Immigration
The clarity of many public policy debates gets derailed when the sloppy and imprecise use of words reduces such debates to cliches instead of a substantive discussion of issues. Recent developments in the immigration debate are merely the latest example. The result has been a focus on the wrong issues. More importantly, by having no…
So, what have we learned from the May Day general strike? We learned that there are a whole lot of immigrants–here legally or not–who can take a day off from work or school to attend a rally calling for equal treatment. (Such as, say, freedom of speech or association….) I learned (via a live broadcast…
Do I agree with the President’s guest worker visa program? Yes. Do I favor allowing more immigrants into this country? Again, yes. I believe we’re all immigrants unless we’re Native American, and that would only count for 1/16th of me and about 1/8th of my wife. Probably less for many millions of Americans. However, proponents…
On Wednesday, the US Senate approved $1,900,000,000 in increased funding for border security (breakdown here). Two versions of the bill were proposed. One bill offset the new spending with a 2.8% cut from the Defense Department’s supplemental appropriation, the other bill provided no offset. Senator Lincoln Chafee voted for the additional funding and the offsetting…
Mark Krikorian makes a couple interesting points related to the current illegal immigration debate, which both touch on the “wisdom” of the so-called “elite.” First: …our elite has so completely erased the distinction between citizens and foreigners, devaluing the meaning of Americanness to merely working and paying taxes on American territory, that the illegals (and…
Peggy Noonan digs in and thinks she’s found what is bothering American’s about immigration: There are a variety of things driving American anxiety about illegal immigration and we all know them–economic arguments, the danger of porous borders in the age of terrorism, with anyone able to come in. But there’s another thing. And it’s not…
