Redstate

....by simply instituting the President's plan, for the security of ourselves and for the safety of those we otherwise force to cross the desert, consort with criminal elements, and deal with the authorities in order to find a job that was created specifically with illegal aliens in mind.

But he refuses to push the plan and Congress refuses to take it up, most likely because Republicans don't want to give up any perceived gains they made in the Hispanic vote, and because Democrats likewise don't want to erode that vote further.

Obviously our nations' trespassing laws show an imbalance between the supply and demand of public land.  If we want to deal with the trespassing problem honestly, the only practical solution is  to create ways for people to ignore each others' property rights.

Not that I want an amnesty,  oh no.  Just let people pay a reasonable fine, and then once that's paid, let honest people who just want to barge onto other peoples' property do so.

Wasn't America founded by trespassers on the Indians after all?

This country is a great country built upon the backbone of immigration. Immigration is a desire to leave one country and become the citizen and resident of another country.  While a person may come here for a short stay, unless he intends to stay here then that person should have to leave.

Those people that arrive in our country should respect our laws.  This is a nation of laws (even with liberal judges trying to change that) and those laws should be enforced.  

Allowing illegals to stay is akin to letting bank robbers keep their stolen loot.  Each has a specific target in mind.  Each has a specific treasure in mind.  I welcome all people wishing to adopt the American way of life and respect our laws.  Those people who do not fit into these categories (non-citizens) should be deported promptly.

As it relates to the American Indian situation that is nothing close to the current immigration situation.  But it would be an interesting topic to debate.

He started working for a Jaffrey-based roofing company. In April, on the way to pick up his paycheck, he stopped his car along the road in the town of New Ipswich to make a phone call. ... A police officer approached and asked to see some identification. He gave him a driver's license from Mexico and insurance documents from Massachusetts. Then he was questioned there for about an hour, then later at the police station, where he was charged with trespassing, the first case of its kind in New Hampshire.

He works and, besides the immigration thing, doesn't have any problems with the law. He even has car insurance. And this guy is such a high priority for the officer? It's worse than giving a ticket to a jaywalker when you know a murder is on the loose, because tis guy is providing wealth for the US. He's actually making a substantial contribution to our economy.

To top it off, the office books him on this bizzare interpretation of trespassing because he has nothing better to book him on? This cop took creating the laws into his own hands. If there wasn't a law for the officer to arrest the guy for, then he was going to create one. How is activist law enforcement any better than activist courts?

What possible reason do people have to keep guys like this out of the county? If your only response if that because he is here illegally, then isn't that a reason to make it easier to get into the country for poeple willing to work in any capacity? Do you honestly think this guy wanted to come here illegally and pay $2000? Of course not. If there was a legal avenue he certainly would have taken it, and the fact that he and others like him are willing to pay so much should be an indication that our laws are way too strict, complex, and sometimes entirely abritrary.

I don't see how you can argue that illegal immigration is such a terrible crime that it trumps eveything that a person does. Being a valuable member of the American economy and society seems like it should outweigh it, since there is essentially no negative to a person being here just illegally.

California Yankee,

This is some nitpicking from a lawyer, but I see this often and, while I share your frustrations with illegal immigration, I wanted to correct a few factual mistakes in your post.  "Removal" is not a "politically correct way of saying deportation," it is a term of art from the 1996 amendments to the Immigration and Naturalization Act.  Why Congress decided to change the name from deportation to removal for actions after 1996 is a mystery to me (it may have something to do with political correctness, I don't know), but to imply that the ICE spokesman was actively trying to be politically correct is probably not accurate.

Another misstatement is that entering the United States illegally "is a crime."  This is not the case, to my knowledge.  Entry without inspection is a fact that, if proven, makes an alien subject to deportation or (after 1996) removal.  Deportation or removal proceedings are civil proceedings, not criminal proceedings.  There are no criminal penalties for entering without inspection - one does not receive jail time or fines - one is merely sent back to their country of origin.  It is a crime to reenter the United States after once being deported (or removed) with a possible sentence of 20 years imprisonment, but this does not appear to be what you are describing.

Also, it is very frustrating to have to admit this, but the Judge is probably right, from a legal standpoint, that Congress has preempted regulation of immigration law and that charging an illegal alien with trespassing is really trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

That being said, I'm not happy about the outcome.  I share your frustration with Congress and the President's inaction regarding immigration enforcement and wish they would be more forceful.  I disagree with your previous commenter that illegal aliens who are only here to work are a net benefit to the economy and nothing to worry about.  Ask the hospitals and clinics in Arizona, New Mexico and southern California that are going bankrupt if illegal immigration is a net benefit to them.  Illegal aliens don't pay taxes in most cases, but can get Medicare benefits or Social Security benefits without any problem.  They also use services like police, fire dept., water, sanitation, roads, etc, etc. etc. that they don't pay for.  I would welcome them if they wanted to become U.S. citizens, but many of them don't, their allegiance is to Mexico, or the country they came from or the gang they are part of.  This doesn't even touch the issues of crime and terrorism that are threatening us due to our open border.

So, believe me, I'm with you on this.  I think we won't really wake up until there is a mushroom cloud over a major U.S. city and we learn the bomb that caused it came over the border in a suitcase.  Even after that, the ACLU will be shouting that we can't restrict terrorists from coming over the border - they have rights, you know!

If there was a legal avenue he certainly would have taken it, and the fact that he and others like him are willing to pay so much should be an indication that our laws are way too strict, complex, and sometimes entirely abritrary.

When you write that he would have taken a legal avenue if one were available, you imply that we were depriving him of something that was justly his.  Yet, this man had no right, under law either natural or statutory, to come here at all.  After all, the American people decided that he ought not, for a number of what I think are very good reasons, both economic and social.  That posters on a supposedly conservative website defend him and his ilk merely because he's supposedly a net benefit to our economy (a debatable proposition at best) is positively perverse.  He's a criminal, and the Federal government is derelict in its duties for not treating him like one.

The only lesson I draw is that crime pays, all too well.  The answer to which is not to legalize crime, but to devise and use more effective enforcement strategies.

"He's actually making a substantial contribution to our economy."

Extremely unlikely. The majority of people in this country are net drains on the economy or just pay their way. Only the top 20% of wage earners make any substantial contribution to the economy.

"..there is essentially no negative to a person being here just illegally."

The same argument could be made about all kinds of things. What, really, is the harm if I drive at 130mph on a fairly deserted stretch of highway?

The answer is that it is not one person doing it, and the harm comes when a lot of people do it. A recent PEW survey found tha 40% of Mexicans would like to come to America. That is over forty million people, just from Mexico.

World-wide there are probably a billion people who would really like to come to this country.

They are not an answer to a problem we have. If we need more people, we should be able to produce them for ourselves. A society which outsources the business of reproduction is dead or dying.

The GOP is, supposedly, the party of law and order and fiscal discipline. They are doing poorly on the latter, but they have stopped even pretending to care about the former.

Posters here on Redstate have been a lot more vocal about government spending, but make no mistake, immigration is the issue that may well capsize the party.

To say that there is no negative to a person being in the country illegally if employed is wrong.  Let's look at the economic aspects of this situation.  It's possible that this person's employer exercised willful blindness in not finding out whether he had a right to work here, so we can't say for certain that the employer was paying substandard wages.  However, some employers do know or have strong suspicions as to whether a person is an illegal immigrant and pay accordingly.  Even so, illegal immigration artificially inflates the labor supply.  This means that wages will be artificially deflated, the laws of supply and demand being what they are.  This would be true even if no legal workers lose or are prevented from obtaining employment because positions have been given to illegals.  Illegal immigration also artificially inflates the demand for housing and other necessities, creating pressure for higher prices.  Determining the net effects is complicated, as some of them counterbalance each other, but it is clear that markets are distorted when you add unexpected participants.

Now suppose that you are a creditor of an illegal immigrant, whether as a result of a business transaction or because you have a legal judgment against that person, assuming that you could even get that person into court to sue.  That person's illegal status works against you if for no other reason than the fact that the government might finally decide to remove that person before you get your money.  Or he could always leave the country and come back again illegally at another time and in another place.

Finally, some studies (unfortunately, none I have links to) suggest that illegal immigrants are net consumers of government services such as emergency medical, public schools, etc.  That is to say that they consume more tax revenues than they produce.  It usually takes a generation or two to reverse this.

So: lower wages, higher prices, more taxes.  Those are the negatives I see.

Have you ever failed to completely stop at a stop sign, made an illegal turn, jaywalked, drank underage, or violated any number of numerous laws? He may actually be more law abiding that you are.

Yet, this man had no right, under law either natural or statutory, to come here at all.

Go back to the Decrlataion of Independance: "all men are create equal." That would imply that just because somebody is not a US citizen, that doesn't mean they should have any lesser status.

Under what possible frameword does the US government has a right to keep otherwise law abiding people out of the country? Are you trying to say that just because the US has the force, it how has the right to keep people out of non-private property? What an interesting twist for a conserative: the rights of the state are established and are presumed to be stronger than the rights of the individuals.

He's a criminal, and the Federal government is derelict in its duties for not treating him like one.

Wow. You think he murdered someone with that kind of tone, not actually provided economic benefit to the country. I should demand that the government treat you like the lawbraker you are. His crime has victims and actually has people who benefit. What kind of criminal is that?

Before I get into the rest of your comment, you have to clear something up for me.

The majority of people in this country are net drains on the economy or just pay their way. Only the top 20% of wage earners make any substantial contribution to the economy.

What? You are basically saying that 80% of the population subtracts more value than they add. Are you seriously saying that there is a specific 80% of the country we could toss and become more economically successful?

You can't really believe that. Hyperbole? Confusion? Temporary insanity?

I'm absolutely dying to see what your proof is.

Period.

Have you ever failed to completely stop at a stop sign, made an illegal turn, jaywalked, drank underage, or violated any number of numerous laws? He may actually be more law abiding that you are.

Ah, moral equivalence. How droll.

Let's compare and contrast:

I violated a traffic law.

I broke a border, remained in a foreign country without notifying the sovereign, and continued breaking that law for as long as I could.

Put differently, we punish crimes by their severity. Jaywalking doesn't lead to a 15 year sentence, because at most, the jaywalker has interrupted the flow of traffic. We have larger penalties for breaking the border, because the sovereign then can't easily identify who is and is not in the country; what they brought with them; what they're doing when they cross the border; and golly, whether or not they freaking exist.

One supposes a rapist and an illegal immigrant are on the same moral footing? Discuss.

Go back to the Decrlataion of Independance: "all men are create equal." That would imply that just because somebody is not a US citizen, that doesn't mean they should have any lesser status.

They don't. They have a different status -- like, oh, I dunno, Not a U.S. Citizen.

Nice slur. Killed any Jews today?

Under what possible frameword does the US government has a right to keep otherwise law abiding people out of the country?

The lawful sovereign has, and always has had, the right to protect its borders and determine who does and does not come in. (Admittedly, this only formally dates to the Treaty of Westphalia or so, so if you want to make a go at it, you only have four hundred years to fight.)

Are you trying to say that just because the US has the force, it how has the right to keep people out of non-private property? What an interesting twist for a conserative: the rights of the state are established and are presumed to be stronger than the rights of the individuals.

You either ignorantly or deliberately mistake "libertarian" for "conservative." The two are not identical. Conservatives think of the state as a necessity, not as a necessary evil. The state is, at its best, a ratification of the social consensus and mores of the citizenry.

Unless, of course, you're asserting that conservatives don't believe that the sovereign has the right to punish folks for murder? Rape? Trespassing on Federal property? In which case, I choose (1) above.

Wow. You think he murdered someone with that kind of tone, not actually provided economic benefit to the country. I should demand that the government treat you like the lawbraker you are. His crime has victims and actually has people who benefit. What kind of criminal is that?

Yeah, forget the rule of law. It's such a drag, anyway.

First of all, can I ask where you are coming from? Are you one of those anti-free trade people? Oh sorry, I know you guys perfer to be called "fair-traders" instead.

Let's look at the economic aspects of this situation.  It's possible that this person's employer exercised willful blindness in not finding out whether he had a right to work here, so we can't say for certain that the employer was paying substandard wages.

But why is that a negative? It means that some things are produced (such as fruits and vegatables) for fewer resources. That allows those resources to be devoted to either expanding production in produce or moving it over to another area, such as finance or software. You are essentially complaining that somebody is giving you something too cheaply.

Even so, illegal immigration artificially inflates the labor supply.  This means that wages will be artificially deflated, the laws of supply and demand being what they are.  This would be true even if no legal workers lose or are prevented from obtaining employment because positions have been given to illegals.  Illegal immigration also artificially inflates the demand for housing and other necessities, creating pressure for higher prices.

First, you have this exactly backwards. Illigal laborers flow towards capital where there is demand for them. Artificial immigration quotas supporting arbitrary borders prevent this natural supply and demand and hold the labor supply down. Here's the test. Imagine an island where no government and borders exist. Labor will flow to the part of the island that needs it. That is capitalists will offer wages that attract poor laborers from the other side of the island. This is the natural market clearing mechanism. Now somebody gets the bright idea fo divide the island into two countries and immigration laws are enforced preventing that flow. That is the artifical part since w/o those border supply and demand would work. If the government was giving subsidies for people to move here and pick veggies, that would artificially inflate the labor supply.

Second, you might as well say that an unexpected birth rate spurt artificially inflate the labor supply or that free-trade with Mexico artificially drives down prices since it originates from out of the country.

Illegal immigration also artificially inflates the demand for housing and other necessities, creating pressure for higher prices.

But if an illegal is renting a $1000 apartment, that means he needed ot make at least $1000 to do it. By definition he has added more to the economy than he is taking.

That person's illegal status works against you if for no other reason than the fact that the government might finally decide to remove that person before you get your money.

And you don't think banks aren't entirely aware of this already and haven't changed their policies to accomidate this problem?

That person's illegal status works against you if for no other reason than the fact that the government might finally decide to remove that person before you get your money.

First, this isn't a problem with illegals. Just because you decide to decorates you neighborhood well doesn't mean you can now keep people out of it. If states wanted to change laws to prevent illegals from taking advantage of their govt funded services, that is their responsiblity.

Second, Illegal immigrants only cost about 77% of legal immigrants and 44% of native residents, and they pay about 46% as much in taxes as natives. Basically, they pay their own way. (CATO)

So: lower wages, higher prices, more taxes.  Those are the negatives I see.

Please tell you are not a free trade, b/c it wouldn't make any sense for you to be saying that if you were.

Why isn't jaywalking or an illegal turn equivalent to entering the US illegally? You cann't just say "moral equivalence", wavy your hand, and magically make the argument go away.

Put differently, we punish crimes by their severity. Jaywalking doesn't lead to a 15 year sentence, because at most, the jaywalker has interrupted the flow of traffic. We have larger penalties for breaking the border, because the sovereign then can't easily identify who is and is not in the country; what they brought with them; what they're doing when they cross the border; and golly, whether or not they freaking exist.

But those are different crimes. Just because somebody might smuggle something into the US -- an event with serious repurcissions like foreign species introduction or illicit drug sales -- doesn't mean that you assnume that all illegal immigrants might be smugglers. You flipped innocent until proven guilty -- not the legal requirement but the moral one -- on its head. You assume that all illegals are doing something nefarious.

However, you compare the possiblities of what an illigal immigrant might be up to without doing the same to those other crimes. Jaywalking, besides just holding up traffic, could lead to a deadly car pileup. An illegal turn could run somebody over. There is just as much in those, but they are not always enforced, even when police see them.

If your argument is merely about documentation, then you should be for drastically opening up legal immigration and reducing its barriers to try and herd everybody though the process. However, many of the opposing arguments used (in this thread even) are about immigration in general -- legal or illegal.

They don't. They have a different status -- like, oh, I dunno, Not a U.S. Citizen.

The Decl or Independance doesn't talk about citizenship, that is the Constitution. The D of I is a moral document, not legal one so your distinction isn't relevant. You can make all the laws you want, but that doesn't make the ideas they codify moral.

The lawful sovereign has, and always has had, the right to protect its borders and determine who does and does not come in. (Admittedly, this only formally dates to the Treaty of Westphalia or so, so if you want to make a go at it, you only have four hundred years to fight.)

Law doesn't grant morality. You can have, as strange as it may seem to the statist nature in you, immoral laws.

However, this case isn't about protecting the borders. This guy has already crossed in the country and has established he is good citizen and productive member of society. Please don't bother protecting us from this guy. In fact, get more like him up here quickly.

Even so, treating all illegal immigrants like they are potential terrorists is about the same are treating all Saudi immigrants as they are potential terrorists (after all they could always just move or not come here in the first place). You can making a judgment on a large class of people because of a smallest of minorities.

You either ignorantly or deliberately mistake "libertarian" for "conservative." The two are not identical.

You're right. You only have to go back to Reagan to see the intersection of the two, but modern day conservatives has tarnished Reagan's legacy. Almost destoyed it.

However, I think you just argued that the "rights" of the states surpass the rights of the individual when nobody else is beind harmed. Are you sure you want to defend the idea that the government is fully in its "rights" (a peculariar term for states) to do as it pleases to poeple that aren't its citizens as they don't really have the same legal standing as citizens? Actually, given your past tendencies, I expect you to say yes. In email conversations, you are almost universally pointed out as the one with the most statist tendencies on the site.

Unless, of course, you're asserting that conservatives don't believe that the sovereign has the right to punish folks for murder? Rape? Trespassing on Federal property? In which case, I choose (1) above.

You just listed a number of crimes with actual victims, something illegal immigration doesn't have.

Yeah, forget the rule of law. It's such a drag, anyway.

You missed the point. The poster was somehow comparing murder to illegal immigration. Now you have taken a warped view of the Rule of Law. The R of L is about power: the lawmakers should be held to the law just like everybody else. That means if you are going to be lax in enforcing the laws for those higher in society you should be loose in enforcing them lower down. This loose enforcement can sometimes lead to breakings of the R of L, but that isn't necessarily true. We don't enforce a lot of laws on the books. We make a rational decision knowing that there are many things worse than jaywalkers, just like there are many things worse than illegal immigrants.

...Go back to the Decrlataion of Independance: "all men are create equal." That would imply that just because somebody is not a US citizen, that doesn't mean they should have any lesser status.

Under what possible frameword does the US government has a right to keep otherwise law abiding people out of the country? ...

So according to jjayson every "law abiding" person on the face of this planet (or the entire universe I suppose) has an inherent right to come to the US?

If you honestly believe this there is no point in even beginning an intelligent converstation with you.

...to try to get the guy who drove the truck across the Arizona border. I'm generally in favor of some expansion or loosening of quasi-legal temporary immigration into this country, if only top get the tax money (I'm a Liberal after all, bwaaaahahaha). They want to work here and people want to hire them? Okey-dokey, let's work out a secure, efficient, and profitable way to meet the needs of folks on both sides of the border. But people who make coin illegally trafficking in human cargo in situations where people can roast to death in the desert, not much sympathy for those guys.

Freedom of movement is a basic human right, like freedom of speech. Reasonable restrictions can be understood, but they must have a purpose and not be stronger than needed.

The government mere ability to wield force to uphold rules it writes doesn't make thos rules moral or just.

There is no right, legal, moral, or natural, for any non-American to be in America; and every sovereign government is authorized and obligated to maintain the territorial integrity of its land. Non-citizen residents are here at our pleasure. Anyone who argues otherwise is a fool or a knave or, perhaps, a traitor.

The USA has every right to stop anyone or everyone from coming into the country.  No non-US citizens have the "right" to come into the country.  I expect this kind of new-found rights from leftist judges, but I thought better of you.

To me it's similar to the death penalty.  The US has every right to use the death penalty and to prevent anyone from coming to our country.  In both cases I think there are compelling reasons why we should not exercise those rights to their fullest extent.  In the case of immigration, we gain so much from letting immigrants into the country.  I think we should increase legal immigration from 1 million to 3 million a year and focus on exercising our right to block immigrants who pose a serious national security threat.

It kills me that we generally agree on the underlying issue, but they way you argue it makes the position look foolish and silly.  Please rethink your tactics.  The US is not obligated to let in any person (say Osama or random terrorist X) because of some made up "right to freedom of movement."

Maybe in your world that is a "basic human right" but in the real world it isn't. That's why we have borders, passports, visas, etc. It is a pretty universal concept on Earth.

You've thrown this piffle around for weeks now, isn't it time you stop?

You have this sentiment, expressed by Paul, that I think many would agree with.  

But you also have a sentiment, shared by many of the same people, that economic freedom should be universal, or at least global.  That is, we should be able to compete freely selling our goods and services worldwide without interference or restrictions by governments.

In the long run, how can these two things be reconciled?

Isn't the movement of labor to work just as much a  beneficial economic condition just as much as movement of goods to areas of demand?  At present we are allowing capital to move its factories to the best labor markets.  In the long run, won't it be more efficient economically to allow labor to move to work?  Especially when that work is things like farming that require land which cannot be moved, or even access to fresh water.  As the population grows how do you keep populations from moving where they need to go to survive?  (I know the answer is with armies, but I hope you can get my point.)

Jjayson is going a bit overboard here, but I hope you won't fall into the same trap.

"Put differently, we punish crimes by their severity. Jaywalking doesn't lead to a 15 year sentence, because at most, the jaywalker has interrupted the flow of traffic"

An illegal immigrant on his first offense does not get 15 years in jail.  They get sent home.  Thus it would seem that offense is somewhat similar to jaywalking according to our laws right now.  At least it is closer to jaywalking than rape.

Yes.

inherent right to come to the US?

Absolutely.  but once here, you must follow the laws of the land - get a visa, you like to stay? get a green card.

I know many immigrants... they struggle to keep up with the immigration law, especially post-9/11.  But the goal of citizinship is worth it.  But my wife, she's a naturalized citizen, and has no tolerance for the "yeah but they're not breaking laws".  She did it (thank god), they can too.

Yes, come to the US, contribute gainfully, but do so within the laws.

Forcible deportation sounds significantly worse than a $100 fine.

My larger point stands, though of course I neither meant to, nor did I, make equivalent rape and illegal immigration. I was being snide for a reason.

majority of people in this country are net drains on the economy

Seriously?  This needs some backup.  Sounds like one of those KnownFacts^TM...

The majority of the people in the US work producing goods or services that the majority of the people in the US consume.  That work and that consumption generate taxes that support the government.  Government spends (!).  With all this economy "flowing" around, where's the drain?  Poor performance, GDP, jobs, inflation, etc.... that was debunked on another thread.

Illegal immigrants are not attackers, so they do not threated the the territorial intergrity of the country. The government has no right to keep people out just because they don't want them here. Absent an immigrant being a danger, they should be allowed in.

The USA has every right to stop anyone or everyone from coming into the country.

Under what possible theory of rights does this exist? (Becareful what you say or you may just destroy your case for free trade, freedome of contract, or a number of other things).

The only way the government was a right to restict the freedom of movement of another would be for savefy reasons. If the immigrants wanted to do harm to the country or its citizens or its property. Besides that, it is a needless restriction of a basic human right.

Its odd how many conservativds are willing to put the state above the individual when its not them being thrown under.

The US has every right to use the death penalty and to prevent anyone from coming to our country. In both cases I think there are compelling reasons why we should not exercise those rights to their fullest extent.

But the death penalty is only used for very extreme crimes of murder. There is a huge burder to overcome to apply the DP, it cannot just be used for robbery, asasult, or even rape. If you were to apply the same standard to immigration, then it would require the government to overcome a similary high burden in rejecting an immigrant or deporting well-behaving illegals. Your own example seems to prove the absurdly low starndard we have for keeping out immigrants.

I think we should increase legal immigration from 1 million to 3 million a year and focus on exercising our right to block immigrants who pose a serious national security threat.

Way too low. But why do you need some artificial limit anways. That's like putting a quota on trade imports. If these people are not violent (at least no more a risk of being violent than the general population) and looking for work, why stop them at all? Unless you are going to go quazi-racists on me and start talking about cultural destruction, I don't really see a good reason to keep these people out.

It kills me that we generally agree on the underlying issue, but they way you argue it makes the position look foolish and silly.  Please rethink your tactics.

You have people giving jobs and others like potential violence, how poor they are, etc. as answers to keep illegals out. Those aren't just anti-illegal immigrant positions, but anti-immigrant positions in general, legal and illegal. That is what makes the illegal immigration hawks look foolish because these people don't just want to stop illegal immigration, they want hold back legal immigration too. Or you have people blowing off some Nazi flags at a Minutement rally and seemingly unconcerned.

The US is not obligated to let in any person (say Osama or random terrorist X) because of some made up "right to freedom of movement."

Don't be abusrd. I have continually said that the US has a right to protect itself from violence, but that doesn't include prejudging all immigrants (legal or illegal) as potential terrorists.

The government has the right to restrict trade to.  It's just a really bad idea.  There are a lot of things the government can do that it shouldn't.

My first argument for more legal immigration is this:

Economic Freedom Includes Labor

Conservative values are grounded in the ideals of freedom and responsibility. As government protects our basic rights, we are responsible for providing for ourselves, raising our children, and taking care of our communities. This fundamental belief in political freedom from restriction has been properly applied to economics in the form of an ideological stance against government incursion into our financial dealings by regulation and taxation. Recently, conservatives have continued to defend free trade and its positive sum gains against a growing anti-globalization crowd. However, in the political discussion of free trade conservatives often focus on trade and finance forgetting about the third pillar of economics, labor. Specifically looking at Mexico, The Economist noted this January that

"The North American Free Trade Agreement.... vastly increased the flow of goods and services between Mexico and its neighbours.... Only labour is left out."

As we engage a globalizing world through international trade and finance, we cannot ignore the underlying pressure on labor to globalize as well. In addition to being the humane and benevolent action, accepting more legal immigrants into America each year is economically the policy most in line with conservative values. The President's immigration proposal is a step in the right direction; we should embrace the mantle of pro-immigration and increase the level of legal immigration to reflect the real pressure of the global era.

The difference between anti-illegal immigration and anti-immigration is significant.  But there are arguments against allowing more than 1 million legal immigrants into the country.  I don't agree with them, but they are legitimate arguments.

You really kill your argument on your last point.  If there is a right to freedom of movement then we can't stop anyone from moving here without violating their rights.  But you then draw an arbitrary line that says certain people can be denied that right.  So when 2/3rds of Saudi Arabia decides to move here, we must let them all in or else we are human rights violators.

The reason that sounds ludicrous is because there is no internatioanl or human right to free movement across borders.  Government has the right and the ability to ban all immigrants from coming into the country.  They, however, would be very foolish to exercise that right.  Instead, they should excercise the right to lift some legal limitation on immigration and allow more well-intentioned people who desire to become Americans to do so.

The government has no right to keep people out just because they don't want them here.

In a properly-functioning republic, the government is the instrument of We the People, the ultimate sovereign, which does indeed possess the right to keep any non-citizen out, for any reason.

Just because all the residents of a neighborhood vote to keep out a new tenant who wants to build a house in a new lot, doesn't make it right.

Your moral compass is severely damanged if you think that a group of poeple has the right to prevent another person, who is not bothering them, from simply being near them.

The government has the right to restrict trade to.  It's just a really bad idea.

No the government can restrict contracts, but that doesn't mean it isn't violating people's rights in the process.

The difference between anti-illegal immigration and anti-immigration is significant.

Yes, of course. I entirely agree. However many RS posters don't seem to understand the difference and they push anti-immigrant arguments in response to illegal immigration. The jobs argument is entirely an anti-immigrant position and has no bearing on the legality or documemtation of the immigrant. But that seems to be a very big part of many Red Staters' resistance.

You really kill your argument on your last point.  If there is a right to freedom of movement then we can't stop anyone from moving here without violating their rights.  But you then draw an arbitrary line that says certain people can be denied that right.

Come on. Be intelligent. I've repeatedly said that these rights extend until it runs into something bigger. When we say "freedom of speech" we understand that there are limits. Those three words are a good catch phrase but don't express the idea in its entirely. The same with freedom of association, freedom of contract, and freedom of movement.

If your test for a right to exist is a very definitive bright line, then you just eliminated all rights since those don't exist and any line is going to blurry meaing that within that blurry boundary between protected and unprotected there will be some ambiguity, but that doesn't mean those two sides don't exist.

So when 2/3rds of Saudi Arabia decides to move here, we must let them all in or else we are human rights violators.

Why not? We used to have very good assylum policies, but no more. You can't decide to punish some Saudis because others may be bad people. You might as well ask about rounding up blacks and Latinos since those groups have the higest incidents of violent crime and incarciration. Innocent until proven guilty isn't a good idea because it is enshrined in our laws, but it was enshrined in our laws because it was seen as the best of ideals.

Government has the right and the ability to ban all immigrants from coming into the country.

No no. They can. That doesn't mean they have a right to. Are you saying that just because some countries can ban a free press that they all of the sudden have a right to?

I'd suggest reading up on Bush's guest worker amnesty. Here's the summary: putting American jobs on eBay. As designed it would open bidding on American jobs to billions of people around the world, and it would probably force even previously high-paying jobs down near the minimum wage. Calling it "odious" is being kind.

Bush's plans and the other amnesties also supposedly offered increased enforcement. If Bush won't enforce the immigration laws currently, what makes you think he'll do it if he gets his way? That should be even clearer with the McKennedy amnesty: Teddy Kennedy is one of the major reasons we have so many illegal aliens, and any promises from him that he would not just seek to weaken future laws should be taken with a gigantic grain of salt.

Illegal immigrants are not attackers, so they do not threated the the territorial intergrity of the country.

I'd suggest that everyone other than jjayson reads this 1982 Mexican editorial.

Then, I'd suggest they consider just how many consulates Mexico has in our country, and what power they have.

Obviously, while individual illegal aliens don't qualify as "soldiers", taken as a whole they do qualify as a force inside our country that must be reckoned with.

For instance, what would happen if we tried to forcibly eject all 10 million over the next year? Would that result in riots? Would the Mexican government try to agitate their citizens to resist?

When you consider those questions you might start attributing less-than-kind sobriquets to our friends in the OBL.

"The majority of the people in the US work producing goods or services that the majority of the people in the US consume."

According to the BLS statistics, the total of all people working in the US is just shy of 150 million. This includes people in the sixteen and up age bracket, and makes no reference to whether they work part time or full time. The total population of the US is currently about 295 million, So its plain to see that less than fifty percent of the people in the country are working and "producing goods and services". Your statement is simply false.

As for my statement that the large majority are net consumers or barely pay their way, see the following.

Total state and federal spending runs to about 40% of GDP, or 4.6 trillion dollars.

Total spending per capita runs to over $15,000 for every person in the country. To put that another way, if you are not paying $15,000 per year in taxes, you are not paying your way.

Take as an example the cleaning lady in my office. (Almost certainly an illegal, btw.)

She probably makes about 20,000/yr. She certainly does not put as much in to the economy as she takes out. What does she take out, exactly? She is a consumer of all kinds of services; fire, police, schools, sanitation, medical, transportation, etc.

Because we are a humane society, we provide her with all the marvelous things which our country can provide, at basically zero cost. But that does not mean they have zero cost. Somebody else needs to pick up the tab. In other words, she is a net drain on the economy.

At the Federal level, the top earning twenty five percent of earners pay eighty-five percent of all taxes. The bottom fifty percent of earners paid a paltry four percent. Make no mistake about it, these are people who are taking more out of the system than they are putting into it.

The influx of millions of people who wind up in the bottom fifty percent translates into millions of people who will consume more in services than they will return. Unless the size of the group of taxpayers in the top twentyfive percent grows at an equal rate, they will have to have their taxes increased to cover the shortfall.

Under what theory of rights does a person, anywhere in the world, have a "right" to go anywhere in the world he wants to?

Do I have a "right" to go to work in Germany? Does Germany think I have such a right? Can I sue Germany for infringing my "rights" if they decline to allow me to enter? Can I cite the libertarian conception of "rights" to them and get anything other than a laugh in response?

Even if you do not arest the employer because he says he did not know the guy was illegal he does now and needs to fire the illegal.

                         RIGHT ?