I bet Mitt Romney has a sweatshirt that says I (heart) Florida. His victory in the Sunshine State revitalized his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. Florida also gave him an opportunity to explain his immigration policy.
Asked how he would deal with undocumented immigrants, Romney said during the Tampa debate that he believes in "self-deportation." A crackdown on undocumented immigrants, he explained, would make "people decide they can do better by going home because they can't find work here...because they don't have legal documentation to allow them to work here."
Some spectators in the audience giggled at Romney's answer. "Self-deportation," however, is no joke. It amounts to laws that harm undocumented immigrants and Latinos. Let's break it down and see why self-deportation defies reality, legality, and American values of dignity and human rights.
First of all, Romney's idea of self-deportation overlooks the obvious. How do we think the estimated 11 million undocumented U.S. immigrants got here? They already "self-deported" themselves right out of their home countries in search of better lives and opportunity. And the fact is, they're here to stay. In 2011 the Pew Center found that, despite a weak economy and increased enforcement measures, the undocumented population has remained stable. Although unauthorized entries have dropped, Pew reported that few undocumented immigrants are returning to their countries of origin.
It's amazing that Romney, a successful businessman, doesn't realize that if the undocumented were to leave, even gradually, it would cause our economy to contract. An exodus of this labor force would hit agriculture and the service sector very hard.
But wouldn't American workers take these jobs? So far, it hasn't worked out that way. In Alabama and Georgia, two states that passed strong, harsh immigration laws, farmers are facing severe labor shortages. Alabama has even considered using prisoners because farmers can't find anyone willing to do backbreaking fieldwork.
Key components of the self-deportation strategy are state and local laws targeting "illegals." Yet ironically, many of these laws have been found to be of questionable legality themselves. The Department of Justice has challenged many such statutes because they usurp federal authority over immigration and result in racial profiling of Hispanics. In Arizona's Maricopa County, for instance, the department found that Latinos were up to nine times more likely to be pulled over for traffic violations than non-Hispanics. Its Civil Rights Division has received more than a thousand complaints about Alabama's law.
Romney favors self-deportation over rounding up undocumented families and removing them from the country. Unfortunately, his solution is equally harsh and inhumane. Self-deportation means passing laws that make the daily lives of the undocumented miserable. It means measures that would bar them from finding work or renting a home and deny them basic services such as water and heat. It means questioning schoolchildren about their parents' immigration status. These examples aren't hypothetical. They're all components of Alabama's draconian immigration law.
It's troubling that Romney endorses trampling on constitutional and human rights for the sake of winning his party's nomination. His stance on immigration shows a lack of compassion from a man whose Mormon ancestors were persecuted across America before settling in Utah, and whose own family crossed the Mexican border a few times themselves. He would be well advised to learn from Ronald Reagan (who granted amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants in 1986) or even George W. Bush (who supported a path to legalization for the undocumented).
Romney might consider that his immigration stance is at odds with his faith; The Mormon Church actively promotes compassion towards all immigrants. Most of all, Romney needs to realize that Americans don't want a long, slow purge of the undocumented. What we want is sensible, comprehensive immigration reform.
Cross-posted at OtherWords.org
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Joe Peyronnin: Romney's Veep-Stakes
Too bad, so sad, farmer filth. Your wage bill is about to increase.
> http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/8/12/II/VIII/1324a
> http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
Let's hope that Romney wins and gets the illegals to start migrating home.
In any case, we have massive unemployment and no shortage of workers. We have a shortage of jobs that is being aggravated by illegal immigration.
Did you ever notice when the Immigration Service raids a plant and arrests or chases away the illegal immigrants, the plant always opens up two weeks later under the eye of the Immigration Service with all new legal workers? No problem finding new workers, but maybe at a higher wage. Americans were always willing to do the work. This story that illegal immigrants do jobs that Americans don't want is a lie. Always was a lie. So don't worry "PresReagan." Trust in the free market and let it RAISE WAGES.
Obama ~ 1.2 million "forced" deportations in his 37-month presidency
Who loves ya?
Laws that demand proper ID and reserve services and rights to citizens and legitimate visitors are almost universal. So are laws that demand ejection of people not permitted to be there. So far Mexico and their Latino Lobby in the US is demanding that we have none because they want free access to our country and everything we offer our own people.
It is not inhumane to demand legitimate ID be shown before services are rendered or goods change hands. If the author and indeed the Latin peoples have so much regard for the law, they can demonstrate that by following all of ours and not picking which ones they like or don't. An illegal foreigner certainly can't conduct business in the countries our illegal immigrants come from.
Self-deportation works as shown in Alabama.
This summer the nation shall see if Arizona's laws pass muster with the SCOTUS and if they do, Alabama's all the other state laws will follow at their heels as well as those of millions of foreign scofflaws.
As we saw in Alabama, when the state apparatus turns up the heat on undocumented foreign nationals they tend to panic and jump out of the frying pan. Given this evidence, might it be logical to extrapolate Alabama's alien remedy to a national level? Is it not worth a try? How do you think we got to the moon or discovered the computer?
Remember my fellow Americans, for every undocumented immigrant currently occupying our land now there are millions more on the outside desperate to join that non-citizen. Do we really want to give these people the green light? Do we really want to live in an America bulging with a billion plus humans scraping and clawing for every scrap left on the table? I think not.
Did you ever notice--they always cite the example of migrant labor -- the worst paid job in America and some of the hardest work. If you quit your minimum wage job in a convenience store and pick crops and you will take a pay cut. It's not full time work, but you can't take full time work. You travel on your own dime, live in a hovel, and have to wait until the crop is ready. The job is way underpaid and that is why Americans won't take it.
Americans will work hard. Americans work in steel mills where it is so hot the workers must not only gulp water by the gallons, but take salt pills to restore lost minerals. Americans collect garbage: better to pick edible fruit than pick up stinky garbage.
But those jobs pay middle class salaries and benefits. The combination of exceptionally low pay and hard work won't work. Without the illegal immigrants, farmers would have to pay more. Just like your economics professor drew it up on the board.
If you gave these illegal workers a green card, they wouldn't do it either. They'd go somewhere where they'd earn more by doing easier work.
They also refuse to ever mention the unlimited visas available for temporary ag workers.
The farmers don't want to use them because they have to treat their workers fairly, pay them fairly, pay taxes on the wages and house them. These writers who claim to be looking after the workers are only looking out for the profits of large corporate farms.
That was not inhumane nor illegal. We now have about 11 million illegals about 60% of whom committed a crime of smuggling themselves and other things into the US. The rest are visa overstayers who at least were invited here and we know WHO they are. So I fail to see why this writer hates to enforce our immigration laws if he thinks so highly of the rule of law. If a person crosses the border illegally, and they are caught, the BP and enforcement HARMS them. Is that contrary to our laws? Perhaps we should let them in and open our borders since he is against harming their so called "rights" to decide for themselves who may come into the US. They in fact spit on our laws and our rights to decide who may come here. I think that causes more harm than anything else
People that come to the country illegally are not welcome. They break our laws to get here, and many of them break others laws to stay. In general, they only file taxes if they can get money back from the government for child credits. They use tremendous amounts of resources on state and federal levels to provide educational, healthcare, and prison services. They drive on our roads without training, licensing, or insurance.
It is about time that we start enforcing our current laws so that people do not feel so welcomed to break them. If this is "harsh and inhumae" by your standards, then so be it.
Please let me know if you would like me to start Googling them for you and paste the URL's in here.
I don't know where you live, but I live pretty close to our Country's border. I educate myself on the issue. I know what I'm talking about. If you need me to back it up further, just ask.