that JohnS, r4d20, and I have read plenty about these matters, and it's rather Alan who has not done his homework about _how there basically is no such movement_; and, at a minimum, that MEChA is clearly not interested in 'reconquista' in the sense that right-wing silliness mongers like Malkin mean.

Did you even read your own links, Alan? The wiki on MEChA indicates the opposite of what you have in mind!

As for the "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan", there's nothing in there that has anything to do with a _literal_ reconquering of parts of America and/or returning territory to Mexican control. (It is, as the name suggests, a _spiritual_, not a military, document.) It's just a standard kind of ethnic self-empowerment document. Given that there is an explicit list of "Organizational Goals", you'd think that "setting up an independent country" would be up there if it was something they had in mind. What they're talking about is political mobilization within the democratic system of the USA. It's an entirely legitimate (if politically rather far to the left) document.

Here's a few more links, if for some reason you don't like the ones we've already given:
http://www.crookedtimber.org/2003/09/02/stories
http://dfire.org/x2273.xml

As for the "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan", there's nothing in there that has anything to do with a _literal_ reconquering of parts of America and/or returning territory to Mexican control.

What part of "political independence" (El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan) do you not understand?

Man, I completely forgot this - MEChA's own constitution. The opening statement (emphasis added):

"Chicano and Chicana students of Aztlan must take upon themselves the responsibilities to promote Chicanismo within the community, politicizing our Raza with an emphasis on indigenous consciousness to continue the struggle for the self-determination of the Chicano people for the purpose of liberating Aztlan."

*sigh* Alan apparently not only lacks the minimal intellectual decency to read the links that I have now several times asked him to read, but also he is incapable of reading his own links in any other manner than the 'what can I pull out of context to support my claim?' heuristic.

In a nutshell: "political independence" can mean many things, and it's clear in context that it here means something like having a distinct Chicano political identity & organized movement, and not just depending on the two Anglo-dominated parties. And "liberation of Aztlan", in the context of that document, almost surely does not mean "wresting the West from the USA", because none of the activities & goals suggested in the rest of that document seem to have anything to do with such a radical goal. It should be given, rather, a reading like "ending the oppression of Chicanos in the USA".

From the miscellaneous teachings of Alan Henderson's opus, _When Words Can Have More Than One Meaning, Pick the Stupidest_:

Chapter VII: On William Blake's poetics -- "Were the Tories planning to transport the Wailing Wall to Yorkshire, or to London proper, in order to build Jerusalem on English soil? (Or Brighton?)"

Chapter XLII: A Quick Solution to the Struggle in Iraq -- "So I said to him, 'Rummy, just remind all them Muslims that 'Islam' means 'surrender', and so they'll either have to give up their religion, or surrender! Then we can get the troops back home, to guard us from the growing Brown Menace."

"that MEChA is clearly not interested in 'reconquista' in the sense that right-wing silliness mongers like Malkin mean."

There defintely are people who dream about "liberating" Aztlan in the sence that Michelle Malkin means. They are a tiny fringe group that has no following and is simply NOT, in any way, representative of the immigrants - they are representative of campus "radicals".

Alan,
Universities do train our future leaders, and ideas can find their way out the academy, and I obviously cannot garauntee that The "Aztlan" movement will not, one day, be an actual "movement" instead of just a few wannabes. The simple fact, however, is that the VAST majority of "movements" like this one languish in obscurity until they die unnoticed.

This country is not getting taken down by a handful of neo-marxists with internet connections. Anyone who is scared by this little douches is a coward plain and simple.

I ask again - besides all the talk, WHAT HAVE THEY DONE??

Hell, The Weathermen actually set bombs. The ALF and ELF actually engage in sabotauge and arson. What the HELL has MECHA done other than TALK???

Can we at least wait until one of these dipshits decides to engage in some patheticly futile attempt at "direct action" before we piss our pants over the "threat" that they pose?

We went from worrying about Al Queda with a nuke to Alfonzo Queso with a keyboard. Has 5 years of this given us PTSD so that we jump at possible shadows of hypothetical "threats"? I refuse to go along with lowering this bar any further. This country has REAL problems, some of which are tied to immigration, but none which has anything to do with these losers. This is simply fucking pathetic and undignified.

I would note that there is at least one real 'reconquista' group, and it's called La Voz de Aztlan. Here's the SPLC page on them:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=186

What they are is, indeed, (i) tiny, (ii) fringe, and (iii) not affiliated with MEChA.

Stefan Sharkansky fisks a MEChA spokesindividual here.

The article's Myth #6 should have been stated "MEChA denounces The Voz de Aztlan website" instead of "MEChA is affiliated with The Voz de Aztlan website," since the quote and Sharkansky's response address the former instead of the latter. "La Voz" is probably not affiliated with MEChA any more than I am affiliated with the government of Estonia. "La Voz" just so happens to believe in the Aztlan myth it shares with MEChA, and I happen to like Estonia's post-Commie economic progress (EU membership notwithstanding) to link its Index of Economic Freedom report on my blog.

MEChA has been associated with violence. That's not the only reason to be concerned about an outfit that idealizes the liberation of Aztlan.

Associated with Violence?

" At a July 4 celebration in 1996, members of the group, who call themselves Mechistas, were videotaped attacking black and white Americans protesting illegal immigration. In 1993, students at UCLA caused $500,000 worth of damage during protests to demand a Chicano studies department."

Ok. Lets think about this

1) There may be more, but Foxnews, which would probably not "hide" any more extreme cases if it knew them, can list 2 specific incidences in the last 13 years, the most recent of which is 10 years old. I've done a small, but hardly exhaustive, search and can't find any others.

2) Only 1 incidence involves violence to people, and that took place at a "protest of illegal immigration" - scuffles at protests are hardly unknown.

3) While Foxnews uses the loaded term "attack", it provides no details of the actual fight itself. The word may give the impression that it was one-sided and pre-meditated, but given the venue of a "protest" Occams Razor would indicate that, unless more detail is provided, the most likely scenario was a fight after a heated argument in an already charged environment. This doesn't excuse it at all and it is a "violent act", but I'm sure members of the ADL have "attacked" KKK marchers in similar circumstances - not every Jew can be peaceful when a nazi is screaming "kike" in his face and sometimes they do throw the first punch. This hardly makes the ADL a violent organization, and a single incident of fistfighting at a charged protest is not enough evidence to justify treating them as a REAL violent organization worthy of singling out for worry.

4) The other incident was property damage. I'm no fan of this either, but once again I can't help of thinking of the MILLIONS of dollars done by students in my home state of MD. . Obviously it's not "ok" to do this and perps should be punished but these two events simply do not indicate enough of a pattern to justify real concern. Students have been trashing campuses for a while - but people only see a "movement" in the ones that scare them for some reason.

There are several white supremacist organizations that not only preach armed overthrow of the "ZOG" but are heavily armed, engage in para-military training, and HAVE engaged in murders, bank robberies, bombings, and the like. The FBI is on their asses but there isn't a nationwide fear of a burgeoning Nazi movement because most people see how marginalized they are and that, while racism is a problem, it is not going to take that form in any real numbers. The Aztlan dreamers are not in touch with the illegal immigrants and are not in any position to act on their desires either. There is no "movment" worth worrying about. The people coming to this country wantto better their lives - not to lose them in a war over 160 year old wrongs (or are you planning on just handing it over if it does become an issue?).

This issue is only on the news because it combines two of the traditional boogeymen - foreigners and leftwing student radicals. Its the new "yellow peril" - the lefties and the mexicans joining forces to create an army of 12 million undocumented communists who take our jobs and subvert our way of life. The fact that the vast majority of those 12 million people want nothing to do with the vision of these "activists".

Hell, if we wanted to stop illegal immigration we would topples the Meixcan Gov't and install a communist regime ourselves. They we wouldn't have to keep them out because they wouldnt be allowed to leave.

oops. pardon the MANY typos......

"That's not the only reason to be concerned about an outfit that idealizes the liberation of Aztlan."

Only if you continue foolishly to consture "liberation" in a way that makes no sense given the actual goals & activities of the organization. Which, again, you'd understand if you had the intellectual decency to read the stuff your opponents here have linked to.

Pretty much everything in that 'fisk' from Sharkansky is either beside the point, fallacious, or both. Here's a lovely example (The first part is the quoted material from the MEChA person, then Sharkansky's 'fisk'):

"Myth #4: MEChA wants to create a separate nation-state only for Chicanos.
Facts:
A. MEChA refers to the liberation of Aztlan as the liberation of our people from oppressions and ignorance--- a spiritual liberation.

Yeah, and jihad is not an armed struggle, but an internal struggle "

I thought this one was pretty laughable in its stupidity as well:
"Myth #5: MEChA is a violent organization
Facts: MEChA is a non-violent organization

It would be helpful if Ralph could explain why a non-violent organization requires as its logo an eagle holding a stick of dynamite."

(The Salvation Army's motto is "Fire and Blood", btw -- how many FBI agents should be detailed to keeping an eye on that violent organization, do you think?)

The only part of the post that seems even remotely on-target is the bit about this one MEChA person (who is, btw, NOT an official spokesperson for the group -- why is Alan so bad at reading the materials that he himself links to?) saying that they don't recognize colonialist borders. Does that mean that they want to overthrow the government? Maybe... but do we suspect Médecins Sans Frontières of the same? A better understanding of this is that they do not recognize those borders as having any sort of basic or natural moral authority, and that they are a group with an internationalist perspective.

There is no good reason to sustain these extremist, radical interpretations of these documents. They are not consistent with the actual behaviors of the organization, and they are not consistent with the overall picture of the philosophy that one gets if one actually reads through & thinks about the documents in their entirety. To persist in such an unsupportable interpretation, then, one must have at least one of many possible bad reasons, the most likely of which are: racism ("the little brown people are trying to take over!"), laziness, and just plain willful stupidity. I offer no hypotheses as to which combination of those are in play just now.

"As for the first problem, legal immigrants simply belong to that ever-growing class of people who've been made to jump through troublesome government hoops in pursuit of a better life. But their past harassment is no argument for continuing with flawed policies."

Nothing worth having should ever come easily.

Searched for your analysis of federal policy on immigration, but nothing posted here. Checked internet, too many posts, no obvious finds pointing to your analysis.

This article makes a few good points, but without the context of your philosophy, analysis, and general worldview, I cannot comment other than on the apparent, "explaining away" of the 1st reason, quoted above.

My reaction to it is that American citizenship should not come easily. This was done after the 1986 amnesty, the dumbing down of the citizenship test, requirements for citizenship, and assimilation into the, "Brown" of America, the fears of, "Reconquista" are not far-fetched. As demonstrated in pre-war Germany, Russia, Lebanon, Rwanda, and Somolia, it is not difficult for political extremists to pretend to care about a sizeable minority while advancing their agendas on their backs.

What we are deciding is, "Do we want a nation-state", or go back to tribal affiliations?

IF you think this is absurd, look around. Are we not segregating socially?