"Mexico's Glass House"

The Center for Security Policy has a great paper out on how MEXICO treats ILLEGAL ALIENS in Mexico. Such hypocrisy. The Mexican government demands we give their citizens, who illegally invade our country, all the same rights proper citizens enjoy. At the same time, Mexico treats illegal aliens in a much different manner. (Curtsy to Michelle Malkin)

You can find the paper here. (PDF)

And here is an excerpt from the brief:

(Washington, D.C.): The Congress has received lots of free advice lately from Mexican government officials and illegal aliens waving Mexico's flag in mass demonstrations coast-to-coast. Most of it takes the form of bitter complaints about our actual or prospective treatment of immigrants from that country who have gotten into this one illegally - or who aspire to do so.

If you think these critics are mad about U.S. immigration policy now, imagine how upset they would be if we adopted an approach far more radical than the bill they rail against which was adopted last year by the House of Representatives - namely, the way Mexico treats illegal aliens.

In fact, as a just-published paper by the Center for Security Policy's J. Michael Waller points out, under a constitution first adopted in 1917 and subsequently amended, Mexico deals harshly not only with illegal immigrants. It treats even legal immigrants, naturalized citizens and foreign investors in ways that would, by the standards of those who carp about U.S. immigration policy, have to be called "racist" and "xenophobic."
[. . .]
As the immigration debate in the Senate moves into a decisive phase this week, legislators who believe America's southern border must be secured, the Nation's existing immigration laws enforced and illegal aliens not rewarded with permanent residency and a direct path to citizenship are being sharply criticized and, in some cases, defamed as bigots and xenophobes. Yet, even their maximalist positions generally pale in comparison with the treatment authorized by the Mexican constitution.

So the next time such legislators - and the majority of Americans for whom they speak - are assaulted by Mexican officials, undocumented aliens waving Mexican flags in mass demonstrations here in the United States, clergy and self-described humanitarians, businessmen and other advocates of illegal immigration ask them this: Would they favor having the U.S. impose the same restrictions on immigrants - legal and illegal - that Mexico imposes on their counterparts there?

Nothing of the kind is in the cards, of course. Nor should it be. Legal immigration and the opportunity for foreign investors and other nationals legitimately to contribute to this country are not only one of its hallmarks; they are among the reasons for its greatness.

You must go read this for yourself.

Illegal is illegal. Do we not, as a sovereign nation, have the right to set our own laws, enforce them, and kick out or jail those who do not? No one is supposed to be above the law . . . but apparently illegal aliens are.

These are the kind of people who have been out marching. They want to kick us out of the United States . . . and worse.

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Great opinion piece in the Bangor Daily News (Maine), titled "The truth about illegal labor." Here are some excerpts:

Advocates for illegal aliens and their employers often argue that we should recognize the reality that certain sectors of our economy have grown dependent on illegal labor, and therefore a "realistic" solution is to legalize. Let's examine the truth of this claim.

Approximately 7 million illegal aliens are in the work force. The overwhelming majority is unskilled, and 60 percent lack even a high school education. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 20 percent of cooks, 25 percent of construction workers, 22 percent of maids, 25 percent of ground maintenance workers, and 29 percent of agricultural workers are illegal.

So despite the concentration of illegal workers in certain industries, the majority of work in these sectors is still predominately performed by American citizens and legal immigrants, i.e. the working poor and ethnic minorities. How much do we care about these fellow Americans who compete head to head with the illegal worker? And who has a greater claim on our loyalty?

And:

If illegal immigrants were to go home, the wages of these Americans would significantly improve. Many economists have spoken on this issue, most recently Princeton economist Paul Krugman, writing for The New York Times, "It is intellectually dishonest to say, as President Bush says, that immigrants 'do the jobs that Americans won't do.' The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays, and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants."

No matter how many new legal workers we import, the employers decry "labor shortages," which is increasingly laughable in a nation that added 60 million people in just 20 years. How much longer do we swallow these bogus claims? Many illegal aliens are cleaning homes, mowing lawns, cooking meals for the rich. Were they to go home, the wealthy would pay more for their household labor or else they would mow their own lawns.

So what? The "economy" will survive without these so called "essential" workers.

The really big "pink elephant" in this whole debate, however, is the fact that all immigration, but especially illegal immigration, is currently a net fiscal drain on the American taxpayer. A comprehensive economic study of immigration in l996 by the National Research Council discussed this issue in some depth. Bottom line: the annual net fiscal drain imposed on native households by all immigrant-headed households ranges between $15 billion and $20 billion. If we were to legalize all 12 million illegals currently here, plus their many family members who want to join them (the Senate immigration bill), about half the illegal population which is not currently paying taxes would begin to pay taxes.

But at the same time, all amnestied illegals and their families become eligible for means-tested programs. This cost of importing poverty is not being discussed honestly with Americans.

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At NRO,

John Derbyshire wonders why Mexico can't fix itself (basically).

The Editors: Migrant Politics.

Editor Rich Lowry: Poor Trend:

Forget the long-running bipartisan concern about creating an educated, highly skilled workforce. What the U.S. economy desperately needs is more high-school dropouts — so desperately that we should import them hand over fist.

Such is the logic of the contention by advocates of lax immigration that the flow of illegal labor from south of the border is a boon to our economy. But it doesn't make intuitive sense that importing the poor of Latin America would benefit us. If low-skill workers were key to economic growth, Mexico would be an economic powerhouse, and impoverished Americans would be slipping south over the Rio Grande.
[...]
If we really need more poorly educated workers here, we can always rely, unfortunately, on the public schools to produce them indigenously.

Via CBSNews, for NRO, Mark Krikorian has this column: It's About Power, Not Immigration:

What we’re seeing in the streets is a naked assertion of power by outsiders against the American nation. They demand that we comply with their wishes and submit our immigration policies for their approval — and implicitly threaten violence if their demands are not met. Far from being a discussion among Americans about the best way to regulate immigration, the illegal-alien marches have been marked by the will to power: ubiquitous Mexican flags, burning and other forms of contempt for the American flag, and widespread displays of blatant racial chauvinism and irredentism.

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Lots over at The Immigration Blog, including ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE ALREADY CRIMINALS -- BUT THEY'RE NOT BEING DEPORTED ANYWAY!

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Rush has lots of great things: EIB delivers the facts you need to counter the pandering..., plus these great links:

Why Americans Hate This “Immigration” Debate. Here is an excerpt:

To ordinary Americans, the definition of “immigration” is very specific: You come here with absolutely nothing except a burning desire to be an American. You start off at some miserable, low-paying job that at least puts a roof over your family’s head and food on the table. You put your kids in school, tell them how lucky they are to be here – and make darn sure they do well even if that means hiring a tutor and taking a second, or third, job to pay for it. You learn English, even if you’ve got to take classes at night when you’re dead tired. You play by the rules—which means you pay your taxes, get a driver’s license and insure your car so that if yours hits mine, I can recover the cost of the damages. And you file for citizenship the first day you’re eligible.

Do all this and you become an American like all the rest of us. Your kids will lose their accents, move into the mainstream, and retain little of their heritage except a few words of your language and – if you’re lucky—an irresistible urge to visit you now and then for some of mom’s old-country cooking.

This is how the Italians made it, the Germans made it, the Dutch made it, the Poles made it, the Jews made it, and more recently how the Cubans and the Vietnamese made it. The process isn’t easy – but it works and that’s the way ordinary Americans want to keep it.

The Two Hispanic Groups

But the millions of Hispanics who have come to our country in the last several decades – and it’s the Hispanics we’re talking about in this debate, not those from other cultures—are, in fact, two distinct groups. The first group is comprised of “immigrants” just like all the others, who have put the old country behind them and want only to be Americans. They aren’t the problem. Indeed, most Americans welcome them among us, as we have welcomed so many other cultures.

The problem is the second group of Hispanics. They aren’t immigrants – which is what neither the Democratic or Republican leadership seems to understand, or wants to acknowledge. They have come here solely for jobs, which isn’t the same thing at all. (And many of them have come here illegally.) Whether they remain in the U.S. for one year, or ten years – or for the rest of their lives – they don’t conduct themselves like immigrants. Yes, they work hard to put roofs above their heads and food on their tables – and for this we respect them. But they have little interest in learning English themselves, and instead demand that we make it possible for them to function here in Spanish. They put their children in our schools, but don’t always demand as much from them as previous groups demanded of their kids. They don’t always pay their taxes – or insure their cars.

In short, they aren’t playing by the rules that our families played by when they immigrated to this country. And to ordinary Americans this behavior is deeply – very deeply – offensive. We see it unfolding every day in our communities, and we don’t like it. This is what none of our politicians either understands, or dares to say aloud. Instead, they blather on – and on – about “amnesty” and “border security” without ever coming to grips with what is so visible, and so offensive, to so many of us – namely, all these foreigners among us who aren’t behaving like immigrants.

Thomas Sowell: Guests or gate crashers---

Immigration is yet another issue which we seem unable to discuss rationally -- in part because words have been twisted beyond recognition in political rhetoric.

We can't even call illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants." The politically correct evasion is "undocumented workers."

Do American citizens go around carrying documents with them when they work or apply for work? Most Americans are undocumented workers but they are not illegal immigrants. There is a difference.

The Bush administration is pushing a program to legalize "guest workers." But what is a guest? Someone you have invited. People who force their way into your home without your permission are called gate crashers.

And, Thomas Sowell: Guests or gate crashers? Part II

Right Wing News: Answering 13 Frequently Asked Questions About Illegal Immigration

FrontPageMag.com: The 1965 Immigration Act: Anatomy of a Disaster

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More here, here, here, here.

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