"I just don't see enough people who are willing to stand up and speak on behalf of the people who are doing the hard jobs of this society. We can talk about all the benefits of different portions of this bill, but at the same time, we're faced with a set of realities here, not only with respect to the American workers, but, in a broader sense, with respect to the people in this country who are having to do the hard work of our society. Who's speaking for them?""I support in many ways the move toward giving permanent status to people who have come to this country illegally, who have put down roots and who want to move into the mainstream of our society. But this particular portion of this bill is not designed to do that. It's designed to increase the difficulties that we already have, it's not a compromise. It's a fabrication."
I couldn't agree more. Guest worker programs create a permanent underclass in America, and frankly that's unAmerican.
By the way, the audio of these remarks is available here.
And if you don't care about the people who would be exploited directly, you should care about the downward pressure such a program will have on working class wages.
The most important protections - which didn't make it into this bill - is enforcing prevailing wages and adequately defining what "prevailing wage" means. In short, this creates a legal cheap labor program.
The people drafting this bill understand very little about immigration, the costs, and who it impacts. Their only concern seems to be corporate interests.
I believe that Senator Kennedy has shamed his office. He is a stain on the Democratic party. He has shown indifference to working people and immigrants. I expect his brand of politics out of corporate owned Republicans, not out of Democrats.
But to call him a "stain on the Democratic party?" Can we not disagree on issues without engaging in such dangerous hyperbole?
So this bill creates an entirely new class of indentured servants. Do you think Kennedy would compromise on slavery back when that is legal? Maybe they should have lowered the "slavery cap" instead of abolishing it!!! That is what, in essence, what Kennedy has forced Democrats to do with employer sponsored visas.
If people don't see that this bill allows corporations to legally exploit people, they are blind. Corporations should not be "sponsoring" anyone. Workers can sponsor themselves. Changing jobs should have no impact on any pending immigration requests. Changing jobs should not result in losing legal status.
As for the question about the North American Union, the concern is well-placed. Bids for construction of a super highway from Central America north to Canada are rumored to be underway, as part of NAFTA and CAFTA. See the August Review online for 5/22/2007 for a discussion of privatization of U.S. Highways, and information about the super highway.
Frankly, I think the historical tides now moving in both the immigration bill and the North American Union impulse give us a partial glimpse of a new historical order, one in which old nation states are mere window dressing allowed to continue as a sop to local patriotism and to provide levers of control for the faceless corporate elite which care nothing for national interests, and who control local governments from behind the scenes. The invasion of Iraq may well be considered an example of their baleful influence, and Bush-boy merely an implement (witting or unwitting) of their power.
I think we can look to what happened in Germany, Belgium, France, etc, to see how dangerous the guest worker program can be. Not just bad for them, bad for all of US.
And the idea that we don't have enough engineers in this country is ridiculous. They just want them cheaper.
The first comment is my concern, and that is the concern for the American worker. A Guest Worker program only makes legal what corporations and companies have been doing illegaly for years. This is the cause behind the seperation of wealth in this country.
The other concern in for the well-being of Illegal Immigrants. I must admit, why should I aid somebody in becoming a citizen when they obviously care so little for this country's rules and laws? Even still, I would wish no physical or severe emotional harm on any of these people, and these things should be taken into account when at all possible. Still, I strongly believe that American Laws should protect Americans first.
The anti-immigration issue that's now sweeping the country in my view is no different than the movements that swept the country in the past. You look back at the Chinese Exclusionary Act, or the Know-Nothing movement - these were movements that encouraged Americans to fear foreigners, to fear something that is different, and to stop immigration.
One last quote, courtesy of another New Yorker:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Pretty much sums it all up right there. Spare me the nativist nonsense, America has always been a nation of immigrants, and hopefully always will be.
If by "nation of immigrants" you mean decendent from immigrants, then aren't all countries "nations of immigrants"?
Just what does "nation of immigrants" mean? Wouldn't "Nation of Americans" be more accurate?
I think a lot of people on both sides are calling each other names on these issues : "nativist", "protectionist", "traitor", "globalist", "xenophobe", "slavetrader", etc. Well, okay, let's get it out of our system and call each other names, but after that we still need to decide on a bill.
I think most Americans would like a sane immigration program; they have however felt the pain of selective and probably a little too high immigration. They want a front door only, limited, citizenship program. I know many disagree: some say none, some say unlimited. But if you triangulate and average the desired policy seems to be to limit and clean up the bill.
We can see this from the stagnating median wage since Reagan decided to stop enforcing immigration laws.
Yes, the rich can get lawn work done cheap, but low skills worker sand some "selected" high skill workers have gotten a kick in the butt. Notice that there is no special program to bring in "people with law degrees" or "people with experience in police work". Some well off people are protected from internatinal labor supply pressures on their wages, others (typically poorer) are expressly and deliberatly and negligently targeted. This is an American Middle and Lower Class versus the Upper Class issue.
The current bill was crafted in secret between the Chamber of Commerce, the immigration lawyers, Ted Kennedy and George Bush. It's DOA and its problems are massive.
Limited, front door only, citizenship, non business sponsored: YES !
Unlimited, guest worker, illegal, business controlled : NO !
JFK: "A society of immigrants, each of whom had begun life anew, on an equal footing. This is the secret of America: a nation of people with the fresh memory of old traditions who dare to explore new frontiers."
JFK: "Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life."
Ronald Reagan: "I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still."
Ronald Reagan: "You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman; you can go to live in Germany, you cannot become a German- or a Turk, or a Greek, or whatever. But anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in America and become an American."
"You have to realize that we are a people that are made up of every strain, nationality, and race of the world. And the result is that when people in our country think someone is being mistreated or treated unjustly in another country, these are people who still feel that kinship to that country because that is their heritage. In America, whenever you meet someone new and become friends, one of the first things you tell each other is what your bloodline is. For example, when I'm asked, I have to say Irish, English, and Scotch-English and Scotch on my mother's side, Irish on my father's side. But all of them have that."
"Well, when you take on to yourself a wife, you do not stop loving your mother. So, Americans all feel a kind of a kinship to that country that their parents or their grandparents or even some great-grandparents came from; you don't lose that contact."
Reagan, Bush and Clinton gave us that concept.
That doesn't mean we should support immigration bills that are harmful to immigrants and to American workers.
Corporate lobbyists are flooding Congress right now in order to secure a cheap, exploitable, and indentured class of workers. Corporate favors have polluted this immigration bill and will result in, once again, anarchy when it comes to immigration.
We can't repeat the mistakes of 1986. Yet, this bill does just that. I don't want to get caught in the "what is the definition of amnesty" debate, but I also do not want to sit quietly while we repeat our mistakes and continue the exploitation of immigrants to the detriment of both them and American workers.
Senator Webb is right - there needs to be some legalization path. But at the end of the day corporations created this problem because they didn't obey the laws. The problem grew because our government ignored it. Unless there is a will - beyond rhetoric - to enforce immigration laws we will always have an immigration crises.
This country treats everything as a fire drill. We don't solve problems until they become a crises. And here, we aren't really solving anything - simply fanning the flames.
There are some good aspects to this bill. But it isn't good enough.
Legal immigration is fine. Illegal is a serious problem. I don't have any clue how you turned what I said into nativism.
I guess your trying to place the complexity part on how illegal immigrants play a significant part on our lives. And as I have said repeatedly, I would be willing to pay a bit more, both in sales AND in taxes, if it meant that the American worker would no longer get steamrolled. Yes, I benefit from cheap labor by illegal immigrants. And I would gladly give up that benefit if it meant helping bring some fairness back into our economic system. Trust me, there's a link to the growing illegal immigrant problem and CEO pay increases, just as their is a link to CO2 and Global Warming.
In this case, as you pointed out, our government has turned a blind eye to the illegal behavior of both employers and employees.
People have started noticing the illegal immigrants, but the illegal employers seem to get by with very little attention.
I believe that too much attention is being directed at the illegal aliens themselves, and not enough at those who have instigated this problem - the corporations.
I think it would be a healthy exercise to devote much more of our attention towards the instigators. Although nobody has the right to cross our borders without permission, I believe on a moral scale that crime is not as bad as the crime of exploiting people and encouraging such behavior.
It's like a seatbelt violation vs a DUI. The illegal aliens need to own up for their part in the violation of the law - some non-criminal (civil) penalty. I believe the corporate executives and managers who knowingly broke the laws should face stiff punishment in a criminal court.
One more point: we can NOT look at "illegal immigration" in isolation from "free trade" agreements, globalization, workers' rights, and human rights. They all go together.
I'm just watching this thread to see the split in the US party but myself and an "open border" activist who puts everything out there in bias towards the illegals have been analyzing the bill and pretty much all workers are screwed as far as we can tell, along with the above concerns of many Americans.
It's really not "cultural" as much as the open border advocates try to make it so.
Another example: there are laws on the books that penalize the same exact crime almost completely differently depending on whether the drug is in a powder or solid form. Also, enforcement and penalties are differentially meted out depending on race, class, and a whole host of factors. The only "black" and "white" here is racial, to be blunt.
Another example: there are laws against tax evasion, yet just about everybody does it to some extent.
Another example: there are laws against speeding, yet just about everybody does it.
Another example: laws about what workers can do in terms of union organization vary widely from state to state. Also, I would argue that some of these laws are immoral, possibly unconstitutional, but they're on the books because nobody's been able to challenge them effectively given the courts as they're currently constituted. If we had had different politics in this country the past few decades, we'd have different courts, and different laws (or interpretations of laws) on this...and many other issues.
I could go on and on and on. The point is, the world is not black and white. The law does not exist in some sort of autarkic space, it's bound up with complex socieconomic and political realities. You can keep saying it's dichotomous - "legal" or "illegal" - all day. You can pound your fist on the table and raise your voice if you want. But that doesn't change the gray, uncomfortable reality...
Also, ya all should know that H-1B Visa holders are counted in the BLS statistics (the unemployment statistics) and why the massive displacement of Americans does not show up.
I was thrilled he ran in there to the floor and spoke, that' all good but this bill is yet another cheap labor lobby bill...then I know there were a lot of conservatives who switched to Webb and I think he needs to take their views into account on some sort of real solution (which this is not) on what to do with the people already here.
I honestly think right now Webb is so busy with Iraq and the shafting of our military this went to the back burner and fell off the stove, but it's actually critically important and needs his voice.
I fully expect him to go to battle for working people. That is the type of person I believe him to be.
Webb needs to get in there and at least give a speech or offer an amendment to strip out the H-1B Visa increases or remove the F-4 or something...as far as I know he's not.
He may be a warrior but he's on a distant shore right now with his guns, he needs to be temporarily redeployed.
Lowell said: "One more point: we can NOT look at "illegal immigration" in isolation from "free trade" agreements, globalization, workers' rights, and human rights. They all go together."
This is dangerous territory. Humans and immigration should not be mixed with trade agreements. The reason is simple - the President has the authority to regulate trade (per the Constitution). Congress has the duty to regulate immigration (also, per the Constitution).
Mixing the two is not constitutional. Plus, you get in this dangerous position where companies feel that people can be traded like cattle.
I'm not sure what you meant regarding your statement on trade and immigration. Please elaborate.
My solution to those who came illegally is to make the path in the draft bill one for permanent residence (green card) with no possibility of earning citizenship.
This would make a big difference between those who come legally and would become voter eligible, and those who, because they came illegally will never get the right to vote.
While we are at it, what about "dual citizenship"? Having done 20 years in the US Army, I get heartburn just thinking about American Citizens who also carry the passport of another country.