Weekly Quote

As far as income tax payments go, sources vary in their accounts, but a range of studies find that immigrants pay between $90 billion and $140 billion in Federal, State, and local taxes. - Luis Gutierrez

Free Access to Immigration and Naturalization Records

Ancestry.com is offering a free trial of its services, including a search of immigration and naturalization records.  You can read more about it here.

Ancestry.com, the world's largest online family history resource, today announced an entire week of free access to its popular U.S. and International Immigration and Naturalization records. The free access week begins August 29th and runs through the Labor Day holiday ending September 5th. During this time, all visitors to Ancestry.com will be able to search for free the indices and images of new and updated U.S. immigration records as well as selected international immigration records from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden and Mexico. Millions of Americans can trace their family history to other countries, and these collections provide valuable information about the travels and journeys that brought them to America or other countries around the world.

While I realize we are all individuals who make our own choices in life and our ancestors actions have no bearing on our own, I think it's interesting to know the stories of past generations, and it could be important to know your family's medical history.  I've emailed both of my grandmothers to see if they have additional information to help me with my search.  If I find anything interesting, I'll be sure to post about it. 

Immigration Tension in the Deep South - An Excellent Guardian Article

This article from The Guardian in the UK is just excellent!  I can only quote so much here on MoE, so please click through and read the entire article.  Here are some highlights:

In the midst of general anti-immigrant sentiment, several southern states have passed strict anti-illegal immigrant laws that critics say raises the prospect of a new Jim Crow era – the time when segregation was law –across a vast swath of the old Confederacy.

They will ostracise and terrorise a vulnerable Hispanic minority with few legal rights, encouraging them to leave or disappear further into the shadows.

Many Americans wonder why some Latinos have a hard time assimilating.  It's no mystery to me.  American culture has forced many of them into hiding, into the shadows.  They must rely on each other because they are certainly not being welcomed into our communities.

From construction to agriculture, to restaurants to gardening, to childrearing, hotels and home help, illegal immigrants are a major driver of the US economy. They may have no papers, but that does not stop them paying taxes, buying homes and raising children who, if born in the US, are American citizens. It has also – as happened during the civil rights era – put these southern states in direct conflict with the federal government. Last week, the White House moved to suspend many deportations of illegal immigrants without criminal records, putting it at odds with the new, harsher state laws.

Which is why Lugo is speaking out. Though illegal, she is angry at feeling suddenly hated by a society she has contributed to. She has two kids and a hard, low-paying job in a factory that makes US army equipment. When Georgia passed its law she was laid off by a manager fearful of prosecution. Yet, within a month, she was rehired. No one had wanted her work. But suddenly it showed how vulnerable her new life was.

I again reiterate my challenge to those who are opposed to immigration (especially conservatives receiving unemployment checks.)  Act on your principles!  Accept one of these jobs that immigrants are leaving behind.  Let's see how long you last in a 100+ degree field, on a hot roof or in the middle of a clogged highway under construction.

Later, driving around the sleepy town on a day when temperatures topped 100F (38C) and the air felt like treacle, Bridges pointed out where Uvalda's Hispanic population lives. He knows everyone and showed where abandoned houses had been fixed up by a Hispanic family or vacant lots transformed into homes.

The Georgia Agribusiness Council estimates the labour shortage has left so many crops unpicked and rotting that it has cost $1bn. The industry currently has 30% fewer workers than it needs and, contrary to accusations that illegals take American jobs, no one is stepping in.

Nor is it just agriculture. The Georgia restaurant trade is in convulsions as staff flee. Karen Bremer, head of the Georgia Restaurant Association, says a quarter of her members' businesses are struggling with too few staff. "The damage has been done. The bad news has already gone through the communities," she said.

From an economic standpoint, passing such stringent laws has been a dramatic own goal. Recently a violent tornado tore through the Alabama city of Tuscaloosa, wreaking havoc and devastation. But the exodus of Hispanics from Alabama has been so great that building firms say they will struggle to employ enough people for rebuilding. Indeed, Tuscaloosa's Hispanic soccer league saw a third of its teams disbanded in a week.

And Republicans claim they want to help the economy.

Many others have spoken out. Church leaders have joined forces with lawyers and business groups and police officials. Suits have been filed attempting to get the law overturned. The federal government has weighed in via the courts, as it did in Arizona when that state attempted a similar act. In general, like many illegals themselves, most opponents want a "path to citizenship" or a work scheme for people already here.

Among them are people like Bridges, who is far from a typical liberal campaigner. He is a proud southerner and Republican who has little time for President Obama. But he joined a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union; a conservative bĂȘte noire. "I dislike the ACLU but I find myself on the same side. It is shocking to me," he joked.

At least some on the right have some common sense!

This article does such an excellent job of pointing out all the practical arguments for immigration.  Please take the time to read it and share it with those who argue immigration is hurting this country's economy!  There's also an interesting timeline below the article that shows the history of Latino immigration to the US.

Famous Immigrant of the Week

This week we highlight German co-inventor of blue jeans, Levi Strauss (aka Loeb Strauss).  From the Levi Strauss biography:Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss, the inventor of the quintessential American garment - the blue jean - was born in Buttenheim, Bavaria on February 26, 1829 to Hirsch Strauss and his second wife, Rebecca Haas Strauss. Hirsch, a dry goods peddler, already had five children with his first wife, who had died a few years earlier: Jacob, Jonas, Louis, Rosla and Mathilde. Levi - named "Loeb" at birth - and his older sister Fanny were the last of the Strauss children; Hirsch succumbed to tuberculosis in 1845.

Two years after his death, Rebecca, Loeb, Fanny and Mathilde emigrated to New York. There, they were met by Jonas and Louis, who had already made the journey and had started a dry-goods business, called “J. Strauss Brother & Co.” Young Loeb soon began to learn the trade himself, and by 1850 he was known among his family and customers as “Levi” .

Levi Strauss Ad

You can read more about Levi Strauss and Company at the company's website. http://www.levistrauss.com/about/heritage

More Wasted Tax Dollars?

USA Today reports that the Department of Homeland Security may be wasting millions of dollars deporting immigrants to Mexico.  From the article:

The agency has spent more than $85 million over the past eight years to transport Mexican illegal immigrants far beyond the border in a humanitarian effort aimed at saving lives by deterring migrants from making another dangerous border crossing.

But it has no real way to gauge the value of the program.

While the department defends its repatriation flights, officials chose not to act on recommendations by government auditors to measure whether the program is effective.

Chances are, the vast majority of those being deported were in the US working, paying taxes and trying to improve their lives.  That is a net gain to the US economy; therefore, this program is a HUGE waste of tax payer dollars whether the immigrants make it back to the US or not.

Why Open Immigration is Moral

Philosopher, Dr. Diana Hsieh, who runs the Rationally Selfish Webcast, recently commented on the morality of an open immigration policy and it's so good, I wanted to share it here.  Early on in the webcast, Dr. Hsieh makes reference to an article from The Objective Standard magazine.  Here is a link to that article.

And now for the video!

 

If you have questions you'd like for Dr. Hsieh to answer, about immigration or anything else, you can submit your questions here.  You can vote on questions for upcoming webcasts here.

Weekly Quote

So at last I was going to America! Really, really going, at last! The boundaries burst. The arch of heaven soared. A million suns shone out of every star. The winds rushed into outer space, roaring in my ears, “America! America!” - Mary Antin, Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes

Heroic Immigrant

It should go without saying, but rarely does, that people who break our nation's unjust immigration laws are not necessarily bad people. In fact, when faced with a terrible situation, some of them rise to the occasion, as was the case with Antonio Diaz:

The man who chased down a suspected child abductor and saved a 6-year-old girl from what could have been a horrible fate was honored as a hero Friday. But he is also gaining a new kind of celebrity: as a poster child of sorts for immigration rights in state and national immigration debates.

"As exceptional as his story is," said Christina Parker, a spokeswoman for Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas, "it points to the fact that most undocumented immigrants living in the United States are not criminals. He's more than not a criminal now. He's a hero."

Antonio Diaz shows himself to be a fine man through his actions. Those actions reflect only on himself, not on Hispanics generally or even the larger immigrant community. The point, however, is that the reverse is also true; illegal immigrants who commit horrendous crimes have no bearing on Antonio Diaz as a person, and whether or not he should be allowed in the country legally.

We must judge individuals for who they are, including what they say and what they do, not for their country of origin, by the language they speak or our preconceived notions.

Excellent News for LGBT Immigrant Community!

There may now be hope for LGBT community immigrants as the Obama administration has announced prioritizing deportations based on security risk.  From On Top Magazine:

Factors to be considered include whether the immigrant is married to a U.S. Citizen, the length of lawful stay in the United States, and his or her contributions to the community.

“The prosecutorial discretion memo provides for the use of discretion for people with strong community ties, with community contributions and with family relationships,” an unnamed senior administration official told gay weekly theWashington Blade.

“We consider LGBT families to be families in this context,” the official added.

While arbitrary immigration decisions are not our end goal, hopefully, it will spare many people from deportation and allow them to stay in the US while we continue to fight for the rights of other immigrants.

Famous Immigrant of the Week

This week's famous immigrant is award-winning chef, Wolfgang Puck.  From his website:

Puck began cooking at his mother's side as a child. She was a chef inWolfgang Puck the Austrian town where he was born, and with her encouragement, Wolfgang began his formal training at fourteen years of age. As a young chef he worked in some of France's greatest restaurants, including Maxim's in Paris, the Hotel de Paris in Monaco, and the Michelin 3-starred L'Oustau de BaumaniĂšre in Provence. At the age of 24, Wolfgang took the advice of a friend and left Europe for the United States.

From TV shows to product lines to his empire of restaurants and catering companies, Wolfgang Puck embodies the American immigrant's entrepreneurial spirit!  You can read his biography here.

Marxist Economics in the Immigration Debate

In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is - i.e., he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts - i.e., he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from this need; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance.

From Ayn Rand, "Philosophy and a Sense of Life," The Romantic Manifesto, 30.

Were Conservatives to find themselves denounced as Marxists, they would take great offense and probably confusion at the accusation. They consider themselves as far as possible from the Marxist view on politics, which in many instances is true.  On the issue of immigration, however, the conservatives have bought into Marxist economics on every level.

Popular Marxist thought views the economy as a finite pile of loot. This ignores the dynamic nature of an economy and of the process of production, and is one of the many reasons Marxist economies have invariably collapsed in a pile of mismanagement and waste. Conservatives, coming from this same premise, see the economy as a big pile of jobs, to be distributed to deserving Americans before anyone else.

Therefore, as Jeremy Beck does in this article, they conclude that the more immigrants who come here, the fewer jobs there will be for Americans. The economy grows at only a certain rate to them, a fixed number independent of other variables, and so the US economy can only "absorb" a certain number of immigrants per year.

This is, of course, pure nonsense. Marxist rhetoric aside, there is not a big tree labeled "jobs" that we all come to pick from when we need employment. The amount of jobs in the economy is not a function of how many immigrants come year to year, but of government policies and of how much people are willing to work for. Removing productive workers, far from "freeing up jobs for Americans," will result in businesses closing down, moving or growing slower as the cheap labor that allowed them to prosper is deported.

These facts have been well-documented and are backed up by business interests all over the country; growth (and thus additional jobs) is made much more difficult without immigrant labor, both low and high skilled. Conservatives have in turn denounced these businessmen by telling them they're unpatriotic, greedy people who put "profits before patriotism."

But economic law does not bend to rhetoric, no matter how much conservatives would like it to. The current unemployment rate will worsen, not get better, with the deportation of millions of hard workers from our shores and the true cause of unemployment (the disastrous intervention in the economy by the government under both Democratic and Republican leadership) will continue to go unaddressed.

Rather than scapegoat hard working people simply trying to make a living in the United States, Conservatives must repudiate the disastrous policies that they have previously supported in order to allow the real producers of the economy - the businessmen - to get back to work making profits and expanding their businesses.

Weekly Quote

Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

One Reason to Like Rick Perry

As a native Texan, I'm not really too excited about Texas Governor, Rick Perry, entering the Presidential race.  He's a stereotypically mixed-bag politician who claims to support individual rights and capitalism, yet believes the government can and should create jobs and control women's lives.  Ugh!

If there's anything to like Rick Perry for, it's his mostly friendly approach to immigration.  As this Huffington Post article points out:

Texas remains welcoming to immigrants in ways some other states are not.

Illegal immigrants can get in-state tuition at Texas universities. Neither employers nor state agencies are required to run job applicants through a federal database to determine their legal status. Illegal immigrants have access to services for drug treatment, mental health and children with special health care needs.

Perry insists that he has taken a strong stand on securing the border, but his rhetoric has always focused on transnational gangs and drug traffickers, not those looking for legitimate work. He points out that since 2005 the state has steered more than $400 million into border measures.

Perry is on to something here.  Criminals should be those who violate the rights of others, and the proper function of government is to go after those who violate individual rights.  Government should not be concerned with peaceful people looking for work.

Granted, I think the government should also end the drug war which would take care of most, if not all, of the border violence, but that's yet another of many areas where Perry and I disagree. 

Bachmann and Romney are certainly no friend to or supporter of individual rights, but I'm not sure Perry is all that concerned with them either.  At least he's alright on immigration.

Famous Immigrant of the Week

Today our spotlight is on Yo-Yo Ma.  From his website:yo_yo_ma 

Yo-Yo Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began  to study the cello with his father at age four and soon came with his family to New York, where he spent most of his formative years. Later, his principal teacher was Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School. He sought out a traditional liberal arts education to expand upon his conservatory training, graduating from Harvard University in 1976. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the Glenn Gould Prize (1999), the National Medal of the Arts (2001), the Dan David Prize (2006), the Sonning Prize (2006), and the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award (2008). Appointed a Culture Connect Ambassador by the United States Department of State in 2002, Yo-Yo Ma has met with, trained and mentored thousands of students worldwide including Lithuania, Korea, Lebanon, Azerbaijan and China. He has performed with and conducted master classes for members of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra. In 2006, Secretary General Kofi Annan named him a U.N. Messenger of Peace and in 2007 Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon extended his appointment.

Tell President Obama: Stop Separating Our Families!

Imagine you and your spouse have been together for almost two decades.  You've been legally married since 2004.  You have AIDS and your spouse is your only caregiver.  Now imagine the government forcing you to leave the country and your spouse.  That's exactly what's happening to Bradford Wells and Anthony John Mark, a gay couple from San Francisco.  From The Huffington Post:

The Obama administration publicly announced Monday that it has denied immigration rights to Bradford Wells and Anthony John Makk -- a gay couple in San Francisco that has been married for seven years -- and ordered the deportation of Makk to his native Australia, according to SFGate. Makk applied for permanent residency as a spouse of a U.S. citizen when his visa expired, but he was denied, as his same-sex marriage is not federally recognized.

Makk is the primary caregiver to Wells, who suffers from AIDS. The couple has lived together for 19 years and legally married in Massachusetts in 2004.

Although President Obama announced just last month that he would fight to repeal the controversial Defense of Marriage Act that bans same-sex marriage, his administration cited that very act in the decision.

Until the act is repealed, the White House has vowed to enforce it on a case-by-case basis. In this case, Makk has lived in the United States for more than 20 years, owns a San Francisco business, has no criminal history, has never lived here illegally and is the primary caregiver to his husband.

This story is just one example of how the US government violates individual rights each and every day.  Human beings have the right to move about freely.  They have a right to their property, including their business, and they have the right to work for and hire whomever they please.  They have the right to enter into marriage contracts with whomever they like.  They have the right to live wherever they like.  They have the right to do as they please, so long as they do not violate the rights of others.  (See Man's Rights and the US Constitution.) 

If you agree these atrocities should be stopped, please go to Immigration Equality Action Fund and sign this petition.  Make your voice heard and share this link with others you know who may be willing to help.

CIS Threatened by Vargas

Here's an interesting article about Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and their recent attacks on Jose Vargas:

The most vocal of the anti-immigrant groups opposing Vargas and the campaign is the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), an organization founded by white nationalist John Tanton back in 1985. CIS executive director Mark Krikorian was interviewed on NPR after Vargas’s appearance. He argued that Vargas should leave the United States and go back to the Philippines. Krikorian also argued that Vargas, because he moved to the US at age 12, should not be eligible for the DREAM Act because, according to Krikorian, Vargas’s “identity” was not formed in the United States. Last week, CIS continued its rant against Vargas, calling him an “illegal alien fraudster,” among other things.

All of this seriously begs the question, why is CIS so scared of Vargas?

Click through to read the entire article and find out.

Weekly Quote About Immigration

The discrepancy between American ideals and American practice — between our aims and what we actually do — creates a moral dry rot which eats away at the foundations of our democratic faith. - Helen Gahagan Douglas

Immigrants Now Stopped Trying to Leave the US

This New York Times story about immigrants trying to return home to Mexico is nothing less than infuriating.  As if the American government hasn't done enough to violate individual rights and make people's lives more difficult (including the lives of native-born Americans), now it is making their return home an ordeal:

In questioning people leaving the country about illegal contraband, agents frequently find migrants who are not engaged in smuggling but do not have permission to be in the United States. Some with clean records are let go. Others are fingerprinted and photographed for illegal entry and only then allowed to go on their way. Once they are in the government’s database, they face more stringent penalties if they are caught in the United States again.

Immigrants who are found to have criminal records face more aggressive treatment. They are likely to be arrested and then formally deported.

Some question the sense of checking the papers of migrants who are leaving anyway. The criticism comes from those who consider illegal immigrants to be outlaws and those who sympathize with their struggle to improve their lives.

“Why do we want to spend resources apprehending people who are removing themselves anyway?” asked Jennifer Allen of the Border Action Network, a human rights group based in Tucson that aids immigrants in southern Arizona. “I’ve heard of people wanting to leave the country and wondering if they should risk it. It’s in the forefront of people’s minds when they’re deciding to leave.”

Once again, our government has created a dangerous situation where one did not otherwise exist.  They've also created yet another opportunity for thuggish government officials to bully everyday people minding their own business. 

As she prepared to cross the border recently and join her husband who had crossed months before, Ms. Rios grew anxious, knowing that she did not have her papers in order and that she might be detained. She had entered the country illegally more than a decade ago, as an 11-year-old child clutching her mother’s hand. Now she was returning to a country she barely knew.

“I thought this is what Arizona wanted, for me to leave,” she said as she packed her things in Chandler, Ariz., before heading south. “And I have to worry about them catching me on the way out.”

Well, I feel safer! 

Famous Immigrant of the Week

This week's famous immigrant is Nobel Prize laureate, Albert Einstein.  Einstein renounced his German citizenship in 1933 for political reasons, and moved toEinstein America where he became a citizen in 1940. 

From The History Channel:

The German-born physicist Albert Einstein developed the first of his groundbreaking theories while working as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern. After making his name with four scientific articles published in 1905, he went on to win worldwide fame for his general theory of relativity and a Nobel Prize in 1921 for his explanation of the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect. An outspoken pacifist who was publicly identified with the Zionist movement, Einstein emigrated from Germany to the United States when the Nazis took power before World War II. He lived and worked in Princeton, New Jersey, for the remainder of his life.

You can read a short biography of Einstein at the Nobel Prize website.  You can check out his archives here.

Tanton-esque Cronies Come Out of the Woodwork

Here's an interesting article about Georgia' assault on individual rights and the man heading the charge, Tanton-network-funded Donald Arthur “D.A.” King:

Prior to his elegant transition into mainstream media, King maintained an active partnership with VDare, a website that receives financial aid from the Tanton network. VDare publishes racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant articles. In one blog entry, he discussed his experience at a March for Dignity, comprised of, in King’s words, “mostly Hispanic demonstrators.” He wrote, “I got the sense that I had left the country of my birth and been transported to some Mexican village, completely taken over by an angry, barely restrained mob….My first act on a safe return home was to take a shower.”

In September 2006, King attempted to distance himself from VDare by requesting that his name be removed from the editorial collective, as long as they kept an archive of his past posts.

Unfortunately his attempts to gain a wider audience seem to be working. In October 2007, a National Public Radio segment described King as “a grassroots activist.” Later that year, King was introduced as a guest on CNN’s Headline News as an “anti-illegal immigration activist” and a “columnist for the Marietta Journal.”  In fact, records indicate that twelve mainstream newspapers have printed King’s articles.  Most notably, The Washington Times, which neutrally describes the Dustin Inman Society as “a Georgia-based coalition of citizens with the goal of educating the public on the consequences of illegal immigration.”

I think what scares me most is not that a minority of evil men as hateful and bigoted as Tanton and King actually exist, but that they are able to get the masses to sway with them.  It reminds me of Hitler and the Nazis.  They were extreme, they were right-wing, they were religious, they were full of hate and they were elected into office. 

Farmers Rally to Fight Republican Immigration Bill

A bill being proposed by Texas Republican Lamar Smith would require farmers to verify all new hires (most of which are immigrants here without legal documents) through E-Verify, the federal database run by the Department of Homeland Security.

From a New York Times article:

Supporters of E-Verify, an electronic system that is currently mandatory for most federal contractors but voluntary for other employers, argue that it would eliminate any doubt about workers’ legal status. But farmers say it could cripple a $390 billion industry that relies on hundreds of thousands of willing, low-wage immigrant workers to pick, sort and package everything from avocados to zucchini.

“This would be an emergency, a dire, dire situation,” said Nancy Foster, president of the U.S. Apple Association, adding that the prospect of an E-Verify check would most likely mean that many immigrant workers would simply not show up. “We will end up closing down.”

And for those of you who argue that unemployed Americans will happily take these jobs:

Mike Carlton, director of labor relations for the Florida Fruit and Vegetables Association […] said his group monitored hiring by citrus growers, who are required to offer jobs to Americans before they can turn to the H-2A program for temporary foreign laborers.

In one sample, Mr. Carlton said, 344 Americans came forward to fill 1,800 pickers’ jobs; only eight were still working at the end of the two-month season.

So once again, I call on all Americans who complain about immigration and who are collecting unemployment checks during this economic downturn, to go out to your local farms and orchards and get yourselves one of these jobs you claim Americans want.  Farmers all across the country are willing to hire you.  Are you willing to do the work?

Fortunately, it looks like farmers from across the nation are up in arms about this and willing to fight, and while the bill may have a better chance of passing in the House, it doesn't seem likely it would make it through the Senate.  With rising food prices and a troubled economy already weighing heavily on American households, let's hope that's indeed the case.

Quote About Immigration

American society is very like a fish society. . . . Among certain species of fish, the only thing which determines order of dominance is length of time in the fishbowl. The oldest resident picks on the newest resident, and if the newest resident is removed to a new bowl, he, as oldest resident, will pick on the newcomers. - Margaret Mead

Making Criminals Where There Are None

New York City cooperates with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as part of what's called the Criminal Alien Program. But CAP does not focus on immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes and who have thus demonstrated that they do not belong here. In 2009, 57% of the immigrants deported under CAP had no criminal convictions. Under the more recent Secure Communities program, the number of noncriminal deportations is even higher. For example, in Jefferson Parish, La., 71% of those deported through Secure Communities were noncriminals.

Gee, I feel safer.

You can read the full story here.

Huffington Post Article Properly Blames Both Parties for Immigration Atrocities

Jorge-Mario Cabrera points out in the Huffington Post, that the immigrant community is growing tired of politicians and their empty promises.  He is particularly upset with Barack Obama and the once Democrat-controlled legislature for not doing anything they promised, when they had the chance. 

While there were a few well-meaning efforts to address immigration reform in the House and Senate under Democratic leadership, no progress was made. Outside Washington, DC, between President Obama's first day in office and the end of June 2011, one million immigrants and families have been detained, deported, or fired from their place of work. In addition, the well-oiled enforcement machine led by ICE in collaboration with local police departments under the rubric of the wrongly-named "Secure Communities," I-9 audits, and 287(g) agreements, just to name a few, is running full speed ahead.

Mr. Cabrera then goes on to blame both sides, and rightly so, by saying:

But President Obama, Republicans and Democrats should recognize that we have danced together quite a lot during the past two years and a half and our feet are getting tired. Not tired enough to stop our fight for justice and changes in immigration laws so that they accurately reflect our nation's compassion, values, and interest.

And he's right.  The immoral, rights-violating laws that make up current US immigration policy do not reflect the values of this once-great, nearly capitalist nation.  Instead, they reflect the awful values of statist regimes of the past and present.  America needs a government that respects and protects individual rights, including the property rights of business owners.  America needs capitalism.

Xenophobia in America

This Santa Barbara Independent article by Alberto Pizano is interesting.  He makes some great points, such as:

The rise of right-wing extremist sentiments in the United States is a highly disturbing development, and the advocacy of extremist themes by some prominent mainstream conservatives makes one wonder if a dangerous element has crept into America’s political arena.

There is very little room for anyone to argue against the need for immigration reform in the United States. It is sorely needed. But to blame illegal immigrants for the problems that face the nation is a gross deviation from rationality.

Instead of seeking to live harmoniously with each other and to fully utilize the human resources we have been dealt, there are individuals and groups in the United States, especially political candidates, who have seized on the illegal immigration issue as a means of exploiting the fears, and gaining the vote, of a disgruntled and depressed electorate, by suggesting that the mass exportation of illegal immigrants (Latinos) is the solution to our problems.

That being said, it seems he is not a capitalist and has an axe to grind with the Caucasians that settled America: 

Illegal immigrants do not run Wall Street, banks, or the real estate industry and neither are they responsible for the fluctuations (crashes/ recessions) of the American free-enterprise system. [I think we're seeing a crash of the welfare state and socialism, not a crash of capitalism.]

The framers also provided for the admission of new states, first thinking of securing access to the Mississippi River; but that was soon not enough. Eventually, under the guise of Manifest Destiny, reaching the Pacific Ocean (at the expense of Native Americans and Mexicans) became the final territorial objective—but only temporarily.  [I don't think the Native Americans or Mexicans were as innocent as he's making them out to be.]

(Emphasis mine.)

Despite the fact that I cannot agree with everything Mr. Pizano says, this article is still worth a look.