If you’re waiting for Senator Larry Craig to take the right position on immigration, I fear you’re going to wait a long time. He continues to disappoint the everyday Idahoan by voting in favor of the Kennedy-Bush Amnesty Bill of 2007. Senator Mike Crapo gets it… but Sen. Craig doesn’t.
I’d love a guy who can stand up and say the things that need to be said right now. Things like this
I don’t support this immigration bill. I’ll explain why.
The first responsibility we have is to provide real border security so we don’t have massive illegal immigration coming across our borders.
This bill’s solution is to simply give the 12 million people who came here illegally — up through December 31 of last year — legal status and a work card.
Our laws need to be enforced — both at the border and at the workplace. Just as someone sneaking across the border illegally should be punished, so too should employers who break the law and hire illegal immigrants for low wages.
Once we’ve secured the border, and taken away the market for illegal labor, then will be the time to consider the best way to address the status of illegal immigrants in our country.
Yeah! Now you’re talking. Guess what? Somebody DID stand up and say that. Senator Byron Dorgan, North Dakota, said that in a great piece posted over on National Review Online. Go read the whole thing. He gets it. Oh yeah… he’s a Democrat. Don’t ever try to tell me I never give a Democrat credit once in awhile.
Update: Michelle has video of Dorgan speaking on the floor, over at Hot Air…
Update: Credit where it’s due, both of our Senators voted NAY on cloture. Thank you! And John Hawkins over at Right Wing News has an insider view of how it failed. He made an interesting comment too
He says these Republicans were heavily influenced by business groups that want cheap labor no matter what the cost is for the rest of the country.
We all saw the potato farmers’ ads on TV the last couple days. Modern day slavery… reminds me of the arguments I heard in the movie “Amazing Grace”.
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June 8th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I have a better idea. Let’s get good border security - and then open the borders to Mexico for the free flow of (non-criminal) people and goods.
Mexico’s per capita GNP is $7,100 to our $44,200. That ’s a big difference, and will undoubtedly lead to a lot of Mexicans moving here. But it won’t be as many as you think.
Look at the economic differences between various EU countries with open borders. Germany’s per capital GNP is $33,000, Poland’s is $8,000. Yeah, a few Poles are moving to Germany - but they’re not indundating the country. Or France, or Britain, for that matter.
If Mexico keeps electing conservative economically responsible Presidents (or even left-wing Presidents if they’re in the Lula de Silva mode), and we keep NAFTA humming, Mexico’s current GNP growth will be greater. Right now, it’s projected at 3.5% annually, while ours is 2.5% annually. If Mexico’s economy starts growing faster the economic gap between our countries will narrow, and there will be less incentive for Mexicans to move here.
As for “inundating the country,” there are over 300 million Americans, and just over 100 million Mexicans. And Mexicans aren’t breeding anywhere near as fast as they used to - there isn’t going to be a demographic revolution. As the dominant economic power, Mexicans wanting to make it in the U.S. will have to learn English. Right now, 75% of all 3rd generation Mexican-American immigrant descendants don’t even speak Spanish. That’s not going to change - the pattern set by the Irish, Italian, Jewish, Eastern European, East Asian, etc. migrants as English language assimilators will remain with us.
And every economics textbook you read (except for those written by socialists and far leftists) will tell you that free trade and free flow of peoples will bring greater economic prosperity.
June 8th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
The economics of the immigration debate is a separate subject from the wholesale amnesty that was to be granted by that bill. Let’s begin at the beginning… there is a PROBLEM with being in the country illegally. Blanket amnesty is a horrible idea that goes against the concept of “rule of law”, and doesn’t work or accomplish what the proponents claim, as proven by Ronald Reagan in the ’80s.
I don’t agree that Mexicans are electing economically conservative governments. I see a corrupt and hypocritical government that cares as little for its own people as it cares for the U.S. I’m not a protectionist, and I am generally a free trader, but with the situation we have now, I don’t think we’re anywhere close to being able to discuss the open borders arrangement you speak of.
When you’re having a flood, you have to stop the water first, before you worry about anything else.