Thread: Off the Table?

Off the Table?

http://corner.nationalreview.com/

[Stanley Kurtz]

Yesterday, in "Bad Vibe," I argued that the immigration "compromise" was exacerbating our divisions, not healing them. Today, in an editorial called "Immigration and the GOP, the Wall Street Journal makes the contrary argument. Comprehensive reform will take immigration "off the table," they say, and only a "passionate minority" stands in the way. Setting to one side the Journal’s questionable poll-reading, it strikes me that "taking it off the table" is exactly what the Supreme Court believed it was doing for the abortion issue when it decided Roe v. Wade.

In 2005, Spain declared a supposedly one-time amnesty for 600,000 illegal immigrants. Has that taken immigration off the table in Spain? (Spain has been inundated by illegal immigrants over the past two years.) After his surprise win in the presidential run-off six years ago, far right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen was soundly defeated by Jacques Chirac. Did that remove immigration from the table in France? The Netherlands has just declared an amnesty for 30,000 illegal immigrants whose asylum applications were previously rejected as bogus. Do you think this will take immigration off the table in The Netherlands?

Nicolas Sarkozy has just won the French presidency on a tough immigration platform, and has initiated reforms supported by three-quarters of the French people. That is surely going to be a political winner for Sarkozy, even in a country with the largest Muslim immigrant population in Europe. Yet even this is far from having taken the immigration issue off the table in France.

An aging West and an impoverished Third World in the age of globalization are incapable of taking immigration off the table. Conflicts between economic pressures and the need for assimilation aren’t going away any time soon. Bad legislation forced on an unwilling public isn’t going to take the issue off the table. On the contrary, it’s going to turn the immigration issue into a perennial crusade.

The Senate has taken immigration off the table, only in the sense that they’ve lifted up the plate and thrown its contents into the public’s face. I say that’s going to aggravate a bitter and soon-to-be long-standing national battle over immigration. The Wall Street Journal thinks otherwise. Maybe there are some business folks out there for whom this bill will solve their near-term workforce problems. For them, that suffices to take the issue off the table. But from the perspective of the politics of the nation as a whole, we have only just begun.

06/27 08:13 AM

An aging West and an impoverished Third World in the age of globalization are incapable of taking immigration off the table. Conflicts between economic pressures and the need for assimilation aren’t going away any time soon.

I disagree, with a manned wall or fence, illegal immigration will slow by 90% and the programs for immigration and assimilation, if enforced would provide the US with all the help it would need without drastically affecting its own citizens. If done right, we could END this nightmare. There are those who claim that deportation, by attrition or enforcement would sink our economy into a bad recession. I believe our economy would adjust quicker than that. As companies are forced to let go illegal workers and hire legal workers at a higher wage, their profits will be affected, not the demand for their products. The 15- 25 milliion illegals that are here do buy products and their deportation would mean a drop in the demand for those products. But look at this way, the demand for products by illegals wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. So any profits being made by illegals buying products here in the US is ILLEGAL!!
Its aiding and abetting to sell them anything.

WSJ claims only a "passionate minority" stands in the way??

What BS. As the polls indicate, Americans overwhelmingly reject the Senate amnesty bill!