Every one in awhile, something passes through the internet that makes a lot of sense....and written by a radical environmentalist and probably a Liberal Democrat! Although I don't all together agree with his statement in number 11, I believe that this anti-open borders movement is not just a conservative/Republican issue. It crosses all party lines, race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, yada..yada.

What Would a Progressive Immigration Sanity Program Look Like?
March 15, 2008 – 3:34 am

Let’s take a look at what a progressive Immigration Sanity (IS) project might look like, along with some possible principles:

1. Junk internationalism. Obviously, an IS project has to be nationalist, not internationalist. This in spite of the fact that all Communist regimes in history locked down their border and were very careful about who they left in.

Not one Communist or even progressive government anywhere engaged in a project to allow unfettered immigration of cheap labor into the state so that national workers could be fired and replaced by cheap labor immigrants.

Not one progressive regime ever subscribed to a policy of allowing massively exploitable immigrant labor into the nation, to be worked under horrible, sweatshop-like, abusive conditions, untaxed and unregulated, with the Sword of Deportation hanging over their heads, as a preference for brassy and sometimes defiant national workers who stood up for their rights, unlike submissive immigrants.

2. A clear condemnation of cheap labor immigration. Low wage, submissive, exploitable immigration is antithetical to every progressive value and must be condemned across the board. The fact that the Western Left is lining up with the most crooked capitalist interests on this labor-crushing issue is frankly despicable.

3. A notion that revolution begins at home. Read Marx and Lenin and tell me where they say that the way to wage revolution in a backwards country is go invade some developed country and then work as a submissive, ultra-exploited, captive worker. What a joke! If your country is the suffering from the typical wreckage of failed Third World capitalism, you need to fix up your own country, not invade mine.

We have our own hands full dealing with our own rightwingners, who are in power and progressively ruining America. We don’t need the added problem of a peasant invasion on top of that.

4. A recognition that unfettered immigration is contrary to all environmental values. As a radical environmentalist, it is clear to me that population growth is driving the present extinction crisis. To pretend that population growth is not an issue, and open the borders to 50% of Mexico (50% of Mexicans want to live in the US) and 1/3 to 1/2 of the world (polls show that 1/3 to 1/2 of the world wants to come to America) is environmental insanity.

With half of Mexico in the US, not to mention 2 to 3 billion new Americans, we can kiss the natural environment goodbye.

5. A principled opposition to H-1B and all other forms of cheap labor immigration, legal and illegal. There is no sense in automatically opposing all forms of immigration as “taking jobs from Americansâ€