A Green Light for Illegal Immigration?

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"RAMOS: And that you won't deport immigrants who don't have a criminal record?

CLINTON: Yes.

RAMOS: … and those who don't have a criminal record.

CLINTON: Of the people, the undocumented people living in our country, I do not want to see them deported. I want to see them on a path to citizenship. That is exactly what I will do.

***********

"RAMOS: And can you promise not to deport immigrants who don't have a criminal record?

SANDERS: I can make that promise."

Transcript of Debate on 9 March 2016

—————–

I decided that we would not have partisan arguments on SST but it seems to me that Clinton's and Sander's remarks concerning adult aliens in the US who do not have a criminal record (other than the illegal residence itself) would apply to all who are presently in the US or who will come in the future.

This is a matter of national import in terms of the ability to control immigration.

Surely the announcement of such a policy would trigger a mass effort to enter the US by any means possible.  pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/09/transcript-the-post-univision-democratic-debate-annotated/

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189 Responses to A Green Light for Illegal Immigration?

  1. Old Microbiologist says:

    Either we have a legal immigration policy or we don’t. Rewarding law breakers isn’t the answer. Amnesty is a poor choice as well and it is an insult to all who emigrated I into the US through the extremely difficult process. Very few of these economic immigrants would qualify under normal immigration policies which requires a demonstration of value to the American society, including proof of health insurance, a return ticket home, sufficient funds or solid guaranteed employment, and a clean background check. This not unusual or extraordinary for immigrants without refugee status. Some countries like Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland require a substantial deposit for a significant period of time. For example in if you want to retire in Australia it is $4 million dollars for 5 years. So, what the politicians are arguing is actually very unusual and not in keeping with international norms.
    What could be done is to build a serious wall as suggested, increase the crime to a felony level, and maximum fines and/or imprisonment. We could do what the Israelis do and mount fully automated machine guns on towers. No one seems to be too upset about that. I wonder why?
    It us, of course, a political hot potato, and it is breaking down into what the people (majority) want verses what the R2P politicians want for us. Perhaps it is time for the politicians to remember they serve at the will of the people and Represent us.

  2. Laguerre says:

    The movement of “illegal aliens” into the US from the south, or in Europe of refugees from the Middle east, is so common, and of such a large scale, that some thinking is required.
    It is evident that these people think that a life in the west will be be better than staying home.
    The only way to change this is a change of policy on the part of the US and other western powers towards creating peace in the MIddle East, and looking towards economic development, rather than fitting in with the political requirements of one or the other of the powers.

  3. turcopolier says:

    Laguerre
    Your attention is wandering. My post has nothing to do with European refugee problems. There is massive US investment in Latin America. the process of out-migration of US business has been so large under NAFTA that the job loss in the US resulting therefrom is a major factor in creating the political rebellion now underway. Does foreign manufacture of goods with low labor costs imported to the US make for lower consumer prices on these goods? Yes, but one must have a job and money to be able to buy these imported goods. pl

  4. turcopolier says:

    OMB
    “Rewarding law breakers isn’t the answer.” My post is about rewarding NON-law breakers. pl

  5. BrotherJoe says:

    Come on in. Make yourself at home. Apply for welfare. Apply for Social Security. Apply for earned income tax credit http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2015/mar/09/john-fredericks/john-fredericks-says-every-illegal-immigrant-can-b/.
    If you’re given citizenship then bring in your elderly parents and put them on Medicare; bring in your brothers and sisters, and those of your spouse.
    We’re no longer a nation. We’re a Motel 6.

  6. elaine says:

    Wide open borders are the fast track to One World Government & if we don’t
    like it we’re racists & xenophobes & must be reeducated in the closest
    FEMA camp…something like that

  7. Old Microbiologist says:

    Immigration visa requirements as shown for the US Embassy in Trinidad: http://trinidad.usembassy.gov/mobile//what_are_the_immigrant_visa_application_requirements.html

  8. Old Microbiologist says:

    By overstaying a visa or entering into the country without a visa the person is in fact already breaking the law. Perhaps you mean serious law violations? Although in many countries overstaying a visa gets you prison time. I wouldn’t do it in Iran or Saudi Arabia.

  9. turcopolier says:

    OMB
    Obviously I mean people with a criminal record for other than illegal entry and residence. That is what Clinton and Sanders meant as well. So, you do not think illegal entry and residence are “serious crime.” Interesting. pl

  10. turcopolier says:

    OMB
    Trinidad? What is your point? pl

  11. SmoothieX12 says:

    Among many things which define real nationhood are state borders. In fact, they are one of few very first things which define nationhood. Whom and how nation allows to enter is solely prerogative of the state. Now, in US “elites” we have people who would give Suslov’s Ideological Department of Central Committee a run for their money in terms of blind indoctrination and, in fact, go even further by denying the ultimate vital necessity of border control for the nation. Going even further, in these people we have those who see no value in nation at all. In fact, they are on the mission of destroying the nation-state as such. As Correli Barnett observed; “According to liberal thinking a nation was no more than so many human atoms who happened to live under the same set of laws”(c). Terms such as “nation”, “culture”, “ethnicity”, “faith”, “common historical fate” are a “crimethink” in deep recesses of US “academe” and political “elites”.

  12. kao_hsien_chih says:

    I think the talk about not deporting illegals is foolish pandering. I am honestly dumbfounded that politicians think that promising to not deport illegal aliens from same country of ancestry as Hispanic citizens should win the latter’s votes, and even more so if that actually works. There are no doubt practical reasons that rounding up and deporting all illegals already in country is not cost effective in the short term, but to suggest implicitly open borders (that is, not deporting those who make it in if they cause no further trouble) is absurd. In fact, I am starting to share Tyler’s view on immigration: amnesties and/or legalization processes are a joke. A real national ID card system, coupled with a serious immigration enforcement effort, is a must, I think.

  13. kao_hsien_chih says:

    Motel 6 charges money that becomes profit for whoever owns Motel 6. We, as nation don’t make money off of illegals, although businesspeople who employ and exploit them do, I suppose. It is unseemly that the latter should be subsidized in this manner.

  14. pj says:

    I read an essay on immigration.some time ago by a Swedish (?) political scientist. (I wish I could find it, but I can’t.) To summarize – Immigration acts a relief valve for countries with serious structural and economic problems. People with drive and initiative become frustrated and migrate to countries where their willingness to work hard will be rewarded. In the long run, this is a serious problem for their home country, as the very people who could be the foot soldiers of a movement for positive change desert the home country, leaving behind those who accept the situation, either as overlords, or subordinated workers. He argued for a ‘tough love’ policy on immigration which would shut the doors, hoping to promote change back in the migrants home.

  15. rjj says:

    been thinking “nomenklatura” would be a better term than “elites.”

  16. Trey N says:

    How ironic that Mexico, of all places (after their constant squealing about how the US treats their citizens who have entered the US illegally)has this immigration policy:
    “At the current exchange rate, you need bank statements showing an income of just under $1300 a month or proven investments or savings of $206,000, to get a temporal visa (temporary residence). The Mexican government’s position is that you are welcome but Mexico is not going to support you.”
    http://www.ajijiclaw.com/immigration/
    ————–
    The best way to solve the illegal immigrant problem is to stop battling the smoke and start fighting the fire: don’t concentrate on stopping/rounding up the illegals, fine the shit out of those US citizens and businesses that hire them!
    Raid the meat packers, the construction companies, the rich who keep fulltime cooks/maids/lawnkeepers etc and do two things: deport the workers, and charge a humongous financial penalty on the employers. THAT would solve the whole “problem” in a heartbeat, but it will never happen — those employers are making too much profit off the illegals, + they have the political clout to make such a policy DOA by their bought-off pols.
    Oh, and one more thing: at least stop the insane policy of giving US citizenship to “anchor babies.” It’s a small step and just a start, but it may be an acceptable bone for the powers mentioned above to throw to the growing anti-illegal movement….

  17. different clue says:

    Old Microbiologist,
    For every 100 foot wall, there is a 101 foot ladder. It is bad that the two Dem nominee-wannabes have promised this green light to unlimited illegal immigration. The other long-standing green light to illegal immigration for years now has been standing permission to employERS to illegally hire illegal aliens. And yes, a studied refusal to prosecute and imprison the illegal employERS of illegal aliens is a stealth green-light issued on behalf of the illegal employERS by their compliant government.
    Hard time in bad prisons for every person who hires even one illegal alien for even one day would stop people from illegally hiring illegal aliens. If everyone currently hiring an illegal alien were given a month to let their illegal alien go or face prosecution and prison, then they might well let them go. And the illegal aliens would self-deport because there would be no more economic reason for them to stay here.
    About the special case of Mexico: many of the illegal Mexicans here were driven out of Mexico by the carefully engineered destruction of their rural and bussiness livelihoods by a NAFTA which was written to achieve that effect on purpose. The abolition of NAFTA and the re-protectionization of Mexico and especially its agriculture would restore a functioning Mexican agricultural economy for those millions of naftastinian economic exiles to return to. So abolishing NAFTA is a key part of solving the illegal alien problem.

  18. charly says:

    Illegal immigrants are not a problem. Illegal workers are and that is easily solved by issuing hefty fines to employers

  19. Peter C says:

    Any bets on when it’s OK to not be a citizen in order to hold a classification.

  20. mbrenner says:

    Let’s face the uncomfortable truth: this is a problem(s) for which there is really no satisfactory solution. That is not a recommendation for inaction. But simply to underscore the inescapable fact that whatever combination of policies we come up with will leave most Americans discontented on some reasonable grounds or other. This is what happens when you leave pathological situations to fester for decades – doing things on a disjointed basis (not very competently). Some of those things actually aggravate the condition (iatrogenic medicine). One could draw a rough analogy with American actions and inactions in the Middle East over the past 15 years. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Palestine and now Yemen. Actually, it’s probably easier to imagine some moves over there (e.g. confronting the Saudis and Israelis, Turks) than it is to imagine serious, if partial solutions to the immigration situation.
    Still, a few points seem fundamental. One, you have to be able to control your borders – perhaps not hermetically but for the most part. That is not now the case. I personally don’t know enough about the particulars to say if a 40 foot wall would be part of the answer. From what I hear around Texas, most of the illegals don’t wade across the Rio Grande and then trek through the desert – they come through or around major border check points.
    Two, the organization and management of the relevant border agencies leaves a lot to be desired. Intersecting jurisdictions is part of the problem. Think of airport security: 85% of illicit, banned materials get through when tests are done. That’s what the border is like. Or think of the VA. What to do? I don’t know – except for the conviction that the US government should not hire consultants to find an answer.
    Three, processing, screening and short-term detention have to be regularized and speeded-up. See above. Reliance on private, profit-making companies is a national disgrace. We cannot tolerate human trafficking, abuse, and profiteering. It’s the government’s job and the government’s responsibility.
    The same holds for those illegals detained after being resident in the US.
    Four, something like the “dream act” makes sense. Absolute justice? No. But it’s a hell of a lot better than random raids or mass deportations.
    Five, separating parents from children is unacceptable. Not easy to avoid and some legislative action may be needed. However, any option is better than creating de facto orphans.
    Six, there have to be frank talks with Mexican authorities in regard to most aspects of whatever package of actions under consideration. Admittedly, Mexico is a mess. Yet, we’re quite happy with the country being run by bands of crooked, inept politicos so long as they serve American commercial and political interests. That calculus has to change.
    Seventh, the economic consequences of NAFTA have fed outward migration. Millions of farmers have been dispossessed by the forced opening of Mexico’s agricultural markets to American agro-business. Millions of small businesses have been bankrupted by the unrestricted take-over of retail commerce by giant American chains. Many of the impoverished head north.
    Eight, as to Central America, we continue to follow the 100 + year old policy of backing the oligarchs against popular ref0ormers – e.g. Obama/Clinton’s backing for the coup in Honduras that has turned the place into the homicide/drug capital of the world. This is ridiculous; Che is long dead.

  21. steve says:

    When Trump said he would build a wall and make Mexico pay for it he guaranteed himself a certain percentage of the GOP vote. When Clinton promises to not deport anyone she sees to gain a certain percentage of the from Democrats. I think they are both lying just to get votes.
    Steve

  22. Amir says:

    Dear Old Microbiologist. Iran is a host to +/- 3.000.00 Afghan refugees and +/- 2.000.000 Iraqi refugees. Yes, you read it correctly, REFUGEES, not immigrants. The government has to provide at the very least some minimal services to them, under current international obligations. There are scores of illegals and although they are treated not on equal footing as with common citizens, they don’t get prison time for being illegal neither. They end up being part of the underground economy, as is the case in US.
    Comparing what happens to someone when they break a law in Iran vs Saudi Arabia, is the best joke that I have heard in a long time.
    If you are talking about the 3 US hikers who were arrested in 2009, when they by mistake crossed the Iran-Iraq border, you can read more about it at http://www.salon.com/2011/09/26/iran_105 and focus somewhat on what the victims themselves thought about it.

  23. turcopolier says:

    mbrenner
    Mexico is a sovereign country. If we want to change their system to something we would be happier with we would have to occupy the country as we did once before. I don’t think it is worth the trouble. We would not be welcomed as liberators. “Four, something like the “dream act” makes sense. Absolute justice? No. But it’s a hell of a lot better than random raids or mass deportations.” Makes sense for what? You want a general amnesty? Are you in favor of a “get home free card” for those who get across the border with a relatively unblemished history? Would this not be a kind of social Darwinism in which we tell people, “well, you must be the best there was in that place you came from?” pl

  24. optimax says:

    Immigration is the main reason Trump is doing well. People are sick of it.
    I’m against a wall for ecological reasons, many of our furry friends depend on the Rio Grand’s water.
    A better way to deport illegals and keep them from leaving their sh!thole countries and making the US a sh!thole is make every employer prove his employees have accurate social security numbers, either e-verify or some other means. If the employer can’t, he isn’t allowed to deduct their wages on his tax forms. You have to hurt the employer’s bottom line to be effective. And it’s a cheap way of reducing illegal immigration.

  25. Amir says:

    In other words, the profits are privatized and the losses are socialized. This is called CRONICAPITALISM and U.S. has been en route to mimic Jeltsin’s U.S.S.R. and later -Russia. It is not telling of a man to beat down on the downtrodden and lick the heels of the very people who are emptying his pockets. Xenophobia only serves to deflect the anger of the populi. Better use the energy to get the money, where the money is and it ain’t in the pockets of the paupers.

  26. turcopolier says:

    Amir
    Sanders’ and Clinton’s statements amount to a present and future amnesty. These are policy statements. Are you in favor of such an amnesty? pl

  27. ked says:

    Should we first examine the underlying assumption that anyone not already here even wants to come into the US? Doesn’t illegal immigration data over the past five years indicate a trend downward? Doesn’t US political culture typically get bent out of shape on a topical matter well past its shelf-life? It takes a little while to produce a policy campaign, or a reality tv show, after all.

  28. turcopolier says:

    ked
    The US accept close to a million LEGAL new immigrants each year. What on earth are you talking about? pl

  29. Trey N and different clue have identified the real source of the illegal immigration problem and the correct solution. Go hard after those employers who hire illegals. A few years ago in Prince William County, Virginia, the local government was aggressively trying to reduce the illegal population in the county. Nothing was very effective until the economy took a downturn. With the collapse of the construction industry, the illegal population disappeared almost overnight. Having a zero tolerance for those who hire illegals would be much more effective than the huge, beautiful and classy wall. I know of no politician who is espousing this solution.

  30. turcopolier says:

    TTG
    I have said nothing about Trump’s Wall, nothing. What I am objecting to is a stated policy position on the part of the Democratic candidates for what amounts to a virtually general amnesty for illegals. I have an aversion to businessmen based on ten years experience swimming among the sharks and would very pleased to see them punished for hiring illegals. pl

  31. Herodotus says:

    If we were serious and I mean serious about the immigration issues on our southern boarder. First, I would suggest that we stop screwing around in other peoples backyards. Especially without understanding the reactions for our actions.
    Secondly, properly fund ICE and the US Boarder Patrol.
    Lastly, just close down the boarder without notice and that would include calling for any amnesty programs. Just suddenly give notice that as of a certain closeure date. All illegals have 30 days to report to their closest ICE office.. Otherwise …

  32. Amir says:

    I think we should deal with the problem in a REALISTIC way and set out GOALS.
    If the goal is to reduce crime, prevent abused in labor practices, avoid pushing down the wages of the unskilled workers, avoid overtaxation of the rest of the citizens (who will be covering the costs one way or the other, if an illegal shows up in the hospital, no one shoots that person) and enhance the security within the borders, then we should allow a “conditional” tolerance. It does not mean that their breach of law has been given the seal of approval and forgiven.
    I am not in favor of an amnesty. There should be an incentive to allow the illegals to register and monitor the issue. There should also be a disincentive to discourage illegal immigration. At the same time, the pull factor inside U.S. needs to be addressed. One should not just give a blanket amnesty but specify conditions for tolerating of an illegal act while at the same time STRESSING that this is an ILLEGAL ACT but that the community, because of humanitarian reasons, has chosen to deal with this more leniently, on a temporary basis.
    The employers, who employ illegals, should be severely punished.

  33. turcopolier says:

    Amir
    “we should allow a “conditional” tolerance.’ That is amnesty. pl

  34. Amir says:

    You come with a great analysis and dissection of the problem. Now only the solution…

  35. ked says:

    I wasn’t clear. Illegal immigration is decling, & has been for about a decade. I thought this topic was focused upon illegal immigration. And while its an important issue, I belive it has been blown out of proportion for political reasons… which is making sensible policies actually less likely. I am not convinced that legal & illegal immigration rates are linked in lockstep, but I’m by no means expert in the field.

  36. turcopolier says:

    ked
    I don’t care if illegal immigration is declining. I, like many Americans, want to see US law enforced. This is a question of national sovereignty. Go and see if you can obtain parity in immigration, permanent residence rights, repatriation of profits, right to property ownership etc. from the Mexican government, and then talk to me about this. pl

  37. pl,
    My point is that the wall or a policy of refusing to deport most illegals mean little if there are no jobs for illegals. Why climb the wall if there’s nothing for you on the other side? A policy of non-deportation is meaningless without jobs. If Ramos asked Sanders and Clinton if these “undocumented immigrants” would be allowed to work while in this country, we would be certain if this amounts to a general amnesty. I have a feeling both would say yes.

  38. turcopolier says:

    TTG
    Fine, screw the employers of illegals, but IMO to make that work you need national ID cards. I’ll buy that idea, but no amnesty. pl

  39. kao_hsien_chih says:

    They are two sides of the same coin. Employers hire illegal workers. Illegal workers enter and remain because they will be hired. Both parts need to be addressed if we are serious about resolving the problem.

  40. Fred says:

    mbrenner,
    Point one: A wall worked for Augustus and Hadrian for how many centuries?
    Point six: Trump’s talk seems to have pissed of some elite Mexicans. Maybe they should come out and say what they are going to do to stop screwing their own people and forcing us to subsidize millions of them.
    Point seven: NAFTA was put into action by yet one more “bi-partisan” screwing of regular Americans. Screwing Mexicans was just an unintended consequence, except perhaps for Carlos Salinas who gave the extra shafting to them by privatizing – to an oligarch – Telmex.
    Perhaps we should start by deporting Carlos Slim – after expropriating his money to pay for all the social programs his fellow citizens here illegally have used over the last decade.

  41. Babak Makkinejad says:

    I agree with you that there is no cure, just disease management.
    Furthermore, the affliction is rather wide-spread and seems to be borne by jobs as well as security vectors all over the world.
    There are 3 million Afghan immigrants in Iran – in a population of 80 million.
    US’s ratio is not very different – 12 million illegals in a population of 304 million.
    The difference is that those Afghans have an alien-resident ID and work permit and nothing else – they have to go steal manual labor from Iranian workers.
    Not that the Iranian laborers are too keen on doing what Afghans do either. Construction work in Iran will come to stand still without Afghans.
    Learn to live with this.
    And no, US cannot do anything to ameliorate the conditions of Central America or Mexico short of weaning herself of narcotics and other mind-altering drugs.
    That make some difference.

  42. Babak Makkinejad says:

    “Why climb the wall…”
    Because on the other side of the wall you, your family, your relations are physically safe.

  43. Babak Makkinejad says:

    I think the realistic thing is what Iranians have been doing: issue the immigrants identification cards and let them work and earn their keep.
    But then, in Iran, like Europe, everyone has a national identification document.

  44. Babak Makkinejad says:

    So, who is going to do this enforcement?
    Not the FBI or INS, I should think, but the local constabulary?
    So, among all their different duties, the police in Charlotte would be raiding restaurants or parks every once in a while, establish that the employees are illegals through some sort of judicial process that would then clogs the courts to finally succeed in deporting two short-order cooks?
    Not likely.

  45. gemini33 says:

    I’ve been talking to people about that same exchange and Bernie signed onto it too. I think it’s impossible to actually follow through on that promise. I’m pretty sure Hillary was parsing words (of all the undocumented here in the US) AND making a statement that most people will interpret in the overly broad way. Trying to have it both ways.
    Plus, I think there are many people who won’t want to say it publicly but are truly alarmed by the de facto open borders policy they are advocating. Just as an example, my fiance emigrated here decades ago. Legally, from Europe, as did a lot of other scientists during that period of time. He is against this policy as are other people we know who emigrated here. I think they could lose the election on this.

  46. Babak Makkinejad says:

    In case of Afghans & Iraqis in Iran, the distinction between a “political refugees” and an “illegal immigrant” is one devoid of merit.
    They broke the law in entering Iran. Of course, they had reason to do so because their lives were in danger – war, political violence or famine – were the drivers of their flight.

  47. Babak Makkinejad says:

    I think you also need a police statement attesting to a clean record for Mexico.

  48. Babak Makkinejad says:

    This is true but would the existence of such a parity be of any use to anyone from the United States in the light of the security situation in Mexico?
    And then there is that little issue of the absence of “Bail” in Mexican Law; they can lock you up – from what I have heard – and keep you there for months without producing you in front of a magistrate.

  49. turcopolier says:

    Babak
    “Parity” with regard to Mexico is a matter of principle and should include the application of equivalent standards of justice on both sides of the border. As Trump implies we have lots of leverage with Mexico in regard to our balance of trade. I have never been in favor of free trade as a principle. I agree wit Adam Smith that free trade is only a good idea if it benefits you. Free trade as applied in the trade deals that Trump bemoans is the darling of academic theorists and people in the investor class like me, but is not the darling of a grandson of factory workers as I am on my mother’s side. We have lots of leverage with Mexico and we should use it. You are an old timer on SST and smarter than many so I am sure you remember what I wrote long ago about the US and Mexico. IMO a union of the two countries would be altogether appropriate, but that will never happen… pl

  50. Babak Makkinejad says:

    Over time, I have come to the conclusion that a Union of Mexico with the United States will destroy the Western Diocletian essence – Liberty, Platonic Academy etc.
    Americans do not believe in Magic, Mexicans do.
    Americans (and Russians) believe that technology can improve the world – I do not think Mexicans even think in those terms.
    I think the differences between Mexicans and Americans is qualitatively unbridgeable – in my opinion.

  51. turcopolier says:

    Babak
    IMO we Gringos would be benefited from more belief in magic which is, after all, the essence of the Catholicism that you admire as a worthy form of Christianity. IMO more Latino culture in the US would make us better creatures of the post Diocletian line West. If you want to see what that would be like go see San Antonio, Texas where the two are truly blended. pl

  52. mbrenner says:

    Pat,
    With all due respect, Mexico is not an entirely sovereign country. Americans directly run significant sections of their national police and anti-drug operations. We also have agents on the ground. Moreover, we intervene in their national politics by providing money on a selective basis and timing various policy initiatives to improve the odds on our favorites’ winning. We also look the other way when a close election is rigged as occurred two elections back. Moreover, we let it be known that there will be severe negative economic consequences if the present clique is kicked out of office by reformist politicians. We’ve done the same in recent years in Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay and Venezuela as well as Honduras and Panama. We succeeded in three of those places. Every literate person in Latin America is apprised of this reality.
    No “get home free card” since I would issue dated ID to everyone already in the country and disqualify everyone who arrives after that date. Again, is there a palatable alternative?

  53. Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg says:

    Isn’t this problem mostly the result of decades of neoliberal economics which shifted millions of Mexicans into the “Free Trade Zones” in order to easily export US industrial jobs to low wage/no benefit Mexico. Then when China promised cheaper labor still (and more repressive labor policies), the resultant collapse of the Maquilladora zone resulted in the rampant and extreme violence that has characterized Mexico ever since. We keep hearing about how it’s the result of some sort of turf war in the smack trade, but I’m not so sure. I know illegal Mexican immigrants and they just tell me there’s literally no chance to better yourself in Mexico no matter how hard you work. There’s a feudal system there that’s upheld with the most savage repressive violence. I agree with all the comments about the nature of a country’s frontiers (we’re not really a ‘nation’) but as long as small to medium sized businesses employ multitudes of these people, and as long as entitled rich see no harm in taking on an illegal maid (how many politicians get nailed with this!?) and as long as Mexico is riven with beheadings, assassinations, immolation of protesting university students and the like, it’s not a problem that will be going away. Unless you have a Berlin Wall style wall. That works, but it isn’t consistent with all the pap we tell ourselves about what a paragon of republican virtue we are.

  54. turcopolier says:

    Michael
    I never realized that you subscribed to the puppeteer theory of American relations with the rest of the world. To think that that the US controls Mexico is absurd. People used to say that the US controlled the Philippines after independence. Did you believe that as well? People thought that we controlled Egypt, Libya and many other countries with which we had economic relations. Do you think we controlled them? pl

  55. elaine says:

    Colonel, “IMO a union of the two countries would be altogether appropriate, but
    that will never happen”. I suspect we are much closer to the realization of
    the North American Union than most people realize & much closer to what the globalists refer to as “The Americas”. SmoothieX12 elaborated beautifully on the forces in play that have contempt for the nation state, for any type of sovereignty.
    What would you be willing to sacrifice to unite the U.S. with Mexico? I suspect
    a good bit of the U.S. Constitution would be on the chopping block. Honestly, I
    must admit you shocked me by advocating combining the two countries.

  56. Bill H says:

    mbrenner
    “… to everyone already in the country and disqualify everyone who arrives after that date.” We did that in 1986. A “one time amnesty”<.i> means little if you keep doing it over and over again.

  57. Old Microbiologist says:

    None, just the US Embassy there put it all together in one place the information which is, perhaps deliberately, very difficult to figure out at the DoS website.

  58. Old Microbiologist says:

    At the moment it is a misdemeanor as enacted by Congress. It is not me who decided it is not a serious crime but rather similar to an excessive speeding ticket. Although in some jurisdictions exceeding the speed limit by 20 mph is a felony. I am not certain that is what the candidates have defined as a criminal record. Each seems to have their own definition.

  59. Old Microbiologist says:

    Refugees are another status altogether and they chose to accept them. They can equally choose to get rid of them as Jordan did to the Palestinians. This is the part of the subject that is fogging up the discussion. A refugee status has several very specific requirements and you must be fleeing persecution or fear of the threat on your life. But, you have to come directly and cannot be fleeing a country already providing safe harbor. For example, Syrians who fled out of Syria into Turkey and have been living there for ears are not fleeing for their lives when they leave Turkey so are not eligible for refugee status. The same is true for the vast majority of people south of the US border. There are periodically peoples who need refugee status such as we saw after VietNam or the Christians and Muslims in China. There are peoples in the Middle East who qualify as well and some, who do not shred their passports as George Soros’ “Guide to Being a Refugee” (being handed to thousands of people in the Middle East refugee camps) tells them to do, actually get it.
    Yes, I was referring to the hikers as one example, but there are many. As is typical for governments they pick and choose who to punish. There are many other examples of countries that have harsh punishments for border violations. North Korea is perhaps the worst. I did not mean to imply that the 2 countries are similar in any other way.

  60. Old Microbiologist says:

    Yes, you are correct and I agree with you. But, we have to decide whether we want open borders or not. If so, then that needs to be done correctly and not accept just any Tom, Dick, and Harry. The US is by definition a nation of immigrants. Often, these were the worst possible candidates so we do have a history of doing this. We also need to pump up the Ponzi scheme we call Social Security and one way to do that is to increase the labor pool and taxpayer base. It risks an overpopulation and unemployment problem though. If we were actually experience the economic recovery our government claims has occurred, then we wouldn’t have 94 million work eligible Americans with no jobs (which demonstrates the lies about unemployment statistics). On top of that we have a serious problem with dumbing down Americans with an increasingly crappified education system. I have 2 kids who recently graduated from good Universities and their education is laughable.
    One thing Trump said which rarely gets the correct context is about barring Muslims from immigration into the US. That has been a misquoted statement. What he was saying, and I agree with him, is that the US government has proven incapable of vetting people from the Middle East correctly (actually from anywhere), so all immigrants should be blocked from entry until we get a system in place that actually works. It is the exact same problem in Europe which they are now discovering is an obvious problem.

  61. Old Microbiologist says:

    Exactly, the US is a consumer based economy. No jobs means no purchasing. The idiots in major corporations seem to lack the foresight to understand this issue. They want it all now and damn the future.

  62. IMO over 5 million currently reside in the U.S.A. having overstayed their visas with another million currently residing without Green Cards that did not overstay their visas but had come to the USA from visa waiver countries. IMO the Project Visit IT effort mandated by statute has spent almost $2-3B and completely failed. Thoughts? Corrections?
    And then of course student visas?

  63. Tyler says:

    Good grief, some of you as exposing yourselves really hard as the virtue signaling idiots who have no clue what you’re talking about other than to repeat progressive shibboleths tonight.
    First, the idea of “HURR 100 FOOT WALL 101 FOOT LADDER CHECK MATE BIGOT” is stupid and farcical, and displays that the person crowing this has no idea how border security works. The idea behind a wall is to slow down the entry of illegals who don’t just walk across the border en masse and make it more difficult for them to enter. Climbing over a wall is such a thing. I can’t believe that I have to explain this to some of you, but here we are.
    Two, “HURR ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS ARE THE PROBLEM” is deflection hand-waving bullsh-t. Tell the parents of Kathryn Steinle “HEY IT WAS THE FAULT OF THOSE EVIL EMPLOYERS” and let me know how it goes. Or the illegal alien who shot five people across Kansas and Missouri for example – yeah it wasn’t an “illegal employer”. It reeks of more Marxist class struggle nonsense. There is a very real social and economic cost to illegal aliens, who DO get welfare and social benefits, who drive up medical costs using ERs as the doctor’s office, and who think drunk driving is a fun past time.
    Three, illegal immigration isn’t “going down” unless your idea of counting illegals is to stick your fingers in your ears and go LA LA LA I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING. In fact, if you want to go back you can see stories about “illegal aliens returning” every year, along with the famous “crops rotting in the field” stories that always appear where farmers tell us that we need to import more serfs because, dang it, Americans don’t want to squat to crap in strawberry fields.
    Same old Marxist class struggle song and dance from the same Fellow Travelers around here, not shocked. The road to actually having a country goes through deporting as many people as possible. I personally look forward to doing my part to Making America Great Again.

  64. Mac says:

    US immigration laws are civil in nature.It is not a violation of our criminal laws if/when a FN violates our countrys immigration laws.

  65. Mac says:

    Depending in the Circuit law where one is detained, the rules vary as to when a FN can challenge their custody status.
    There is a lot of variation in the controlling case law that would surprise even most Americans.

  66. turcopolier says:

    Elaine
    the terms of the “deal” uniting the two countries would of course be negotiable. pl

  67. Peter Reichard says:

    The illegals are here because we want them to be here, a bipartisan state policy of class warfare waged on blue collar workers like myself.The value of undocumented workers lies not only in the law of supply and demand driving down wages but is primarily in their illegality itself.This makes them the perfect workers in a capitalist utopia, a form of virtual offshoring where the threat of deportation causes them to accept lower wages,workplace safety and labor rights thus undercutting our
    living standards and all of the progress we have made from over a century of strikes and fighting it out in the streets to obtain a fair deal from the system.Yet they too are victims, unwitting pawns in the class war.For this reason and because I don’t want to see the police state tactics necessary to round up three precent of the US population I favor amnesty.However as I said at the time of the Reagan amnesty it must be made clear that this will be the last amnesty ever, henceforth the penalty will be deportation like everyplace else in the world.

  68. no one says:

    TTG, It’s not just about jobs and the supply and demand/free market forces involved with that. The addition of welfare and other benefits (e.g. citizenship at least for one’s children) into the equation makes the US attractive regardless of what is happening in the job market.
    Section 8 housing and food stamps is still a better deal than what they had back in the country of origin.

  69. Ulenspiegel says:

    “And no, US cannot do anything to ameliorate the conditions of Central America or Mexico short of weaning herself of narcotics and other mind-altering drugs.”
    What would happen after legalization of drugs? Most would be produced in much better quality in the USA and sold for a much lower price. The economic effect on other countries in the Americas would be similar to the scenario you descibe (IMHO correctly as unrealistic).

  70. Bill H says:

    There is a more basic issue in that Q&A. The candidates are both saying that if elected they will not perform their constitutional mandate to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” They are pandering for votes to a special interest group by promising to ignore their constitutional duty for the benefit of that group.
    Further, that group is questioning the candidates about how their group will benefit from the election of the candidate. Their interest is not the well being of the nation, but the well being only of their own special group.
    So we have candidates openly offering to violate their office in behalf of special interest groups and openly campaigning on a race and/or economic class basis, and we have citizens voting based on how their own personal interest will be served. It is no wonder that we have a failing democracy. This is the ultimate “division” part of the saying about “divided we fall.”

  71. BrotherJoe says:

    A large percentage of the illegals are from Central America. How did they get to our border? Obviously thru Mexico. From what I’ve read Mexico has a very strict policy about admitting immigrants. I must conclude then that the Mexican government is deliberately allowing this influx and is speeding them on their way to the US. Am I wrong?

  72. Albert de Koninck says:

    Get rid of the bloody italics.

  73. An important distinction that none seems anxious to clarify!

  74. FEMA never created plans to have concentration camps for refugees/immigrants/ foreign nationals. But DoJ which housed INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] for over 40 years did.
    It did not pass without notice that Reagan’s first FEMA Director [1981-1985] Louis O. Guiffrida, a General in the California State Militia [see Title 32 USC] long before becoming had written a thesis in a service college on how to round up and house in an emergency others than enemy aliens.

  75. It is no longer PC to study and analyze the Nation-State system despite a UN!

  76. Foreign nations became eligible for TS clearances during the Manhattan Project. Now widely available.
    And on the SF-86 if memory serves it does not specifically ask about other citizenships. In other words Dual Nationality.

  77. From the Rio Grand to the Panama Canal any links to analysis of how the USA directly or indirectly controls those geographic entities?
    Am I correct that Panama has almost completely turned over Panama Canal operations to China?

  78. The top 10% of Mexican nations by wealth have almost totally invested that weath in the U.S.A.!

  79. Has SCOTUS ruled since 1945 on any immigration issue?

  80. charly says:

    The kind of farming NAFTA killed is a legacy business akin to a video store. If you run one you (may) continue but nobody is foolish enough to start a dvd rental store in todays world and the same is true of those farms. They just make to little money to return

  81. LeaNder says:

    good response, Babak.
    Saved me from responding in my own private (quite possibly after reflection) “catholic” ways or art inspired ways.

  82. Are there any Centers for Study of Immigration Policy in American colleges and Universities?

  83. ambrit says:

    I have been a worker in the construction trades most of my ‘adult’ life. Greshams Law worked well in the Trades. Wages have been stagnant in the Trades for years. The “illegals” presence enabled much of the suppression of wages in many industries. This is old hat. The Edward R Murrow television show about the migrant workers in agriculture was a big deal way back in 1960. As long as the means to suppress wages is available, most employers will do so. This is, after all, rational behavior for a business. There will always be a cheaper source of ‘outside’ labour, absent efficient implementation of regulations. The latest ‘amnesty’ is always touted as the last one. Unfortunately, I can see just two mechanisms for remedying this situation; zealous enforcement of the existing laws, or Vigilantism. I much prefer the former.
    In Bizzaro Land I could see someone training and arming those Mexican nationals caught here up North, and then sending them back South to solve their own problems. Anyone know of some ‘Moderate Mexicans?’

  84. different clue says:

    Tyler,
    If you had an answer to my comment, you would not need to re-resort to the same old cheap jedi mind tricks you use whenever you have no answer. As somebody else once said here, when you have no answer you try to make a commenter the issue. If the illegals could not get jobs here, they would not come. But you knew that even as you were typing your comment. You yourself have pre-admitted as much when a year ago you wrote about a melon farmer not far from where you live who employs illegal aliens who came because people like him are permitted to employ them.
    I would note ( as perhaps other readers may note as well) that The Twisted Genius illustrated the same point when he noted that the collapse-for-a-while of the construction industry in Prince Georges County led to a near-immediate disappearance of illegal alien construction workers from Prince Georges County. I note further that you do not target his comment with your cheap jedi mind tricks. Perhaps you think I am the one dumm enough to bite your baited hook on your own baited terms?
    Your diversionary citing of two particular criminal aliens is a cheap diversion from the problem Colonel Lang was raising of the massed illegal millions here or coming here for work. I addressed the problem raised by Colonel Lang and addressed by myself and others. 2 violent illegal alien criminals out of 11 million economic exiles is what percent of that 11 million? Nice try. Better luck next time.
    As to calling me Marxist Fellow Traveler, that is just your same cheap jedi mind trick used yet again. You hope that I will feel some kind of need to demonstrate all the ways I am not a Marxist Fellow Traveler, thereby addressing your cheap little diversionary gambit rather than continuing to address the subject raised by Colonel Lang. Everyone here sees what you did there. It is yet another display of the “quality” of your “analysis” when someone points something out to which you have no answer.
    Sometimes you sound like a computer program which responds in a manner exactly predictable if it decides one of its predictable buttons has been pushed.
    And remember, for every 101 foot wall, there is a 102 foot ladder.

  85. cynic says:

    Recently I saw a story that about one in five of the population of the United States consists of illegal immigrants and their children. It seems that North and Central America are merging or melting together. This will probably continue to happen regardless of any laws, deals, negotiations or constitutions. As the population changes, so does their appreciation and application or rejection of concepts previously valued by the group in decline.

  86. charly says:

    IRS would do the work i assume.

  87. charly says:

    A wall works against small raiding parties, the intended purpose of those walls. Not against illegal immigration

  88. LeaNder says:

    … I missed the point in time allowing us to use html tags again. In any case you seemingly triggered an italic thread by mistaking a “.” for a backslash. Close enough on a British or American keyboard. 😉

  89. kao_hsien_chih says:

    INS used to do this, and I believe its successor body (ICE or something) is supposed to be doing it primarily. But yes, there are serious jurisdictional issues with the enforcement.
    In the end, all parts have to be addressed. Someone has to create a reasonably uniform system for determining people are what and who they say they are (e.g. a workable national ID system), clear demarcation of authority for strictly enforcing immigration laws on both illegal immigrants and employers (maybe separate agencies, maybe the same agency–but with clear authority and reasonable allocation of resources), and an enhanced border security. Do current illegal need to be legalized or deported? Who knows? But for the future, all these things need to be worked out.
    “Reforming” Mexico, in the long run, is desirable, if only to reduce the incentive to immigrate illegally (the other approach is to wreck the American economy, but I don’t want to see that obviously), but that is not something we can do realistically, short of annexing Mexico…

  90. SmoothieX12 says:

    “This will probably continue to happen regardless of any laws,”
    And who says so? Laws which are enforced work just fine.

  91. LeaNder says:

    Interesting variation on one of your two basic themes. Strictly I always wondered about that.
    “the Western Diocletian essence”
    Considering the US and Mexico that would be a shift from the geological, which Diocletian suggests, to something like ethnicity.
    ****
    Since one of your other basics, at least to the extend I paid attention to your ideas seems to be the axis between religion and/or culture as pretty essential, I do have to admit that as a somewhat relapsed Catholic I somewhat seem to believe in “magic”.

  92. LeaNder says:

    thanks, hadn’t noticed that. But seemingly we agree. 😉

  93. Tyler says:

    DC,
    There are indeed answers there, and it involves deporting everyone without clutching your f-cking pearls about how mean they are.
    “Economic exiles” – as I said: Marxist Class Struggle BS.
    I don’t have to work very hard here to deal with your appeals to emotion and no true Scotsman fallacies, especially when all you’re doing is repeating the same liberal talking points. Please deport yourself from life TIA.

  94. Tyler says:

    Brother Joe,
    This is true.

  95. Tyler says:

    Babak,
    INS doesn’t exist anymore – Customs was able to lay the blame for letting in the 9/11 hijackers on INS and ergo they got dissolved.
    INS got folded into CBP, which got folded into DHS, which is a mess of a dysfunctional agency.

  96. Tyler says:

    Charly,
    LMAO A wall does indeed work against illegal immigration. There’s a reason why apprehensions in San Diego crashed when they built a big beautiful wall there.

  97. Tyler says:

    WRC,
    Yes, when SCOTUS invented birthright citizenship for illegal aliens.

  98. LeaNder says:

    ” I must conclude then … Am I wrong?”
    How are Mexican immigration laws related to whatever type of people entering however on their way to get somewhere else?

  99. Babak Makkinejad says:

    I have had this argument with “different clue”:
    You are asking the rest of us working souls; doctors, nurses, policemen, teachers, judges, pharmacists, machinery operators, drivers and many others to live clean sober lives while a portion of a country indulges in a fundamentally anti-social behavior.
    In essence, you are asking the sober people to work diligently to support the dope-head slobs. That is – I am asked to involuntarily support these parasites.
    Well, my preference would be to establish Freedonia and have all dopers go there – voluntarily or involuntarily.
    Alternatively, they could voluntarily give up their civil rights and indulge their passion for drugs to their hearts content – but the price would be that they would be either wards of their families or wards of the state.
    Why should my liberties be abridged by the state so that some others wish to smoke dope, inject heroin, or snort cocaine?

  100. Fred says:

    charly,
    Facts are stubborn things charly. Please provide some. how about letting us know about the illegal immigration rate into Israel, a country with allot of walls and a great standard of living in the region.

  101. Fred says:

    WRC,
    So the Mexican elite are screwing their own people and we are paying the social bills all while Mexico crumbles. We should start by deporting their elite.

  102. Fred says:

    no one,
    free public schooling is a big factor too. The MSM should ask Bernie and Hilary just how much African American poverty and lack of upward mobility is due to the employment of illegal immigrants.

  103. Babak Makkinejad says:

    Every human society is built around the idea of “Justice” – at the social as well as the personal level.
    That is why the tragedy of Antigone by Sophocles is comprehensible to contemporary people.
    The religions of Western Asia have supplied alternative ideas of what is “Justice”.
    Those ideas are in conflict with latest Western Diocletian sensibilities – one of which equates “Justice” with the Freedom of tow bulls to sodomize each other in the Public Square.
    Is it any wonder then that the branch of Islam that has “Justice” one of its fundamental pillars is in conflict with the West?

  104. Did you mean their children?

  105. elaine says:

    “To protect & defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies,
    both foreign and domestic” is a sacred vow, at least it should be, especially
    The Bill of Rights. No compromise.

  106. Stonevendor says:

    The U.S. labor market is multi-tiered. I am most familiar with the lower levels. For many decades Mexicans, and some Central Americans, were able to cross the border and work temporarily and then take their earnings home. Think of it as “family values”. I know there are cheats, but most of the people I know who hire foreign workers, are paying them the same as they would pay any American who wanted to do the job, along with workers comp, SS, Medicare, and deducted income tax. They accept documents that claim the individual is legal. But I also know that the work these people do has not been in great demand by American citizens: washing toilets in hotels and motels, picking fruits and vegetables, digging holes for landscaping firms, laborers on construction sites, splitting rocks with a hammer in quarries (always fun under the July sun in Texas). Part of the problem with this whole discussion, it seems to me, is that there are some questionable assumptions. Not everyone who is here illegally dreams of becoming an American citizen. But once here, they become stuck because they do no want to risk another border crossing.
    If we concentrated on a guest worker program that would allow Mexicans to go back an forth I think many would ultimately choose to return both temporarily (Christmas holidays) and permanently once a nest egg is set aside.
    Many workers who do have green cards go back during the Dec-Jan period and work on building their own homes.
    For those of you who dream of remaking Mexico I suggest figuring out a way to solve America’s appetite for drugs. Tecate is the name of a town on the border between Baja Calif. and the U.S. state of Calif. It is also the name of a beer made in a brewery built on the north side of town in 1911. I have passed by there a few times and wondered how happy the brewers must have been when America adopted prohibition.
    One final comment, never in recorded history has there been a Mexican who strapped on an explosive vest and walked into a pizzeria filled with teenagers. Mexicans make art, they drink, dance, sing — some play baseball. We could do a lot worse for guest workers.

  107. no one says:

    DC,
    “If the illegals could not get jobs here, they would not come.”
    Sure they would. As I said to TTG elsewhere on this thread, the availability of welfare benefits for illegals and the potential for citizenship for children is sufficient incentive to make hash of your supply/demand argument.
    Now, if we were to provide no welfare and no citizenship for the children of illegals, then the problem might begin to ameliorate itself via market forces.
    I really cannot understand who is advocating all of the benefits for these people. Bleeding heart SJWs? The DNC looking to expand its future base? Who ever it is, they are at least as responsible as the employers.

  108. Babak Makkinejad says:

    What percentage of the Tajiks, Armenians, Georgians, Uzbeks, Moldovans, Ukrainians, Azeris, Kirgiz, Chinese, Koreans, and Mongolians who are working in the Russian Federation are there with proper legal papers, do you think?

  109. Bobo says:

    Panama Canal is operated by the Panamanians in a very professional manner that has brought honor to them. They set up an entity and put professionals in charge, keeping out the politicos and foreigners, that are running the place better than us Americans ever did, we have been put to shame. They are finishing up on a multi billion dollar infrastructure project this year in a timeframe that we Americans could not replicate. We should be learning from these people.
    The Chinese do own & operate container transshipment terminals at each end of the canal that also are professionally operated in profitable manner.

  110. elaine says:

    One doesn’t need a national ID card to deal drugs &/or indulge in
    gang activity.

  111. kao_hsien_chih says:

    They could start by enforcing their border with Guatemala more stringently. I’m told that that border is as porous as any, a haven for all sorts of smugglers, of people, drugs, etc.

  112. Trey N says:

    I was a roofer in San Antonio in the early 1970s. There were LOTS of Mexican illegals working in local housing construction then, especially as masons laying rock and brick.
    It seemed that INS staged most of their “raids” late in the week. I remember one Friday morning watching as three large green vans entered the new subdivision, and a good portion of the workers dropped their tools and ran for the nearby woods. All except one young fellow who calmly finished his soda, shook hands with his fellows still standing around, then — just as the vans pulled up to the curb — took off for the woods himself with about a ten-yard lead on the agents spilling out of their vehicles. The young man was laughing as he took off, like he considered it a game and was giving the agents a fair shot at him….
    The man apparently wasn’t too worried about being caught and deported — and he needn’t have been. I recognized some of the guys who were put into the vans that Friday, and most of them were back on the job early the next week. Looking back now, the whole charade was like the old “wolf and sheepdog punching the time clock” cartoon.
    Apparently it’s a little more difficult to get back into the US these days if you’re deported, and a lot of the Latinos now come from other countries besides Mexico. Other than that, I wonder how much has really changed in the hiring of illegals by American employers?

  113. Swerv21 says:

    There is research being conducted on migration, policy, housing and (self) segregation. There is a cadre of American post-docs in Sweden looking at these issues now and using data sets available here. Apparently, since Sweden has tied all of its data together through their use of a national i.d. number, the quality of the data is very high- hence the appeal of it for the post-doc research fellows.

  114. SmoothieX12 says:

    True, very appropriate term. I see very little “elite” in most of them.

  115. turcopolier says:

    Elaine
    The idea would be to require an electronic instant background check of a biometric national ID card before hiring. pl

  116. SmoothieX12 says:

    I would go even further, it is no longer PC to study anything that matters at all.

  117. Kooshy says:

    I think an elctronic national ID card is eventual and is bond to happen. I also think is a good thing to have, IMO it will increases the security. I can’t figure out if one is legal and has clean records why he or she shouldn’t be identifiable.

  118. turcopolier says:

    Elaine
    I would reply directly to your message about one’s duty to the constitution but I cannot find it. I have served the US Constitution since 1955 when I first took the oath that you quote. when did you take that oath and under what circumstances? Firstly, it is an oath not a vow. It is a civil oath not a religious oath and it is not eternal. It only binds you so long as you are in US government service. I am still in US government service since I am on the retired list of the US Army. I am not a former soldier. I am a retired soldier and am still bound by my oath and have never done anything to violate my oath as a soldier and will not. secondly, the constitution of the United States is an earthly institution made by humans for the purpose pf creating a well functioning government for central functions. That is what “to form a more perfect union” means in the preamble to the constitution. That phrase does not mean to foster the creation of an earthly paradise as the hyper-nationalists and lefties say. The states created the constitution. They built it so that it can be changed by amendment or by constitutional convention because they knew that as a human document it would of necessity have to be changed as time passed. I say that as an originalist who agreed with just about everything Scalia ever said or wrote. Nevertheless, there is nothing in the constitution that says that a union with Mexico would be an immoral, unethical or illegal act if that union were approved by both governments. The constitution is not a sacred text. Jesus did not dictate it to Mary Magdalene. pl

  119. Allen Thomson says:

    > Other than that, I wonder how much has really changed in the hiring of illegals by American employers?
    With regard to that, a bit of research into the passage of the Legal Arizona Workers Act, the amicus briefs filed when it came up before the SCOTUS and especially what the record of its enforcement has been would be enlightening.
    See, for example, http://tinyurl.com/jnldaup which sums things up nicely:
    “The law was a joke from the start. It allowed lawmakers to pretend that they were after both illegal immigrants and cheating employers. In truth, legislators didn’t want to do anything that might suspend or shut down a business.”

  120. Lars says:

    An economic and social union between the US and Mexico could become advantageous to both. Mexico can provide a lot of the seasonal and unappreciated labor needed in the US and the US could send a lot of the underfunded and ailing US retirees to Mexico, where they can get the services they need at a much lower cost. After all, they have a nice climate down there and plenty of potential care givers. The US may even consider adding SSA payments to those who decide to move there.
    The only problem is making it work smoothly and that should not be an impediment.

  121. Tyler says:

    SV,
    Your last line is a ridiculous statement in light of cartel wars that have seen entire villages depopulated because someone maybe might be related to a rival cartel.

  122. steve says:

    Two observations:
    1. Illegal economic immigrants from the South will never be deterred by the very slim chance of getting caught. The only thing that will force them to return absent mass deportation is when the jobs dry up, and the best way to dry up those jobs is as you say hefty fines for employers, and maybe even jail time for repeaters.
    2. Not sure logistically how a mass deportation of 10 or so million would work. We are talking about hiring literally thousands of immigration judges and lawyers, and building mass detention camps to hold them pending their deportation hearings. One possibility would be that once word got out, many would leave, but really why would they? They can always hope that they’re the ones not caught, and even if caught, they just leave then.

  123. Lefty says:

    About 11m illegal immigrants in the US in 2015, about 3.5% of the population. That’s about 1 in 30, not one in 5. The absolute number and the percentage are both going down, not up.

  124. alba etie says:

    Col Lang
    Yes , we Gringos do need more Magic . We in Texas also benefit from the Cajun/ Creole traditions due East of us ..

  125. Tel says:

    “And remember, for every 101 foot wall, there is a 102 foot ladder.”
    That gets you to the top of the wall… halfway there!
    Look, if your argument is that no possible border protection and immigration control can ever work, like ever, then common sense proves you wrong. Plenty of nations on this Earth have demonstrated effective border control. The reason the USA doesn’t have it is lack of political will, and not because of a lack of capability.

  126. alba etie says:

    Col Lang
    Yes – I could see where a United States of North America might make perfect sense, with good and hard bargaining . And yes its good to be reminded that the States ratified the Constitution .

  127. different clue says:

    charly,
    If it was a legacy bussiness in Mexico, why wasn’t it already dying in Mexico before the advent of NAFTA? I remember reading that several million few-acres-apiece peasant-scale corn growers felt they were making a good enough living to stay in Mexico until the NAFTA flood of MidWestern corn underpriced Mexico’s own newly unprotectionised corn so badly that Mexican customers stopped buying it.
    Maybe the millions of Mexicans thereby driven into economic exile in the United States would consider their former farming lives to be a vanished legacy never to be returned to. But the experiment of abolishing NAFTA is worth running to see how illegal Mexicans in America would respond to the restoration of modest opportunity in a re-protectionised Mexico.

  128. different clue says:

    Babak Makkinejad,
    That is not the argument we have had. That is the argument you may think we have had. My argument is this . . . the whole time I used cannabis once or twice a month for several years in the early-mid 80’s, I was never a slob or a parasite and I worked for pay as a security guard and a dishwasher and a grill cook the whole time. And I knew many people who used cannabis who worked ( or studied) the whole time and were never slobs or parasites and who worked or studied the whole time. And I have to say again . . . cannabis left me in better shape than what it found me in. And you never had to support me by so much as one cent.
    It seems to me that you are still confusing cannabis with heroin with cocaine with meth with various downers and uppers and etc.

  129. different clue says:

    Tyler,
    The number of illegal Mexicans coming here went up after NAFTA facilitated the destruction of their livelihoods in Mexico. Calling me names won’t change that basic fact.
    Please deport myself from life TIA? Well bless your heart.

  130. different clue says:

    Tel,
    Border protection would have to be combined with genuine prevention of employers hiring people illegally here and with
    non-extension and cancellation of welfare benefits to those illegally here to remove that incentive also. Border protection by itself will not be enough. And it would mean nothing to those who come here legally on short-term visas and then illegally overstay those visas. That could only be stopped by effective hiring-prevention.

  131. Ulenspiegel says:

    “You are asking the rest of us working souls; doctors, nurses, policemen, teachers, judges, pharmacists, machinery operators, drivers and many others to live clean sober lives while a portion of a country indulges in a fundamentally anti-social behavior.”
    Sorry, your argument does not fly. You get drugs anyway and in some professions drug tests are already SOB, so what? And alkohol, that is a drug which kills an order of magnitude more people is legal. Double standard.
    Legalization of drugs would kill much of the profit and would in many cases avoid ill junkies – e.g. many heroin addicts suffer from the stuff that is used to dilute heroin, not from the heroin itself.
    I had such discussion with my dad (39 years police officer) for decades. 🙂

  132. LeaNder says:

    Babak, I always wonder, no doubt it would deserve attention at which point your no doubt exquisite mind (minus maybe from my own uninformed state of mind, your two central theses, at least so far) descends into pure polemics:
    “equates “Justice” with the Freedom of tow bulls to sodomize each other in the Public Square.”
    I sure wish, you wouldn’t have pulled fictive Antigone into this. Not the least since we are on a blog called: “sic semper tyrannis” run by someone that once wrote something that stuck on my mind: Life isn’t fair.
    Now fairness sure is something the word “justice” suggests. Doesn’t it?

  133. jonst says:

    ‘other than they are elite’ in their own eyes.

  134. DHS is what you get when lawyers are picked as Secretary IMO! Great analysts [perhaps] but poor at synthesis or at managing/administrating. They often see the trees but never the forest.

  135. Fred! They usually are NOT U.S. citizens but perhaps some dual citizens. But many on overstayed visas or visa waiver [unenforced].
    Many of my Mexican friends predict a repeat of 1917 in Mexico if the Trump Wall is built.

  136. Is the currency in Panama still U.S. Dollar?

  137. IMO Immigration both legal and legal will be outcome determnative for the 2016 Presidential election.

  138. In a galaxy far far away under the law of the Commonwealth of Virginia if you were less than 1/16th Native American you were legally White [this was not to label the descendants of Princess Pocahantas of the Powhatan Tribe who became an English lady NONWHITE. And of course prior to the SCOTUS LOVING decision it was illegal for any white person to marry a nonwhite [1967]!
    Why post this reply? Because who can marry who no longer a subject for the states to determine. Who is a citizen or should be or can become a citizen no longer a subject to be determined by the States. Yet the impact of federal determinations on citizenship is an enormous one but somehow few mention its largely corrupt nature.
    My shortcut solution ALL NON-CITIZENS 18 or older must carry identity cards. Violation a civil misdemeanor with a $5000 penalty or deportation.

  139. First case to interpret that key phrase accepted for review by SCOTUS this term.

  140. These walk-throughs big source of income and sex for those Mexicans who prey upon them.

  141. IMO numbers of those in technical violation of US law with respect to residency and citizenship 28-42 million!
    That number if made public would reinforce the notion of crisis. The US Census has deliberately been prevented from documenting that higher figure by both Congress and the Executive Branch.

  142. Presidential Oath:
    “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

  143. The Oath you swore upon entering active service differs from the Presidential Oath of Office. I posted the language of that Oath also in response to Elaine.

  144. turcopolier says:

    WRC
    Elaine’s comment was such that it seemed to me to be directed at me as someone negligent of his responsibility rather than to a future president. pl

  145. turcopolier says:

    WRC
    “ALL NON-CITIZENS 18 or older must carry identity cards. Violation a civil misdemeanor with a $5000 penalty or deportation” If the object of this drill is to keep employers from hiring illegals how would what you suggest accomplish that? pl

  146. Babak Makkinejad says:

    The 3 gods of Western Diocletians are Liberty, Democracy and the Cult of Shoah and the ideas of Justice inhereing in them and derived thereof.
    Other countries and civilizations, per the Western Diocletians, are practicing various forms of Injustice and are thus are Un-Just.
    Every woman who carries a pregnancy to term outside of Western Diocletian region, per this perspective, guilty of Un-Just behavior – is committing an immoral and possibly even a criminal one.
    It is also clear that per that view point, all the world has to be altered and Un-Just native (non-Western) Traditions obliterated in order to create a Just Order per the 3 gods above.
    This is how it seems to me.

  147. SmoothieX12 says:

    No. I meant real (with emphasis on real) history and real economics, for starters. The catastrophe with American kids going into precise sciences–this I know first hand. The picture is bleak. There is a profound difference between Ph.D. in political “science” (which is not a real science) and Ph.D. in, say, Material Science. Colossal difference. The former is easy for anyone with a remedial brain, the latter–well, totally different universe.

  148. SmoothieX12 says:

    Today, some. How large is the number–I don’t know. I am sure the site of FMS (Federal Migration Service) has some data, but Russia does conduct massive illegal migrants sweeps and deports them, no questions asked. No registration–one is gone once caught.

  149. Tyler says:

    WRC,
    Indeed.

  150. Tyler says:

    DC,
    Your moral posturing and virtue signaling doesn’t change the fact that we have no obligation to absorb Mexico’s indignant population.
    Please list your address so I can ship them to your neighborhood TIA.

  151. Tyler says:

    DC,
    Your ridiculous argument here though is not a full spectrum approach but shrugging your shoulders, shouting 102 FOOT LADDER and then spouting some Marxist struggle nonsense.

  152. Tyler says:

    Kao,
    Mexicans have and are in the process of building a border wall with Guats – the same kind of wall that gives them fits and they cry RAYCISS about when the US talks about building it.
    Not to mention what they do to Central Americans they catch on the way through the country. Of course when one of their drug dealing, raping, citizens is shot after throwing fist size chunks of slate at Border Patrol agents they’re the first ones to cry about brutality.

  153. Tyler says:

    Smoothie,
    Another reason to vote the Trump-Putin ticket. Be still my beating heart.

  154. Tyler says:

    Lefty,
    That 11m number spit out by the government hasn’t changed in over a decade. The real number is more likely over 20m.

  155. Babak Makkinejad says:

    A fantasy does not a reality make; Men cannot hold their drugs – this much has been clear now as well as in past historical episodes.
    As for drug-testing; yes, I resent it. Why should there be a presumption of drug use and thus infringement of my rights to my person & body because others like to use drugs?
    Why must we carry the burden of those junkies, dope-heads, meth-heads etc.
    I understand that they want to be free to do that which they wish.
    To facilitate that, I suggested setting aside parts of the world as Freedonia Ashrams – people can go there and use drugs to their hearts content while there rest of us will be rid of them.
    I believe that is a more sensible proposition than the experiment that you are suggesting since my experiment only affects drug users in those Ashrams and not the rest of society.

  156. Kyle Pearson says:

    There would be absolutely NO illegal workers in the US if there were no employers offering them jobs.
    Fine the employers, and the workers will go find someplace where they can find employment – which won’t be in the US.

  157. Kyle Pearson says:

    Yes, indeed – i was hoping someone else would make this point.
    Currently, illegal immigration rates have declined to about where they were in 2004.
    This chart from PEW gives a good overview, and we would all do well to take notice of when it started skyrocketing: 1995, right when NAFTA took force.
    NAFTA devastated the Mexican economy, mainly by forcing the government to open up agriculture and other basic industries to US corporations, who immediately moved in and created plantation-style slavery on their corporate farms, or sweatshop-style slavery in their factories. The LA Times came out with an excellent report and analysis on this – farmworkers in Mexico are often confined to dormitories they must rent, and forced to purchase all of their personal goods from company stores, all while working in barbed-wire encircled enclosures with armed guards patrolling the perimeter.
    NAFTA was utterly devastating to the small-holder farmers, and it certainly wasn’t because they were “anachronistic” businesses, but because the US – via NAFTA – forcibly destroyed the protections in place to support those farms and allowed exploitative corporations to move in and in many cases literally enslave entire families through a combination of contractual obligations and below-subsistence wages.
    It seems to me that since the US was the main proponent of NAFTA; and since it was north American corporations which devastate the farming communities and farming families in the first place; and since our own immigration bureaus turn a blind eye to employers in the US who wish to exploit illegal immigrants for cheap labor that can be purchased without providing even the most rudimentary benefits and protections; then it is we in the US who bear the lion’s share of responsibility for creating the immigration situation we find ourselves in – certainly not the illegal immigrants themselves. As i said above: Latino immigrants are generally among the most honest, hardworking, sincere, family-minded people i’ve ever known in the US, and i am certain that if they had good alternatives to traveling across the border for work they would quickly choose those, rather than the risky and dangerous path of coming across the border as an illegal worker.
    In any event, though: illegal immigration is slowly dropping off, and has been for about the last eight years.
    If we held corporate American to the same standards we once did – back in the 50s and 60s – and ended our companies’ exploitative business practices in Mexico and Latin America, then illegal immigration would drop off as sharply and dramatically as it went up, following NAFTA.
    http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/what-we-know-about-illegal-immigration-from-mexico/

  158. Babak Makkinejad says:

    I am not suggesting a one-way trip to Freedonia; surely people could repent.

  159. turcopolier says:

    Kyle Pearson
    As I wrote before I do not care what the numbers of immigrants are or what the trend is or what would be just about the plight of Mexican peasants beggared by NAFTA. I am a protectionist and was always opposed to NAFTA. What I care about is enforcing the integrity of US borders and immigration law. pl

  160. turcopolier says:

    Kyle Pearson
    You obviously like the sound of your own voice and have not been paying attention to the discussion here of punishing employers who hire illegals. pl

  161. different clue says:

    Kyle Pearson,
    Since Mulroney (and then I think Chretien) of Canada were equally involved in pushing very hard for NAFTA, perhaps Canada should be considered co-responsible for the Mexican component of the illegal immigration problem. Since Canada has a tenth of the population of America, perhaps Canada should take in a tenth of the illegal Mexican aliens . . . which would be about a million people?

  162. different clue says:

    Did I ever say we had an obligation to accept them? If anyone can find something I wrote now or in the past to the effect that I think we are obliged to accept them and keep them, they can copy-paste it here and embarrass me with it pretty good.
    If you can demonstrate any moral posturing or virtue signaling in any specific language of mine in this thread, please feel free to do so in detail. I suspect you use the phrases “moral posturing” and “virtue signaling” as epithets of ridicule and misdirection rather than terms of art or terms of analysis. And if my noting that millions of them were driven out of Mexico by a NAFTA designed to destroy their livelihoods there seems conservatively incorrect and distasteful to your sense of conservative moral posturing and conservative virtue signaling, that doesn’t change the fact that millions of them were indeed driven out by NAFTA-driven destruction of their livelihoods in Mexico. And I suspect part of sending them back and keeping them successfully back there would have to involve abolishing NAFTA and setting Mexico free to re-protectionise its economy and quite possibly restore the village ejido system of land control and restoration of formerly village lands back to the villages and villagers . . . so they could resume their former farming livelihoods in a re-protectionised Mexico.
    Meanwhile, many illegals already come all the way up here anyway, without your kind offer of assistance to them TIA.

  163. Valissa says:

    “Men cannot hold their drugs”
    No Babak, that is NOT true according to all scientific studies done on the matter. What is true is the some people cannot hold their drugs.
    “Most people who experiment with drugs, then, do not become addicted. So who is at risk?”
    Who Falls to Addiction, and Who Is Unscathed? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/health/02abuse.html?_r=0
    Reality Check – Most Don’t Become Addicted http://www.thecleanslate.org/reality-check-most-dont-become-addicted/
    Many People Use Drugs – But Here’s Why Most Don’t Become Addicts http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/many-people-use-drugs-here-s-why-most-don-t-become-addicts
    Why only some people become addicted to drugs: Scans of cocaine users reveal brain shape could be to blame http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2264596/Why-people-addicted-drugs-Scans-cocaine-users-reveal-shape-brain-blame.html

  164. different clue says:

    Tyler,
    And what is specifically Marxist struggle in my comment? In detail? Is Marxist a term of art and term of analysis or just an epithet of derision?
    I think I’ve been as comprehensive as I know how. Border control AND total suppression of illegal employment in America AND abolishing NAFTA to allow Mexico to reprotectionise its economy and restore the destroyed livings and opportunities which existed there pre-NAFTA. Some have suggested banning any further granting of benefits to any further illegals and even the full stoppage of benefits to illegals already here. ( Though questions arise over whether it is fair to expel or dis-benefit people who were brought here by parents when they were too young to even understand the implications of being brought here . . . Dream Act and so forth).
    Nonsense? I don’t think so but . . . okay fine. But Marxist? Specifically how exactly?
    Shouting 102 FOOT LADDER is figurative and metaphorical to indicate that as long as the Mexican economy/society remains a pile of smoking wreckage and the American economy offers something to flee to, illegals will keep making every effort and try defeating every security barrier to come here. Barrier by itself will not be enough. Combining it with permabanning unlawful employment here and abolishing NAFTA to permit Mexico to restore opportunity in Mexico may all work together to reverse the flow. They all deserve to be tried together so they enhance eachother.

  165. different clue says:

    And no, I don’t mean the drug dealers and paid maimers and killers and any rapists who may be among them. Those should be focused on specially and in parallel. They are not the “millions of displaced farmers” of whom I speak.

  166. Babak Makkinejad says:

    Addiction is only a single negative consequence; there are also permanent alterations to the brain.
    Please see here:
    http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/brain/133/7/2098.full.pdf
    http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/16/5529.full.pdf+html
    And many many more such studies.
    You guys are in denial.

  167. different clue says:

    Babak Makkinejad,
    Again, what drugs are you talking about specifically?
    Caffeine? Cannabis?
    As if they were meth/opiates/cocaine/etc.?

  168. IMO both history and economics more subjective than objective!

  169. Does Canada make its census data public? Does it count its dual citizens?

  170. And benefits/costs of immigration–legal/illegal?

  171. Well P.L. just in case you announce your availability [perhaps as a write-in]!

  172. There is a huge business in forged credentials so perhaps this would assist in reducing that trade by making more difficult with biometrics. There might well be discrimination by some employers in favor of citizens (those with no cards].
    But those with cards could be verified like under the old NAC system. Having such a ID card could be presumptive of being registered and not illegal but legally resident. No more green cards now often falsified.
    The operating presumption now is that you are legal unless proved illegal but great difficulty doing so by an employer.

  173. I agree with you P.L.! But as almost always {Ross Perot’s Predictions on NAFTA e.g.] the Chinese began to seriously under cut wages paid in the Mexican economy about the time of ratification of NAFTA by Congress [Senate].
    Average Mexican wage then about $1.45/hour. Average Chines wage about $0.45/hour. It is huge transportation costs for transporting goods from Asia now that may be restoring somewhat Mexican/U.S. manufacturing.

  174. IMO my comments somewhat confusing so let’s get back to basics for the Presidential campaign if not for other reasons.
    First, my reading of the U.S. Constitution [and of course Bill of Rights] was to announce to the world in part the arrival of a new Nation-State in the Western Hemisphere.
    Second, you cannot be considered a nation-state if you cannot determine who is or can become a citizen or determine who exactly resides in you nation-state and the borders are administered in such a way as to help make those determinations.
    Third it should not be the business of business or the States and their local governments to determine who is a citizen and who residing in the U.S.A. is not a citizen. Delegation of enforcement of determinations of citizenship to business or the States and their local government law enforcement is tantamount to amnesty.
    Fourth, so time to fess up USA and at the federal level fund a develop a WHO IS A CITIZEN program.
    Fifth, each candidate should be specifically asked the following question/:
    Is the determination of citizen an exclusive responsibility of the federal government and should be so funded?
    If the answer by any is NO then IMO they support amnesty! If they say no then the DoJ should seek a Declaratory Judgment under the Declaratory Judgment Act that only the federal government can create citizenship and how or when? SCOTUS can provide the answer and the limits as to federal discretion that can be delegated to others. I argue NO delegation under the present language of the U.S. Constitution.
    And again emphasize I am increasingly worried that while perhaps creaky division of the world into nation-states now under attack from many including the US.
    And the most powerful protectors of the nation-state system are their armed Forces when in uniform and subject to various international conventions such as those concerning P.O.W.s.
    Others welcome to share their thoughts!~

  175. Tidewater says:

    Tidewater to All,
    I think the border with Mexico will sooner than later be militarized. It is going to have to be controlled. A tsunami of people is going to be moving north.
    Please consider the following excerpts and information. It is taken from “Climate Change in Central and South America….” by Jose A. Marengo, et al. CGIAR.
    “The Andean agro-ecosystems have been declared one of the most vulnerable systems in the world… The cultivation of beans and potatoes, therefore, are probably the two most important crops of the Andes and a large number of rural populations depend on the income from these crops…” “Temperatures above 24 degrees C during the stages of flowering and grain formation have negative effects on yield. The bean crop is highly sensitive to deficiencies or water excesses, especially during the flowering phase. Lack of soil moisture is critical in the sub-period between the beginning of flowering and the physiological maturity, where the water requirement is high.”
    Further: “The bean crop originated in the Americas, where CA, southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica are the main producers, followed by the high mountainous areas of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.”
    I assume most here have heard of San Miguel de Allende. It is in the Heartland of Mexico, where there is a high central plateau some 6500 feet above sea level. About twenty per cent of the population are expatriates. Beginning in the 1500’s, when the largest silver mine in the world was opened up at nearby Guanajuato, about an hour’s drive west, the Heartland became rich, and the architecture still shows it. Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende are said to be “magical” cities. (Magic having drifted into the conversation recently.)
    But what about BEANS? Si! “Guanajuato, located in Mexico at 21 degrees 10′ north and about 2,100 m altitude with rainy summers and mild temperatures around 20 degrees Centigrade presents an ideal climatic condition to vegetation and bean production. The bean crop can be considered one of the most demanding crops in terms of climatic conditions.” [To me, that is a surprise.]”However, as its cycle is very short (about three months), the choice of the period or season of the year is very favorable to cultivation. The monthly average temperature of 21 degrees Centigrade during the growing season can be considered ideal. From sowing to maturity of the pods, it is important that beans do not encounter water stress.”
    And the potato? — “…temperatures below 10 degrees C and above 30 degrees C inhibit the development of the tuber, while a good growth occurs when the average temperature rests between 18 degrees C and 20 degrees C. The most productive crops are found in regions where low temperatures prevail.”
    Roy Spencer is the arch climate change denier of them all. He has written a book called “Climate Confusion: How global warming hysteria leads to bad science, pandering politicians and misguided policies that hurt the poor.”
    He has a blog. The headline for one of his most recent essays is: “UAH V6 Global Temperature Update for Feb. 2016: +0.83 deg. C (new record).”
    He comments: “In addition to the expected tropical warmth, scattered regional warmth outside the tropics led to a record warm value for extratropical Northern Hemisphere land areas, with a whopping +1.46 C anomaly in February…fully 0.5 deg. C aove any previous monthly anomaly (!)”
    He is the one who added the exclamation point. Not I.
    He is one of those who for a long time now has been saying things like: “For some reason it stopped warming in the last ten years, which is one of those dirty little secrets of global warming science.” (22 March 20012.) Or: “The troposphere is ignoring your SUV.” (30 October 2011.)
    Now he says this: “As a sanity check on the latest data…” He referred to other blogs such as Ryan Maue at WeatherBell.com. The figures were confirmed. [See Eric Holthaus at Slate.]
    A SANITY CHECK?
    That happened to me once. This was years ago. I had been given an acre of so of land on a bluff fifty feet or so above the Rappahannock River, at the mouth, where the river is three miles wide. Apparently finessing the Corps of Engineers and their aerial photography, my father had put in bulkheads and some jetties on a long stretch of river-front. Over twenty years the beach had built up.
    In the winter, when the ground on the bluff’s edge above froze, several times big trucks came in from places like Warsaw full of stone. If plywood sheets were put on top of the bulkkheads you could protect them from an avalanche of small boulders that were dumped as near to the edge as possible. When I came back here from distant climes I would work on my little section of beach. I would find the stray boulders and gather everything together and then wade out and place them carefully against and ultimately on top of the wooden bulkheads. I liked the work. And there was a real sense of progress. I used to take our beloved companions, a lab and a brindled Chesapeake bay retriever my brother had named after me along the waterfront on jogs. We’d go splashing along the eroded cliff route for fun, over fallen trees, with sheer orangish clay cliffs rising above. Then we’d break out down at Mosquito Point and get serious about the pace. We’d come back covered with sand and soaking wet, do this in the winter even, on a warmish day, though I would learn that you are rolling the dice then. They’d watch and watch me in the early afternoon, and when I reached for the jogging shoes they would levitate with joy. I’m serious. Bessie, a big affectionate old yellow lab, would float in the air. Once we came around a curve and beyond an enormous fallen tree there was a big blue heron. This was something new to me. Face to face with a blue heron will give you pause. He seemed to be about five feet tall. The beak seemed about two feet. I backed off, feared for my dogs and went for a near fossilized tree limb. Up till then that bird was actually thinking about holding its ground! Then it lifted off. True story: Bachman, in Charleston, had a crippled blue heron that speared his sleeping cat out on the piazza through the ballisters.
    One day there was a front coming through. I watched the miles of river beyond the bridge darkening towards black. There is nothing to me quite like a Rappahannock or Piankatank squall, particularly the summer squalls. (James Jackson Kilpatrick once wrote a very nice essay in the News Leader about a summer squall, after he went through one in Richmond.) This one was a real storm. I had worked all afternoon and had had a few beers contemplating for some reason what had been accomplished over the years. Not only was there a beach out about ten or more feet from the bluffs where the bulkhead was, the sand had actually grown up to such a height at the jetties that it was flowing over. It had become a very charming, private little spot, hard up against our neighbor’s property where there was a little point and where they had pushed the bank down by many feet and planted one or two large willows safely above the water. This mysteriously defined one end of my beach. Of course, they didn’t seem to have much beach, since I had gotten a lot of that. (Over at Fishing Bay that is perfectly fair play, by the way. Not that anyone uses the beach much; the place is about boats. Children just use the beach that got the sand.) On a summer’s day it was cool and a little shaded in the shallows there.
    When the lightning started, I went up, making sure not to be carrying any tools up top, since at that point you are in effect as high as a tree, though, of course, there were tall pines up there. Once, not far out front, lightning had struck near or on an oyster boat, surely attracted by the tongs. It knocked one of the watermen out of the boat.
    It came on to blow all night long. I listened to it and drank beer and read. Dogs with me, of course. I was in the guest house. Maybe there was a fire. There was a good fireplace. Everyone muy contento. It may have been a two-day storm. Don’t remember. I am afraid I had a bit of a hangover when I went back down there after it blew itself out.
    I took a look at my jetties. I thought I had entered some sort of time warp. It was looking like it looked twenty years before. The beach was still there, pretty much. But the sand built up against the jetties was all gone. That was perhaps two and one half feet of sand against and between three jetties; it had to be quite a few tons of sand. I had not seen the base of the jetties in years.I absolutely knew I would work off the way I felt over the afternoon; and then there could be another run and more beer. I would need to go into the water at the end of work to recover some of those boulders that hadn’t gone off over into the deeper water, which was pretty close to the shore. So it was OK, wasn’t it? It wasn’t starting over exactly. That’s why the jetties were there. Back to work.
    But for one millisecond looking at that beach –I thought I must have gone mad.

  176. Bill Herschel says:

    179 comments. Here’s 180. I have stood in the back of the hall while my wife went through immigration at Kennedy airport, not knowing exactly what I would do if she was turned back. She got through, because her visa was valid. At no time did it even faintly cross my mind that she could be allowed to stay in the United States illegally.
    Illegal immigrants have been compared with African-Americans. If I remember correctly, they did not choose to come to the United States.
    This is just one more example of a tiny clique attempting to subvert democracy in the United States. If you are in this country illegally, you should be deported. Period.

  177. Fred says:

    WRC,
    There were similar laws throughout the areas of Spanish colonization in Central and Southern America.

  178. Stingray Point and Windmill Point at mouth of the Rappahannock River-post Hurricane Isabel [August 2003] no bluffs?

  179. My understanding is that Wall Street “helped” Mexico “privatize” its Social Security system. Result is few Mexicans receive Mexican Social Security benefits. Is this accurate?
    But huge numbers of U.S. Social Security benefits paid out to Mexican banks and other banks in Mexico. Assume all beneficiaries “living” in Mexico paid U.S. payroll taxes and thus qualified for SS. My understanding also is that the SSA has almost no funds for enforcement as to validation of payments beyond IRS records. Some may be long dead. Is this accurate?
    Disclosure: I am full setoff as a CRS federal retiree! I redeposited to CRS for the 2 years, 10 months, 4 days and 7 hours on active duty all post 1957 when the U.S. Armed Forces went under SS. No refund from SS for amounts deducted while on active duty.

  180. LeaNder says:

    not quite maybe? “Businesspeople” may not only exploit illegal foreigners, but one way or another US citizen. Far fetched?
    The illegals have to buy products so they support in their own limited ways the larger system via indirect taxes. Just as the business people pay taxes for their enterprise. At least that would be so in my country. Considering on that level no experts may be able to help to avoid taxes.
    “Motel 6”?
    Over here on one of the channels of our public TV universe, they had a documentary looking into money transfers back home on US ground. I could imagine this may not be only angle that may matter.

  181. LeaNder says:

    WRC,
    [1967]??? via Pocahantas?
    Can you help me out on the legal history?

  182. Tidewater says:

    Tidewater to William R. Cumming,
    Thanks for your comment. And I find it interesting. I have not been out there in many years. I have family in the White Stone area so I think I will find out about Wind Mill and Stingray Points, how things are there now. I always regarded them as being low lying areas and can imagine that they took a hit from the Chesapeake hurricane waves, maybe an extremely high tide or even a storm surge.
    Where my land was the bluffs were so high a lot of people including my late brother wanted them cut down as much as possible so they could get more view. 🙂 Actually, I doubt much happened to those bluffs on the Lancaster shore between Mosquito Point and where the bridge comes in at White Stone. But I’m curious. I have started to kind of miss the Bay.
    However, I have a dock to work on soon enough down at my Gullah island, so no need for looking back. I didn’t know that SC coastal waters had teredo worms. They ate through a couple of large pilings on a dock I built in 2003! Now the dock is cantilevered. Good thing I always do the amateur thing and overbuild. Further surprises from Mother Gaia.
    Back on topic. So what if there is a Climate Catastrophe beginning to be very evident in ten years? The Emergency plain for all to see. Now suddenly here. What I think is that biometric sophisticated identification cards are a great idea for non-citizens, be enforced by federal agents, but first… Checkpoint Carlito!

  183. SCOTUS rule miscegenation statutes UnConstitutional in 1967! Pocahantas [who is alleged to have saved Captain John Smith from the headsman axe] later married Sir John Rolfe who later became an English Lord after he had married Pocohantas. It all involved Virginia Colony settled 1607 [Jamestown Settlement].

  184. Bluffs still on one-side of Bridge at Whitestone. Most of coastal S.C. flooded in 1880s with perhaps 10K drowned mainly Gullahs.

  185. Tidewater says:

    Tidewater to William R. Cumming and All,
    Over the years I’ve tried to figure out what happened during the hurricane of 1893 in the general area of where I am, back on my “creek”–it’s actually a kind of an ocean inlet some four miles long. Yes, it is estimated that at least three to five thousand Gullahs definitely died in this one storm, or died of hunger, thirst and disease–malaria?– after the storm. Noone actually knows! Perhaps it was as many as ten thousand. It took several days for the word to get out. I think the station-master in Beaufort went inland to some place like Pocotaligo and hopped on the freight train up to Columbia. The news was telegraphed from there. It is a sad fact that the nation did very little for those who survived.
    What I think is fascinating is that to this day noone has really pulled it all together. I have a number of books on the subject and have been in the very likeable and impressive South Caroliniana library at USC. During the Depression, the Federal Government funded a series of books under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration to give a few writers some employment. They really came though! The WPA Guide books to Virginia and South Carolina are considered classics. In the low country the writers went out and interviewed blacks who had lived through slavery, or who had known life on the sea islands before bridges were built, and who had been through many hurricanes. I think some of the more recent writers now tend to stick to their own bailiwicks a little too much–these sea islands are sort of different places!– and Beaufort area is strong on the 1893 storm (Marcher) but they slack off on other islands. 🙂
    My island is relatively high, but it must have been mostly underwater. I found one narrative where a thirteen or fourteen year old Gullah kid was caught in the storm surge about a mile or two from where I am at. He identified the plantation and the nearby store. This is at least four miles inland from the beach. He waded a good distance through water that suddenly rose from his ankles up to his chest with that shocking sudden arrival that a storm surge has, before he got to a house, so I imagine the water–the ocean, in fact– rose at least to six feet near me. Maybe that is optimistic. And immediately began to run off after the tide turned.
    There is one thing that the waterway traveller immediately notices when he comes down the ICW into South Carolina–the tides! This is a world of five to six foot tides, around the clock. You need to use spring lines. If you are right by the water you start to notice. The beautiful intransitu of transient things. Of sunny, blue-sky, gurgling, pluffmuddy, spartina kind of transient things….
    Something like that. 😉
    I read one white man’s account of after the hurricane. He took his boat out to look around. He came to an area out in the marsh where he saw a lot of birds. He found a shoal of some four, five hundred bodies. Tide was going out. So he thought, I’ll say a prayer for them, and then they can just go on out with the tide.’
    [DIGRESSION: I have a theory that it is tricky and dangerous for you on a sea island if you are seriously ill and on your sickbed and it gets to be about the hour of, say, four a.m., when the tide turns and starts to run. Gotta’ remind yourself to keep a grip on the trumphet bad post. Just keep repeating: ‘Too soon. Too soon.’ END DIGRESSION.]
    He came back a little later and the bodies had indeed gone out with the tide. So next day he goes back out into the marsh again. Maybe he was taking water and food to some desperate little pinpoint community. From a distance he knew that this was not swamp miasma and the shoal had come back in. He forced himself to go for another look. Things were getting a little worse all around, every day. So he thought, “Well, they’ll surely go out with the tide today.” He could see the whole thing moving out eastward towards the ocean with the current. Faster and faster. He rowed home. Next day he woke up realizing he needed to go back out there again.
    They were back.
    But then one day they didn’t come back in at high tide. They were gone.
    That pretty much ends the story as we have it.
    Now if he had seen a white girl floating in the shoal–and you can still tell even at that point–and he had rowed over and looked down into the face of the love of his life who had broken his heart at the St. Cecilia thirty years before– that is exactly when you really need to realize that you probably have got the Plat-Eye.
    But they never do. (See “The Half Pint Flask.” Dubose Heyward.)
    And I might add that nobody wants to be a character in a story by Ambrose Bierce either.
    I have just been reading into “Mother of Storms” by John Barnes. We could very well be moving into a new age of mega-hurricanes. Like breeder reactors–these will be hurricanes that spin off hurricanes. The whole thing keeps right on rolling back and forth like an old Toro lawnmower. (Not that they need to spin-off; others can just pop-up, two three, more, as was happening some twenty years ago with Storm Team II and their doppler radar.) Barnes presents the reader with a hurricane that has winds of 300 plus mph in the wall of the eye. (Does it grow to the speed of sound?)
    Of course “Mother of Storms” is a great rampaging tour de force, to use appropriate reviewerese. The final chapters are about the actual physical merging of human intelligence with artificial (computer) intelligence, which I suspect some on board will find intriguing. That was not what was interesting to me when I ordered it. I have heard of plain old ‘hydrogen and carbon’ kind of science guys. For me, “Gim’me dat old time Methane. Dat old time Methane…It’s good enough for me.”
    Barnes outdoes Shakova with his initial dose, or should I say “burp”: 176 billion metric tons of methane. This is a promising start. But then he loses track of his original thesis and gets off into the kind of horrid things virtual reality will metamorphize stuff into by 2028, including sex. One will have been born too soon for Mary Anne Waterhouse as Synthia Venture on XV. Or for XV correspondent and investigator Starla who unexpectedly finds herself the lead figure in a “murder while plugged in” –an advanced kind of candid camera which is participated in erotically by seventy million people.
    But every now and then Barnes remembers his premise and recovers, intoning: The methane was always there. WAITING…”
    Funny about that. This is something that never actually occurred to me for most of my life.
    So all along, that was the real reality?
    And Barnes got this published in 1992 at about the time when Semiletov, having made more than 20 research expeditions in various climes, began to concentrate on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. He had seen no real problems with the Methane up into the early nineties. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t even met Shakova!
    On 7 September 2015, Natalia Shakhova, Igor Semiletov, Valentin Sergienko, Leopold Lobkovsky, Vladimir Yusupov (did his great uncle whack Rasputin?!), Anatoly Salyuk, Alexander Salomatin, Denis Chernykh, Denis Kosmach, Gleb Panteleev, Dmitry Nicolsky, Vladimir Samarkin, Samantha Joye, Alexander Charkin, Oleg Dudarev, Alexander Meluzov and Orjan Gustafsson (who has been runnking the Swedish icebreaker Oden team) presented a paper before the Royal Society, which has been published in its Philosophical Transactions. (“The East Siberian Arctic Shelf: towards further assessment of permafrost-related methane fluxes and role of sea ice.” It really looks great.
    Semiletov and Shakova were being ignored and shunned by the Royal Society and most of the Western scientific establishment just a few years ago. That was the word that was going around. It was widely published. Charlatans!
    So now they are back and they are back in force!
    Is this progress? Or is it the end of the world?

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