Reply #15: understood [View All]

[Two Americas]

The argument that immigrants harm Labor is legitimate. However, many in the Labor movement are moving away from that position and union organizing within the immigrant community is growing exponentially. Also, the same workers will be working here, or there, and it is better for all of us to have them working here.

The point of the Rush-Bagot treaty is that there are fewer problems with a relatively open border than with a closed one. At the time of the Rush-Bagot treaty there were far more problems between the US and Canada, and far more justification for a closed border than there is today between Mexico and the US. Now it is easy to say that an open border works with Canada because we are at peace, but the opposite is actually true. We were not at peace, the border was not stable at the time of the treaty. It is the treaty that created peace and a stable border. Closed borders never has a good ending, and is associated with the most tyrannical and oppressive regimes throughout history.

The United States is not "private property." Were it, it would belong to the aboriginal inhabitants, if anyone.

The argument that "they have theirs and we have ours" is at best misleading. What does it mean to "have" a country? Most immigrants are indigenous people with little or no stake in the "countries" they come from, and little self-determination. Those countries are still subject to economic colonialism by US corporations, and those countries being to the wealthy few, not to the indigenous people leaving them in desperation.

The fears that immigrants are bring disease and crime with them is not supported by the data. Making people illegal - and that is what is happening - worsens those problems, it does not improve them.

Wealthy people easily move across borders, and poor people have the same right to do so.

All of the arguments you are using were used against the Irish, the Italians, the Greeks, Eastern Europeans and many other people. All of the fears expressed then proved to be false, and the situation today is precisely parallel to the situation when other groups of people came here. The US is strengthened, and so are the home countries. People send money home, upgrade the infrastructure in the home villages, and that lessens the pressure on our border.

The solution to all of the problems you cite is to legalize people, not make them illegal. That brings them into the system. You cannot stop people from trying to survive and feed their families. Fear and terror used against any segment of the population threatens all of us.

Immigration rules and regulations and enforcement are being applied in one way to Latino immigrants, and another way to Hungarian, Polish and Russian immigrants. This is the source of the problem, not the immigrants themselves.

Morally, politically, legally and practically the round them up and deport them strategy is unsupportable. You are creating an illusion of some "them" and ascribing evil motives to them. Historically, all other things being equal, no one ever gets worked up about hordes of northern Europeans arriving. In Detroit when I was younger, tens of thousands of Canadians came "illegally" to work in the auto industry. No one became alarmed. When people came the same way and did the same things, but happened to be people of color, then suddenly we heard that we had a "problem" with "them." It is difficult to escape the conclusion that racism plays a significant role in this manufactured controversy.

It is un-Constitutional to round people up and force them to prove that they are NOT "illegal." That is opening the door to Hell, because it gives total power over us to law enforcement and agents of the state.

Are all plants being raided? No. Those with brown people are being raided. Why? Allowing the government to presume criminality based on race is clearly and obviously a very bad idea.

If we had swat teams raid every place of employment and investigate everyone, no doubt many would be captured for various offenses - all criminals would be caught, in theory. A certain percentage of the population at any time has parking tickets if nothing else. We don't do that. Why? Because we are soft on criminals?

If we don't resort to police state tactics and ignore the Constitution in order to round up murderers and thieves, why would we do it to catch people trying to work and feed their families?

What sort of governments historically have placed the entire population under suspicion and subject to paramilitary raids, arbitrary arrests and detentions? What sort of governments historically have targeted certain ethnic groups for that sort of suspicion and mistreatment?

Arresting people because they cannot prove that they are NOT a criminal is the very definition of an arbitrary arrest, and the Constitution forbids that sort of behavior by the government. The fact that a few criminals are caught in the process does not justify it.