The Immigration Solution
Every lawmaker, every campaign, every engaged citizen, and every reporter who writes about immigration should have this book:
As I wrote in an endorsement on the back cover: The Immigration Solution demolishes open-borders myths and provides a clear, sane path toward an immigration plan that benefits America and adheres to the rule of law. Heather Mac Donald, Victor Davis Hanson, and Steven Malanga battle muddled amnesty advocates with impeccable logic, facts, and principle. This book is not just a must-read. It’s a must-do.
Front Page Magazine has a symposium with the authors. You should read the whole thing. Heather Mac Donald looks at how the dynamics of the debate have changed:
The fact that we are engaged in this debate at all represents a radical shake-up of the immigration status quo (‘we’ being not just my coauthors but the pundit class and reluctant politicians as well). For the first time in decades, the public has forced the political and media elites to respond to its dismay at illegal immigration. Though liberal and—more surprisingly—conservative opinion-makers are untroubled by illegal immigration’s massive assault on the rule of law, the public still cares deeply whether our laws are respected or not. Moreover, people who live with the influx of poorly-educated, low-skilled illegal immigrants see the strains that this demographic wave puts on their communities.
The prominence that illegal immigration has had in the public debate over the last two years represents a triumph of democracy, in my view. After decades of being silenced, the popular will is finally being heard, amplified by the rise of the new media. And this change in the political climate is more than cosmetic. Though the Bush Administration had to be dragged kicking and screaming into its current enforcement policies, those policies are many magnitudes more aggressive than anything that has been seen for years—if still a fraction of what they need to be. Even more responsive have been local and state legislatures, which are forging ahead with efforts to stop rewarding and start penalizing immigration law-breakers, both American and foreign.
Are the political ferment and the ensuing government actions perfect? Of course not. As Steve has pointed out, the debate has largely failed to take up the question of what a more nationally beneficial immigration policy should look like. And it is still possible that after the Presidential election, politicians will go back to ignoring the public will. Still, I think that the public deserves credit for persisting in its demand that our national borders and immigration laws be respected.
And persist we must.
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A book is a nice start but substantive action RIGHT NOW by our feckless elected representatives is a better formula.
Victor Davis Hanson is brilliant. We need to learn from history before we make the same mistakes and make it our history again. Across a broad spectrum of issues he has been spot on.
Our feckless elected representatives need the right policy ammunition before they act. This book gives it to them.
Policy ammo is important, but how’s their aim been on important issues?
Thanks for the tip Michelle. I will order this book when I get home tonight. I am open to well reasoned ideas I can use as ammunition when I go after my Congress critters on this issue.
I do not think Fred Thompson will do nothing. I think he is one with a plan and the type of person who will see things through…..regardless what the ‘polls’ say.
michelle is right, as this has been a debate not allowed in the past there is not a substantive policy. i would prefer more debate to formulate ideas and real substance then for them to act. i don’t want a bandaid. i want a cure to this mess.
Hanson’s book “Mexafornia, A state of becoming” is a good read on the subject. Hanson grew up in California in the central valley, and has good handle on the problem and what should be done to reverse it
Just ordered the book. Since I live in Kalifornia, I don’t expect my representatives will listen to me, but at least I’ll have some facts to shove at them. Doubt if they’ll bother to listen.
My wife and mother-in-law both came here from the Philippines - legally. The proudest moment of my m-i-l’s life was when she became a US citizen. She was ecstatic. She wouldn’t have any use for the illegals today who cry and whine that we somehow “owe” them the path to citizenship.
I owe it to her memory to help keep this issue on the front burner.
You must “poison the well” and take away any and all of the incentives that they have for coming here for in the first place. We must pass legislation that instills very stiff penalties on employers who provide jobs to illegals. Its very simple. If they can’t get jobs inside the U.S. they will stop illegally coming to our country. And the illegals that are already here will be forced to leave because they won’t have any financial means to stay here. No money from jobs means no money for food or a place to live. You won’t have to round anyone up and deport them, they will be forced to leave on their own.
Michelle,
The Houston Chronicle had an article where Sen. Hutchison defended her border fence amendment and says:
That prompted a few letters to the editor.
Then the editors of the (open borders) Chronicle posted an editorial On The Fence which states:
What I’m wondering is, do you have a quick response to this? I don’t mean an editorial, just a short statement.
TO ALL
I am close to the US 59 corridor. The same lawbreakers coming in are going to have to go out. They plan to take as much booty with them as possible. Watch sanctuary cities such as Houston and area become steal zones. And Kay Bailey and John Cronny gutted the fence to help the Illegals of the year.
In the meantime, when Border Patrol agents do their job — do the names Ramos and Compean ring a bell, or have we all forgotten them after they’ve spent a year in prison, in large part because of Jorge Boosh kowtowing to Mexico? — they get punished for it.
I’m looking forward to reading the book, but big solutions start with small solutions, and I wish the people who should care would start raising a fuss about the small issues.
So far, aside from a very few — such as CA Rep. Dana Rohrbacher — it’s been the sound of crickets from the MainStreamBloggers.
This is my biggest concern in the election year.
I will rebel in my own way if the laws are not followed.
Dang, Michelle. I’m having a difficult time keeping up with all the books to read. But, this does look like I “should have this book”.
Mental note, make more time to sit quietly and
readabsorb useful info to confront “feckless elected representatives”.Okay. Now, maybe I can get it done.
I am so tired of the hackneyed “how do we deport all of these illegals when we have only a small percentage of ICE agents to illegals”? Well, before ICE, when we
had regular old agents or LaMigra, we were deporting a lot more percentage wise
than we do now. Now I am hearing how long it will take for people to get into or
back into the US since you have to prove that you have a right to be here. Yeah,
right. That is at legal border crossings. While Chertoff is congratulating himself
on this one you still have all out uncontrolled border hopping going on, and my
cousin has now armed ALL of the females in the family that are old enough to be
taught how to use a gun. We have Mexican pols from Sonora going into AZ whining about Mexicans coming BACK into Mexico when they are no longer welcome here, and what are they going to do with them if they have no jobs or homes. Well, duh. Here’s where you show why you were elected and make jobs and find them homes. That’s what happens here. I ran into a case the other
day, where a social worker wanted me to donate my services to an entire family
that had just arrived, illegally, and “had had some problems getting here, that
needed to be addressed.” NO! If I am going to donate time, it will be to an
American family that can’t afford to pay for counseling. They would not have
had problems if they had stayed at home. Yes, I feel sorry for them, but they
will be on welfare and sucking at the public teat here in the states instead of
trying to make their own country better.
Yes. Happens every day, folks.
My wife, while pursuing her graduate degree, is works at the Department of Human Service determining elibility for government benefits. Illegals come into that office on a regular basis wanting to get their part of the entitlement programs (Forget how the left tells you that they are hard workers and just want to earn a decent wage here in our country).
If an American citizen goes to that office and applies for food stamps, Medicaid, etc. we have 100% of our income/resources counted to see if we qualify.
Do you know how much is taken into consideration for an illegal alien? One-third (1/3). That is DHS policy in this state. P-O-L-I-C-Y. The administrative rules of our own government is stacked against legal citizens of our own country.
Can someone tell me the logic in all that?
RE: representatives need the right policy ammunition
There is adequate policy ammunition currently available that has been ignored by the bought and paid for in the Senate. The first rule, we are a nation of law. A policy not observed by the local, regional, or federal electorate. A second rule, build 784 miles of Duncan Hunter caliber fence with appropriate financing. Since undermined and minimized day by day by the Bush Administration. The Imperial 14 can at any time of night authorize amnesty. And not lastly, with Senators like Harry Ried circumventing the democratic process no right policy has a chance. Why buy them a right policy book when they can’t even adhere to the right policies they now have.
Could someone please FREAKING explain to me why illegals get anything?!! What right do they have to any of our money? Any? Hutchinson, Graham you morons…
Sorry…where are my meds? No meds, where’s my beef jerkey?
And before I sign off, can someone explain to me why an evangelical Christian minister lying about his record is a good thing and deserves support. (And I love and respect evangelical Christians.)
Taze me bro’
Libs and phony cons: “Don’t say illegal immigrant, they’re people, too!”
Yeah, but not American people.
I know of a local case, where the family cannot get medical treatment for their
teenaged son because their insurance refuses to pay for the treatment and they
do not have the money to pay for it themselves. However, there is a family of
illegals who have an anchor child with the same condition and they are getting
their child’s treatment paid for by taxpayers because “no hospital can turn away
a patient for lack of ability to pay.” ( Make that, no hospital will take a citizen of
this country when he/she cannot pay, but MUST UNDER LAW take any illegal that
cannot pay). They are bankrupting the health care facilities all over our country,
and on the border, Mexicans drive over and dump their ill on our hospital doorsteps. I heard on the new the other night about how long it takes now to be seen in the emergency rooms across this country. The media pretended that it was a problem with legals instead of illegals trotting in with colds and
splinters. My son had to go to an emergency room a while back because he
hurt his hand “after hours” and that was all that was open. He sat for six and
a quarter hours. Like he said, he wasn’t having a heart attack, but what was
there with him were so many cases of take two aspirin and call me in the morning, cases. He said, a doctor coming on duty just happened to look over
and see all of the blood on the towel and his clothes and grabbed him up and
took him to an examining room. My daughter in law was told several times to
sit down and shut up or they would not be seen. (Wrong thing to say to 5′ of
Texan transplanted to VA). We reward these lawbreakers time and time again,
instead of sending them back to whatever country they come from, and if that
doesn’t tell the world that we’re namby pamby, I don’t know what does.
Well, Central American, maybe, Eclectic. But, by no means American citizens.
On January 18th, 2008 at 12:48 pm, Barry F. said:
Oh, that’s easy! Someone probably decided that the typical [sarc]undocumented American[/sarc] sends two-thirds of their income to family members back home.
Over and over the lesson we’re being taught is that FOLLOWING THE RULES IS FOR SUCKERS!!!
* I know a band of English women who are here on artist visas. They ran into a snag with their housing and were in a tough spot because according to their visas, they couldn’t get jobs as waitresses or whatever. They can only legally work as musicians and that’s not always viable. If only they’d just shown up on our shores without permission slips.
* Another band I knew of was a NYC-based punk band with two Japanese members and an American drummer. The duo’s visas expired and they had to go home, ending the band. If only they overstayed like the 9/11 hijackers.
* My mother had a stroke and her insurance and Medicare stopped paying for her treatment and she is now heavily in debt, burning her life savings before she can qualify for Medicaid. If she’d snuck into the country, she’d be treated like a queen.
* My girlfriend fell and broke her arm, requiring surgery. She didn’t have insurance and was facing a five-figure medical bill. If only she had sneaked into the country, she wouldn’t have had to worry. (She was able to plead hardship and got a break on most of the bills.)
Ann Coulter tagged Huck the Schmuck’s twisted Christian philosophy - in which the Eighth Commandment is ignored because theft in the name of government largess is A-OK - righteously when she explained that he supported giving Arkansas in-state tuition rates to invaders from Mexico, but not an American from Ohio.
It’s a difficult question, according to Hutcheson,for the federal gov’t.to secure a few feeet of right of way from property owners to to secure our borders.Why is not so difficult to use”Emminent Domain” to take away property of citizens to make hiking trails for so called nature lovers,or to build another new Wal-Mart?Of course the hiking trails and Wal-Mart are for the “public good”,but keeping illegals out of the country isn’t. Another example of Liberal Logic.
Good point, I’ll specify next time. :0)
In a way, I hope our Congress does nothing - which would be much better than Shamnesty or Shamnesty lite, or whatever.
We now have four states with serious new enforcement-only policies. And they’re working just fine - illegals are self-deporting in droves.
Only 46 to go.
I blame Bush, Kennedy (especially!), McCain, Graham, etc., ad nauseum for the embarrassment of this.
Shame. Shame on all of them.
I would like to propose my plan for securing the border:
Hire all of those corrupt Mexican police and soldiers. Pay them a million dollars per year to patrol a certain section of the border. If an illegal is caught at their section of the border, one hundred thousand dollars will be deducted from their pay.
Trust me, it’ll stop overnight.
Here it is:
1. Announce that all illegals have 30 days to register their whereabouts. Those that comply will be given one year to liquidate their assets and return, with those assets, to their homeland.
2. We will track down, as fast as we can, illegals who do not register. We will confiscate all of their assets, and send the illegals back to their homeland stripped of their booty. However long it takes, the invaders (that’s what they are) will know they are in the crosshairs and are at risk to lose everything.
This gives a powerful incentive to comply. It will send a certain amount of wealth back to these impoverished places of origin. Right now the incentive is to break the law and stick around until this tempest blows over. This will never blow over.
From the Front Page magazine symposium, Hanson says:
And then he ruins it with the false dichotomy of Bush - “We can’t deport 12 million
undocumented immigrantsillegal aliens, therefore we have to give them a pathway to citizenship.”:Bullcrap. Hanson ignores his own sage wisdom and ignores this Zogby poll, the only one to offer all three choices. And attrition is working just fine, thank you. Let it complete it’s job without adding more enticements of “some sort of mechanism” to reward law breakers, and thereby encourage and entice another 30 million.
Michelle - do you endorse the book in general, but not Hanson’s views?
My question is why can’t the Mexican gov’t provide opportunity for their own citizens?? Are they so ignorant they can’t provide full employment for their citzens or even some kind of social support. Why must it rely on foreign powers to do the work for them? The USA should threaten to copy Mexico’s immigration policies to the letter and repeat that message over and over until the state senators in the State of Senora get the drift. Also if Mexico plans to take over the southwest does Mexico City plan on taking care of the social needs of the southwest? Just wondering or are they going to develop it into another poverty stricken state like their thirty two other states?
Just read VDH’s article on this subject.
As a Stanford engineering graduate I am embarrassed that the Hoover Institution employs an “expert” who presents Bush’s tired false dichotomy: “We can’t deport 12 million illegal aliens THEREFORE we have to grant them citizenship” and IGNORES four state ‘laboratories’ where the third (majority) option is having repeatable successful results.
VDH would have flunked engineering and physics (and logic) courses at Stanford.
If you dine in Los Angeles County, you may have seen the ubiquitous health code placards posted upon every place that serves food. Why is it so easy to go about finding vermin and filth yet the very people serving the food may themselves harbor communicable diseases far more dangerous.
Typhoid Mary anyone?
Resist all attempts at bilingualism. Nestle you are on my sh*tlist. (Try getting a Butterfinger without Spanish inscribed on it.)
Heather Mac is one of the most perceptive commentators out there, but I must say that I read a recent interview with Hanson where he supported a ‘path to citizenship’ for many of the illegal aliens, i.e. those who were employed and had been here the longest, i.e. who had the worst history of breaking our laws.
I wonder how much it would cost to pay Americans a living wage, verses paying them minimum wage plus the cost of supporting illegals in every form from food stamps to WICK to social medicine.
Illegals have it better than us.
However. Have you ever operated a farm? Well have you?
Do you in your wildest dreams EVER picture yourself bending over all day in the scorching heat to harvest a crop, and then returning HOME in the evening to clean yourself, your clothes, and your children, cook dinner, clean up, and go to bed on filthy disgusting mattresses that may or may not be supported by a bed frame stuffed into a dank cinder block row house?
I have seen this first hand.
The majority of the illegals that I have met are good people. Period.
I am torn on this issue like I have never been torn before.
My solution is to let those who want to stay and work, stay and work.
However. I’m confident that if we prevent them from working the system that they will eventually stop coming.
In other words. NO FREE RIDE!
You will die here as easily as you will die there.
The reason I have no problem with letting them die is because I am dieing as I write this.
I have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and I can’t afford to pay for the medications that could extend my life and give me piece of mind on a daily basis.
Could I go to the VA, or get Medicare, or work the system in some way that would alleviated my dilemma. Probably.
But that’s not how I was raised. I’d rather die than have the shame of getting a handout from the government that has taken my tax money and paid for illegal immigrants to have a quality of life that I don’t have because they expect the most powerful nation in the world to give them a piece of the american dream while the people who built the american dream sit in silence and wonder what the hell went wrong.
I just read the round table discussion. Why do I know what that know, and since little ol me knows what they know, why in god’s name don’t our elected leaders know what WE know.
GEEZ………….
Fifth, there is silence about the stunning manner that illegal immigration harms American low-wage earners, in the most illiberal fashion.
ouch
winemkr
out
Comments 8 and 31 both referred to Victor Davis Hanson, & comment 31 specifically referred to the Front Page interview yesterday (1/18). That interview is also where he specifically endorsed amnesty for 7-8 million illegal aliens who had been here for a “long period”. (second exended comment). He talks out of both sides of his mouth. We shouldn’t get blindsided by one or two nice comments if they are not consistently applied. You’ve got to watch all of these people (Michelle and a few others excepted of course).
sorry, I read #31 too hastily–my mistake
One Sunday morning several months ago, I saw Ms. MacDonald in an interview with Paul Gigot on Fox News Channel’s WSJ Ed. Report, and she quoted some very interesting government statistics that completely debunk the open-borders crowd’s old argument that illegal workers add far more to the US economy than they are credited with or ever hope to recover, and that they are an invaluable asset as they do the jobs Americans refuse to accept; when in actuality, according to the stats Ms. MacDonald put forth, illegal workers not only cost American jobs, but end up costing the US more in social, medical and legal-law enforcement services than they could ever hope to contribute.
I can’t wait to read this book.
Don’t forget to read my comments #28 and #33, also. And spend a few minutes at the links I provide to back up my comments.
Hanson repeats the false dichotomy of Bush and McCain (”We can’t deport 12 million illegal aliens, THEREFORE (sic) we have to give them citizenship.”) and is therefore disingenuous in the debate on this subject (and thus disqualifies himself IMHO), just as the PBS moderators were when they used the same false dichotomy as a question on one of the TV debates. No candidate called him on it, and all illegal alien sympathizers like Hanson ignore the single honest poll on this subject.
And they ignore this popular solution which is being proven in four states now.
I am thoroughly sick of that horsepuckey too, no matter who repeats it! If you can’t get rid of 12 million (really 20 million) then what about 6 million? That will solve half the problem and put the fear of God into the rest.
Bullcrap! Invent a machine to pick the crop! It worked for cotton, wheat, you name it.
Yes, I am sure they are good people. I am also sure that there are a few billion good people in China and India too, but they can’t come here either. Letting in one group because of porous borders (porous like a post Katrina levee, I mean) in adjacent countries is no excuse.
The really big flaw in this argument: If no American wants to do the job, but you make the people currently doing the job Americans, it follows that they won’t want to do the job either. And you can bet their kids won’t, so there comes the next wave to “do the jobs Americans won’t” ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
The solution is for them to make their own countries like ours, not the other way around. We can help by setting up some factories there, buying their products etc.
The rest of the world can’t fit here, and if they could, we would be a third world country. No one goes up, just down. Porous borders let in crime, disease and poverty. It is bad enough to have political diseases like AIDS that we can’t screen for, but an influx of illegals with God know what pestilences is bad for us (and our health care system) period.
Well, to hell with that. We did it before with shamnesty, we can do it again. Put the fear of God into the polticians, and the fear of God in the illegals will follow.
Next time a Greenie get in your face about the farcical “global warming”, ask him/her/it how much pollution illegals driving around in our country make. Ask them how much closer to energy independence we would be without 12 million energy consuming parasites here. Ask them how much less costly our health care and schools would be without illegals. The list goes on, the logic holds.
Hear, hear!! Sears too! No more long Spanish announcements in the store!
As an aside, did you know that in bright blue Massachusetts, in the 2002 election (the same one that got Romney elected over liberal Shannon O’Brien), Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly supported ballot Question 2, the measure to replace bilingual education in public schools with a sheltered English immersion program? That’s right. Liberal Massachusetts, the same state that gave you Kennedy, Kerry, Frank etc. It wasn’t a sqeaker either: it won by 68 per cent!!
Now you know why the gays and the legislature wouldn’t let Massachusetts voters vote on gay marriage: it never would have passed! Pro-bilinguals claimed such things as “…the majority of voters lacking formal educational curriculum development expertise.” Yeah, like expertise in any of the issues or candidates is what a liberal wants! Ignorance would have served them well. The voters knew exactly what they wanted, and it surprised the pants off them.
This is why we can’t give up on illegal immigration. There is a wellspring of support in this country, even the blue states.