The Art of Unpolicy
| AR Articles on Immigration |
|---|
| Fade to Brown (May 2003) |
| Waging War on America (Jun. 1998) |
| Halting the Flow (Aug. 1995) |
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| More news stories on Immigration |
To grasp American immigration policy, to the extent that it can be grasped, one need only remember that the United States forbids smoking while subsidizing tobacco growers.
We say to impoverished Mexicans, “See this river? Don’t cross it. If you do, we’ll give you good jobs, a drivers license, citizenship for your kids born here and eventually for you, school for said kids, public assistance, governmental documents in Spanish for your convenience, and a much better future. There is no penalty for getting caught. Now, don’t cross this river, hear?”
How smart is that? We’re baiting them. It’s like putting out a salt lick and then complaining when deer come. As parents, the immigrants would be irresponsible not to cross.
The problem of immigration, note, is entirely self-inflicted. The US chose to let them in. It didn’t have to. They came to work. If Americans hadn’t hired them, they would have gone back.
We have immigration because we want immigration. Liberals favor immigration because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy and international and all, and from a genuine streak of decency. Conservative Republican businessman favor immigration, frequently sotto voce, because they want cheap labor that actually shows up and works.
It’s a story I’ve heard many times—from a landscaper, a construction firm, a junkyard owner, a group of plant nurserymen, and so on. “We need Mexicans.” You could yell “Migra!” in a lot of restaurants in Washington, and the entire staff would disappear out the back door. Do we expect businessmen to vote themselves out of business? That’s why we don’t take the obvious steps to control immigration (a thousand-dollar-a-day fine for hiring illegals, half to go anonymously to whoever informed on the employer).
In Jalisco, Mexico, where I live, crossing illegally is regarded as casually as pirating music or smoking a joint, and the coyotes who smuggle people across as a public utility, like light rail. The smuggling is frequently done by bribing the American border guards, who are notoriously corrupt.
Why corrupt? Money. In the book De Los Maras a Los Zetas, by a Mexican journalist, I find an account of a transborder tunnel he knew of that could put 150 illegals a day across the border. (I can’t confirm this.) The price is about $2000 a person. That’s $300,000 a day, tax-free. What does a border guard make? (And where can I find a shovel?) The author estimated that perhaps forty tunnels were active at any give time. Certainly some are. A woman I know says she came up in a restaurant and just walked out the door. Let’s hear it for Homeland Security: All together now . . .
The amusing thing is the extent to which American policy is not to have a policy. The open floodgates to the south are changing—have changed, will continue to change—the nature of the country forever. You may think this a good thing or a bad thing. It is certainly an important thing—the most important for us in at least a century. Surely (one might think) it deserves careful thought, national debate, prudence, things like that.
But no. In the clownishness that we regard as presidential campaigning, none of the contenders has much to say on the matter. In a dance of evasion that has become customary, the candidates carefully ignore those matters of most import for the nation, since considering hard questions might be divisive. War, peace, race, immigration, affirmative action, the militarization of the economy, the desirability of empire—these play no part in the electoral discussion. We seem to regard large issues as we might the weather: interesting, but beyond control. It’s linger, loiter, dawdle and fumble and see what happens.
And so, while various conservative groups (not including businessmen) rush out to guard the borders, nice liberal professors in the Northeast hurried learn Spanish to help local illegals settle in. Many people, alienated from the United States by policies and trends they find odious, no longer care. There is no national consensus. The country fractures into a congeries of warring agglomerations and the resulting paralysis manifests itself in drift.
The problem with muddling through is that one may not like what lies on the other side of the muddle. Some day we may look back on the question of immigration and see that it all worked out well in the end and wonder what the fuss was about. Or we may not. No one will be able to charge us with having thought things through.
There is much billingsgate about whether to grant amnesty. The question strikes me as cosmetic. We are not going to round up millions of people and physically throw them across the border. Whether we should doesn’t matter. It’s fantasy. Too many people want them here, or don’t care that they are here, or don’t want to uproot families who have established new lives here. Ethnic cleansing is ugly. Further, the legal Latino population votes. It’s just starting to vote. A bumper crop of Mexican-American kids, possessed of citizenship, are growing headlong toward voting age. These are not throwable-out, even in principle.
People complain that Mexico doesn’t seal the borders. Huh? Mexico is a country, not a prison. It has no obligation to enforce American laws that America declines to enforce. Then there was the uproar when some fast-food restaurant in the US began accepting pesos. Why? Mexican border towns accept dollars. Next came outrage against Mexico because its consulates were issuing ID cards to illegals, which they then used to get drivers licenses. Why outrage? A country has every right to issue ID to its citizens. America doesn’t have to accept them. If it does, whose problem is that?
If you want to see a reasonable immigration policy, look to Mexico. You automatically get a ninety-day tourist visa when you land. No border Nazis. To get residency papers, you need two things (apart from photographs, passport, etc.) First, a valid tourist visa to show that you entered the country legally. Mexico doesn’t do illegal aliens. Second, a demonstrable income of $1000 a month. You are welcome to live in Mexico, but you are going to pay your own way. Sounds reasonable to me.
You want a Mexican passport? Mexico allows dual citizenship. You (usually) have to be a resident for five years before applying. You also have to speak Spanish. It’s the national language. What sense does it make to have citizens who can’t talk to anybody?
It looks to me as though America thoughtlessly adopted an unwise policy, continued it until reversal became approximately impossible, and now doesn’t like the results. It must be Mexico’s fault.
(Posted on April 8, 2008)
Comments
Go back to your lucrative Boeing pension and Mexican wife Fred. I for one am a White Nationalist who wants to hear nothing from a man whose company fired Whites and sent jobs to low wage Mexicans. Your Pro-White stance will not save you from past sins. Enough of this fraud Fred Reed.
Posted by Howard in Las Vegas at 6:21 PM on April 8
“If you want to see a reasonable immigration policy, look to Mexico.”
It wouldn’t seem so reasonable to them if 30 million poor black Americans crossed into Mexico and refused to assimilate, while using Mexican services.
Posted by at 7:26 PM on April 8
“The US chose to let them in.”
We, the American taxpayers, must have missed that vote. I never voted to allow it. In fact, Americans with morals and principles have voted against illegal immigration when given the chance. Illegal immigration (aside from being illegal) is the new slavery and should be rejected on it’s face.
The “round them up theory” is moot. It took them 20 years to get here, so what if it takes five years to get them out? Even if we don’t get them all, we should at least minimize the scourge with all possible haste.
States that are now passing stronger enforcement laws are seeing them leave in droves. That is proof enough for me.
The article is propaganda.
Posted by Lucas M at 9:06 PM on April 8
I, nor anyoone I know personally ever adopted such a policy. The rich, non-representative government that IGNORES it’s people did.
Posted by NorthAmericanWhiteMan at 9:14 PM on April 8
Fred’s piece is right on the money, however he was remiss on one very important contrast/comparison of official policy/behavior in the realm of immigration matters as practiced in the US and as practiced in Mexico.
In the US, I can go tell the local cops about a houseful of rowdy people who can’t speak English who moved in next door and my own countrymen cops will laugh at me. On the other hand, Juan in Mexico can go to his local village constable who has a fourth grade education and report that he was drinking with some crazy Gringo or Guatemalan who made some vague drunken comment about visa problems and in short order the subject of that conversation is beaten blue and robbed/blackmailed and unceremoniously deported. Go figure.
Posted by at 9:40 PM on April 8
What can you say? We’ve had 50 million abortional genocides and then permitted 50 million foreigners to immigrate hear. All we have left is our voices - the rest is lost. Yell and tell them to go home. It will bring the country down and collapse it. However, it is the only way we will have a future. We are free and we are sovereign but permitting the status quo will cause us to lose our freedom and sovereignty.
Posted by Elrey Jones at 10:23 PM on April 8
“We say to impoverished Mexicans, ‘See this river? Don’t cross it. If you do, we’ll give you good jobs, a drivers license, citizenship for your kids born here and eventually for you, school for said kids, public assistance, governmental documents in Spanish for your convenience, and a much better future. There is no penalty for getting caught. Now, don’t cross this river, hear?’”
“How smart is that? We’re baiting them. It’s like putting out a salt lick and then complaining when deer come. As parents, the immigrants would be irresponsible not to cross.”
This reminds me of an old joke:
The Lone Ranger and Tonto are riding along through the sagebrush when suddenly about a million Indians come riding over the hill. Our two heroes are soon surrounded, and things look bad for them. The Lone Ranger turns to Tonto and says, “Tonto, we’re surrounded. What are we going to do?” Tonto turns to the Lone Ranger and replies, “What you mean ‘we,’ white man?”
So what do you mean “we,” Fred? The American people are absolutely furious about illegal immigration and overwhelmingly want these people gotten rid of, by any means necessary. It is only the treasonous, corrupt elites who want these disease-ridden, third world job thieves here.
“We are not going to round up millions of people and physically throw them across the border.”
There’s that word again, Kemo Sabe—er, I mean, Fred. “We” rounded up millions of ‘em in 1954. There is absolutely no reason that “we” can’t do it again.
In any case this is a red herring. “We” don’t have to deport them. Cut off their benefits and crack down on the people who are hiring them, and they’ll scurry out of here real quick like. Arizona has proved that beyond any doubt.
“A bumper crop of Mexican-American kids, possessed of citizenship, are growing headlong toward voting age. These are not throwable-out, even in principle.”
Not true. Ever hear of Ex parte McCardle? Read Article III, Section 2 of our Constitution. Congress could strip every last one of these anchor babies of their citizenship, then strip the courts of all appellate jurisdiction in the matter, and there wouldn’t be a single thing that the judicial tyrants could do about it.
“People complain that Mexico doesn’t seal the borders. Huh? Mexico is a country, not a prison. It has no obligation to enforce American laws that America declines to enforce.”
On this I agree. If Mexico can be forced to seal its border to outbound traffic, that establishes a dangerous precedent that may someday extend to the United States.
“Too many people want them here, or don’t care that they are here, or don’t want to uproot families who have established new lives here. Ethnic cleansing is ugly.”
You mean like the ethnic cleansing of whites that’s being done all over the Southwest?
Posted by qwerty at 10:35 PM on April 8
The other side of that coin is the immigration issue is a proven testing ground for the fact that citizens, working together with groups designed to harness them toward well thought out, collective goals, is amazingly effective in imposing its will on a democracy like ours. NumbersUSA has won many battles on this issue recently and are poised to win some major victories pretty soon.
If you care about this issue, JOIN US. The group tracks who is doing what in our government and instantly lets its members know when to fax, when to call, and when to show up at town hall meetings etc. to put pressure on YOUR elected officials to, ummm, OBEY what the vast majority of their constituents want. It’s not that difficult. It doesn’t take much time. But, most importantly, it works.
Posted by at 12:14 AM on April 9
“Ethnic cleansing is ugly.”
Aesthetic judgments tend to be subjective.
Posted by H. Dumpty at 1:15 AM on April 9
“LucasM” nor any of the other taxpaying public didn’t vote on such an immigration policy, this is true. But that doesn’t matter anymore. The fact is that the deep and dark abyss of uselessness that is Washington DC does whatever happens to take their twisted fancy these days. The cause? The American public. We allowed this to happen. Joe American doesn’t care anymore. Why should he? He has his lifted Chevy with all the chrome he could ever want, a flat TV and cronies who are carbon copies of himself. Life is good. Here’s the worst part kids: Joe American is the majority. The solution? A few ideas come to mind but, at this point, trying any of them would be like trying to bench press Dr. Phil. I’m tempted to follow the example of the ostrich: run fast, run far, stick head in sand, return once the dust settles.
Posted by AP at 2:09 AM on April 9
Reed’s “advice” is the same old tired liberal line — “Oh, but we just [i]can’t[/i] do anything about the problem, because it’d be Racist, and besides, “ethnic cleansing is ugly.’” In other words, “Lie back and enjoy it.”
With “friends” like Fred Reed, American whites don’t need enemies.
Posted by at 7:05 AM on April 9
On the contrary, Americans did vote to let them in, just like they voted for continued foreign intervention. Only one presidential candidate was unequivocal about his immediate sealing of the border and deprtation of all illegals (80%+ public approval rating) and the immediate withdrawal from Iraq, Afghanistan and sabre rattling in general (80%+ public approval rating). He is no longer in the running, and right now it’s a case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.
Posted by ODDL at 7:16 AM on April 9
Isn’t it interesting Howard in Las Vegas. There are many Fred Reed types. All talk, no action. The truth is they would stab you in the back faster than most illegal aliens. Yes, many whites are their own and other whites worst enemies. We’ve all met the type, usually at our places of employment.
Posted by Bobby at 4:09 PM on April 9
Why is this clown being supported by Amren? He isn’t pro-white. I’m getting really sick of these “race realist” fools who admit racial differences but don’t care about the interests of the white race. They aren’t on our side.
Posted by Joe at 7:33 PM on April 9
“Conservative Republican businessman favor immigration, frequently sotto voce, because they want cheap labor that actually shows up and works.”
I think you mean “neoconservative Republican businessmen,”
Mr. Reed. TRUE conservatives want illegal immigration stopped, and legal immigration drastically reduced.
Posted by Old Victorian at 8:02 PM on April 9
Bobby writes:
There are many Fred Reed types. All talk, no action.
Just for curiosity’s sake, exactly what action are you expecting him to take? What action are you taking? The same accusation can be truthfully made of virtually all (if not literally all) posters here on AmRen.
Posted by BW Sam at 2:00 PM on April 10
Bobby writes:
There are many Fred Reed types. All talk, no action.
Just for curiosity’s sake, exactly what action are you expecting him to take? What action are you taking? The same accusation can be truthfully made of virtually all (if not literally all) posters here on AmRen.
Posted by BW Sam at 2:00 PM on April 10
Not me brother. I’ve lost more jobs than I would like to admit because of my Pro-White beliefs. While in high school and the military I routinely stood up to black and Hispanic racism. I have the scars to prove it. Most are all talk, but some are action.
Posted by Howard in Las Vegas at 6:12 PM on April 14