This.
Let them live here, let them work here, let them have drivers’ licenses, but if they want citizenship, they have to go to the back of the line. And that means no welfare either.
Of course, the Dems hate it, because it doesn’t give them all the new welfare-state oriented voters they want and need.
[Update a while later]
What this comes down to is two fundamentally different views: citizenship as a right, versus a privilege to be earned. Heinlein had it right.
The immigrants don’t like it either, because their driver’s licenses would have a conspicuous stripe on them that says, ‘not a citizen.’
If you think that will prevent them from being allowed to vote in the deep-blue urban areas of the country, you are dangerously mistaken.
If your paranoia is well founded, it doesn’t matter whether they’re granted legal status, since criminal ballot clerks will let them register and vote regardless.
Huh? What does citizenship have to do with driving a motor vehicle?
My driver’s license doesn’t even list my citizenship, let alone have a “conspicuous stripe” on it. Which I find funny, since it took me three days and as many trips to the DPS to convince them I was a US citizen before they would give me a driver’s license!
I don’t really understand this mania for turning driver’s licenses into passports. Adding unnecessary requirements that make a driver’s license harder to obtain means there will be more unlicensed drivers on the road. Doesn’t that reduce public safety, which was the original reason for issuing driver’s licenses? Or doesn’t that matter any more?
Ok, in NC it’s a pink stripe that says, “NO LAWFUL STATUS“
Unfortunately they’ll still count for congressional district allocations, and as they’ll cluster in blue states, that’ll translate to more Dems in the House:-(.
Blue states like Texas, Florida and Arizona?
What’s left out in the conversation about how racist people are who don’t want amnesty and open borders, is any discussion or analysis of legal immigration. After we determine how racist people are, do we get to actually talk about legal immigration or is this like raising taxes where the talk about racism never stops?
When something is legal, we don’t need to “talk” about it. At least, not in the sense that you mean. We don’t have political debates about things that are generally accepted as legal.
When something is legal, individuals can decide for themselves whether they want it. It doesn’t become the subject of political analysis and debate until someone wants to make it illegal.
For example, we have legal immigration between Oklahoma and Texas. There is no “discussion” about how many people should move from Texas to Oklahoma each year, or vice versa.
When the United States was founded, and for a long time after, it had the same sort of dreaded “open border” that Texas and Oklahoma have. There was no political “analysis” or “discussion” of how many people should cross the border, how long they should stay, etc. until some people wanted to make immigration illegal (for certain other people).
And yes, the motives of the anti-immigration movement were racist, even if it’s politically incorrect to say so today. It was not politically incorrect at the time. Members of the Know Nothing party would have been quite insulted if you said they were not racist (and anti-Catholic as well).
In today’s society, people who are opposed to illegal immigration are not acting out of racism. They value the contributions or immigrants and our long history of being a nation of immigrants. An argument of either you are for open borders or you are a racist is utter BS.
Limits and regulations on immigration are as natural and rational as having private property. Our legal immigration rates are high and so are our illegal immigration rates. The two must be looked at together. We have millions of people move here every year, which is great, but we can’t take everyone.
Why shouldn’t we talk about legal immigration? It seems to me, energy would be better spent advocating for increases in legal immigration rather than calling everyone racist. If people want more people from central and south america to become us citizens, it is as easy as changing the quota, which is already high in comparison to other regions.
We talk about things that are legal all the time. It is legal to move from California to Texas and we talk about the effects of that migration. We talk about the shrinking tax base in California as business move to Texas. We talk about the changes in Texas society with the influx of new people. To pretend that immigration doesn’t cause both opportunities and problems is foolish.
People who advocate open borders never deal with any of the practical issues that arise like helping people assimilate into our society or dealing with the pressures placed on schools, waste management, water supply, or any of the practical day to day things necessary for running a city. Government is a lot like business in that regard, most people don’t have a clue about what it involved in running one.
Right you are Wodun. Here’s an article about that.
So, legalizing immigration would be a “slap in the face” for those lucky few who have already won the immigration lottery? The right to immigrate to the United States isn’t worth having unless you can stop others from following you?
What a bunch of elitist crap.
That’s like saying that cheap access to space will be a “slap in the face” to the Mercury Seven. Everyone should have to wait their turn, like John Glenn did, right? Or that getting a job an [fill in your favorite company] would be a slap in the face if you couldn’t form a union and prevent others from getting jobs there.
The woman writing this article is apparently Canadian. Why should she care if more people are allowed to enter the United States?
Edward,
All countries limit immigration. That means legal immigrants are following rules. So how can you say not following those rules (like my ex wife had to) is not a slap in the face to those that do?
Note that I’m not characterizing the rules themselves.
All countries limit immigration.
I suggest you read a little history. It might surprise you.
how can you say not following those rules (like my ex wife had to) is not a slap in the face to those that do?
Dumb question. Were the slaves who escaped to freedom a slap in the face to those who followed the rules and stayed on the plantation? Is the wild lion a slap in the face to his cousin who turns tricks at the circus?
If you choose to live your life as a serf, it’s not the free men who are to blame.
Going beyond immigration, if you sell your guns at a government buy-back, then get robbed, do you blame your neighbor who kept his guns?
I also wonder, were George Washington and his compatriots a “slap in the face” to those who meekly followed King George’s rules?
What’ll happen is, about thirty seconds after the ink is dry on the paper, the pro-illegal community will file the mother of all lawsuits alleging deprivation of civil rights on the grounds that, since their constituents are made citizens by the bill, it’s unConstitutional to deprive them of their right to vote or to deny them welfare based on their national origin. Given the current composition of the Supremes, they’ll probably win too.
There’s already much talk of a lawsuit against NC for planning to issue illegals driver’s licenses that mark them as such.
What this comes down to is two fundamentally different views: citizenship as a right, versus a privilege to be earned.
Totally agree, no one should get citizenship as a right /sarc.
I agree. Nobody should get citizenship as a right, it should be earned (FWIW, I haven’t earned mine). Heinlein and Pournelle both wrote stories with societies like that; in Heinlein’s the only difference between a citizen and a non-citizen was that citizens were allowed to vote and to run for office. I don’t remember the details in Pournelle’s stories.
My wife was a foreign student in college when we met. After our marriage, we went to apply for her “green card” (which isn’t green). Among the many papers we had to sign was one that stated she was ineligible for any form of government assistance and if we applied for any form of assistance for any reason, she would be deported.
Perhaps that has changed from 30 years ago, but that’s how it was and should be.
It might be easier for non-citizens to get government assistance today than it was then, but it is still (obviously) easier for a citizen to get it than a non-citizen. I find it odd that it’s immigrants who get a disproportionate share of the blame for welfare spending.
It’s my understanding that most of the government assistance that goes to illegal immigrants is obtained through fraud. So, I have to wonder, why not prosecute those people for fraud, rather than immigration?
If the argument is that it’s too hard for the fraud squad to track them down, why would it be any easier for the immigration police?
It is still a requirement that people wending their way through the legal immigration system acknowledge that they will not be eligible for public benefits. Along with the not insubstantial direct costs of seeking US citizenship this is just one of the things that applicants have to accept.
As an aside it would be great if public discussion of immigration reform really discussed that topic. Instead the airwaves are effectively monopolized by those interested in outcomes related to recent illegal Central American migrants.
Not to mention nonsense like “English only.”
My mother grew up in an area where the common languages were Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian — in the United States. The idea that the US was once a monolingual country and that recently changed is nonsense.
Again, if we legalized immigration, rather than simply reforming it, there would be much less to talk about. Not surprisingly, that idea gets little support from those who talk for a living.
I have not heard anyone demand “English Only” for many years. There have been attempts to mandate “Official English”, meaning that government business is only conducted in English. My wife’s native language (one of many) is Tagalog. She’s never demanded ballots or any other documents in her native language. Why have special treatment for certain groups?
“Government business” covers a lot more than ballots.
I think it would be a serious inconvenience if the military had to print manuals for Arabic translators in English only.
I haven’t seen ballots in Tagalog, but I know there are ballots printed in Braille. I don’t see anything wrong with providing some special accommodations as long as they aren’t unreasonably expensive.
Then there are people who are illiterate in any language but are still allowed to pretend to vote. I’m not sure what that accomplishes, except to make Jim happy.
I’ve also heard of people filing lawsuits against store owners who wouldn’t hire them because he wanted bilingual employees who could communicate with all of their customers.
Here’s a radical idea. Can’t we just do what makes sense? 🙂
California lists something like 22 major languages. There’s a cost associated with translating and verifying and printing that many different versions of the various ballot measures, but maybe that cost is relatively insignificant. The local paper had an article listing the various languages and the numbers of speakers over 5 who don’t speak English well. It’d be more useful if they had the number of adults who don’t speak English well, but for most of the languages listed roughly half those over five have problems with English (just eyeballing the list, the Koreans seemed to have the highest percentage who weren’t proficient in English).
My wife used to receive Tagalog ballots. Nobody asked her which she would prefer, the state just decided one day that she should have the Tagalog ones. It wasn’t all that hard to switch back to English ballots.
My question would be how many of the people receiving those foreign-language ballots understand the issues well enough to have an informed opinion.
I don’t know the answer to that, but I suspect a Chinese immigrant PhD is more likely to make an informed decisions than someone who’s functionally illiterate in his native English. The latter, frankly, worries me much more.
In a similar vein, I wonder if maybe making it easier to vote is the wrong way to go–maybe voting should be a bit of an effort and require a bit of thought.
We should all share a common language as fellow countrymen. That doesn’t mean that speaking another langauge shouldn’t be encouraged or that speaking other than English should be outlawed.
We shouldn’t need a translator to do business with each other or to visit another state. A common language makes not only commerce easier but communicating in general which is useful when trying to solve problems or converse with your neighbor about going fishing on Friday.
Being able to communicate with each other is incredibly important and should be encouraged. The challenges in communication where English is a second langauge are significant and it is even worse when people can’t communicate at all.
So many conflicts of the past have stemmed from the inability to communicate and the failure to understand cultural differences. To invite all the cultures on Earth to move to a country then expect them to retain their native language and culture out of the naive belief that all people and cultures are the same is stupid.
So maybe we should solve the multi-lingual ballot problem by printing ballots in Greek?
I’d sure like to encourage English as a common language, and reduce the size and homogeneity of the various ethnic enclaves. Limiting immigration seems like a reasonable first step. Changing the various labor laws to not encourage the gray and black markets might also help.
You guys need to look at the history of the English language.
When the Normans overran England, English was outlawed for all official purposes. Generations later, the language everyone spoke was — English.
That’s because English *is* French — and German and Spanish and a lot of other languages, mispronounced.
English has more words than any other language. English is the Borg. When it comes into contact with another language, it assimilates it. Resistance is futile.
If you don’t believe that, then tell me — how would you say “Taco Bell” in English? Or “restaurant,” for that matter?
I know that. It took centuries after the Norman Conquest for English to become the “official” language of England–lower courts were held in English, the high courts and the crown didn’t switch until the 14th or 15th C.
Are you expecting that the more-or-less official language of the US will become Spanish in a few more generations? I suppose there’s not much point in trying to avoid it by passing language laws. I’m not convinced that it’s a good idea to encourage it.
“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
That said, having a country with large groups that identify more with the country they or their ancestors came from than with the country they now live in seems potentially unstable.
But Heinlein thought people should *work* to earn citizenship.
He did not suggest they should “earn” it by standing in line at government offices, making obeisances to politicians and bureaucrats, and paying bri– excuse me, “fees” — to immigration lawyers, courts, and judges.
Nor did he suggest there should be an exemption for his family and friends on account of race, country of origin, or date of arrival in America.
In other words, exactly the opposite of what Bush wants.
What this comes down to is two fundamentally different views: citizenship as a right, versus a privilege to be earned. Heinlein had it right.
So repeal the 14th amendment and birthright citizenship?
How about we revoke Jim’s citizenship and deport him to some country where he can feel more at home? You know, some country where the State steals as much of your money as it feels like, but takes care of you if you’re a good little obedient serf.
That’s what the USA does.
Revoking the citizenship of people you don’t like doesn’t seem like a very safe policy.
Indeed. Never claim a power you wouldn’t trust your opponents with. Sadly, this has never occurred to the little god-king and his ‘rrhoids like Jim.
If we invade and annex Mexico this whole immigration issue goes away, except for those pesky Canadians.
I think we have to take over the countries south of Mexico as well–the ones that are so desperate that they are willing to sneak into Mexico. It’s hard to know where to stop–maybe Panama? In Risk it was simpler just to take over all of South America.
My dad had a friend who used to say that he didn’t want much, just all the land that was next to his.
The border south of Mexico is a lot shorter. FWIW.
If we just buy all of Mexico north of Mexico city (it’s way too corrupt) it would shorten the fence we may build. There’s no need to create any new states either.
That raises a question: how much funny money from the Fed to buy Mexico, or various other trouble spots, from the existing government? And at what indirect cost to the US?