Thinking About Mexicans

By Alan Caruba

For some time now friends have been asking me why I haven’t written anything about the Arizona law, amnesty, illegal immigration, and Mexicans.

The problem with trying to see all sides of the problem is that, sooner or later, you have to pick a side. That is what Americans are doing in light of the recent law passed in Arizona; a law that mirrors a federal law that, quite simply, is not being enforced.

What exactly were Arizonans expected to do in light of the fact that their border with Mexico is now a war zone?

A typical bachelor, I pretty much have the same thing for lunch every day, a soft tortilla in which two thin slices of smoked turkey are placed. Thirty seconds in the microwave and about six bites later lunch is over. And every day I look at that damned tortilla and I think about Mexicans.

Not Carlos Slim, one of the richest men in the world, but those poor souls trekking across deserts or sneaking in any way they can because, presumably, Mexico sucks so badly that their only hope is the land of the free and the home of the brave.

There are a number of factors that encourage Mexicans to come here, not the least of which is that their per capita income is about one-third of that in the U.S. Mexico has always had an oligarchy of families that controlled the bulk of the money there and, on top of that, there are the drug lords whose income allows them to corrupt those in government positions and to kill those who oppose them.

President Felipe Calderon has made strides to improve the economy which has largely depended on its national oil company, tourism, and the billions in remittances sent home by those illegally in the United States.

Trade with the U.S. and Canada has tripled since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994 and with forty trade agreements with other nations. There are an estimated 46.1 million in its labor force. Nearly 60% are in the services sector, 25.7% are in industry, and 15.1% are in agriculture. Overall, 18.2% live below the poverty level and, in terms of their personal assets, 47% can be defined as poor.

A growing amount of agricultural harvesting in America is mechanized, but I have heard estimates that up to 80% depend on farm labor to do the hard work of picking produce. The Mexicans who cross the border often seek to make enough to send money back home and return there. Others decide not to return. A simple guest worker program is needed and long overdue. Agriculture is a huge part of our national GDP.

Arizona arrived at its decision to deal with its illegal immigration problem because of a dramatic rise in crime of every description. It did so because the federal government has paid lip service to protecting its and the other 2,000 miles of our southern border. Rasmussen Reports indicate that 59% of those polled support Arizona’s action.

What has myself and many other Americans thinking about Mexicans who are here illegally is as much a question of their attitude as of statistics. These are people whose heroes are not George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or any other American icon. These are people who do not grow up celebrating the Fourth of July. National differences are important and should not be discounted.

Something is very wrong when illegal aliens, Mexicans and others from south of the border, feel empowered to march in the streets of our nation’s cities to demand instant citizenship. They have no right to be in the streets. They have no right to be in America.

Something is very wrong when America makes all manner of accommodation with what is essentially an invasion by millions of people who are here illegally.

The warnings against a bilingual society are based in the reality of how this undermines national cohesion. Generations of immigrants, including my own grandparents, learned to speak English. The provision of all manner of free social services costs taxpayers billions. It has distorted our educational and healthcare systems, and put an extraordinary burden on law enforcement and incarceration.

Americans are not opposed to legal immigration. They are opposed to a federal government that fails to meet its primary obligation to defend our borders and, by doing so, defend our native-born and naturalized citizens.

Politically, the current administration and the Democrat Party want to depict Republicans as racists because they want the Constitution and other applicable laws enforced. We need to see through this deception; a position designed to enhance their political power by luring Hispanics into their party by offering amnesty.

We tried amnesty in the past. It doesn’t just extend to those receiving citizenship for having broken our laws, it invites a new wave of illegal aliens. It is an extraordinarily bad idea and this is particularly true when the nation is in the midst of a financial crisis.

So, while I personally harbor no ill will toward Mexicans, I do oppose they’re being here illegally and I resent the resulting costs that must be borne by Americans. The problem is that there are anywhere from twelve to twenty million illegal aliens, including all such people, Hispanic and others, in the nation.

Other nations, including Mexico, have extremely harsh laws regarding illegal aliens. Unless and until the federal government begins to seriously enforce our laws, it puts our lives, our economy, and our nation at risk.

(c) Alan Caruba, 2010

Do You Feel Safer Now?

By Alan Caruba

Now that we have Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security, do you feel safer?

I don’t. Aunt Janet could not manage to say words like “terrorism” or “9/11” in her recent testimony before a congressional committee. If you recall, the whole reason for the reorganization that created the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 was, well, homeland security.
It brought together 22 agencies and some 220,000 federal employees to ensure the nation was not attacked again and, if attacked, could coordinate recovery procedures.

This worked fine under the Republican administration of George W. Bush during which Tom Ridge and Michael Chernoff were in charge of the department, but Democrats and, in particular, those of an extreme Leftist point of view are always ready to embrace our enemies and blame America for any attacks or other threats they pose.

In a new book by Dr. Jamie Glazov, a historian who is managing editor of Frontpagemag.com, “United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror”, the author points out that, “Throughout the twentieth century, the Western Left supported one totalitarian killing machine after another. Prominent intellectuals from George Bernard Shaw to Bertolt Brecht to Susan Sontag venerated mass murderers such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Ho Chi Minh, habitually excusing their atrocities while blaming America, and even the victims for the crimes.”

Today, the Left’s spokespersons include former President Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, and Tom Hayden. And President Barack Hussein Obama who, in the first two months of his new administration has reached out to Palestinians, Syrians, Iranians, and initiated measures to eliminate restrictions on Castro’s Cuba.

Obama was elected for his opposition to the war in Iraq that deposed one of the most vicious despots of our times, Saddam Hussein, and which is demonstrating in its aftermath that democracy has taken root in Iraq. It is no accident that Obama's first television interview was with Al-Arabia or that he is proposing to give nearly a billion dollars to Hamas to "rebuild Gaza."

Will this administration decide not to call Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda or the countless other Islamist groups “terrorists”? Maybe it will begin to call them “tourists”? Granted Obama wants to increase the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, but that is virtually a guarantor of failure and he knows it. British and French generals have recommended returning Afghanistan to the tribes that have always run it. Let them fight the Taliban like they fought the Russians.

During the Clinton years, attacks on American embassies were seen as issues for the Justice Department. That’s why Osama bin Laden was allowed to slip away even when Sudan offered his capture. That’s why, when one agency of the U.S. knew that the 9/11 perpetrators were here illegally, they were not permitted to inform another agency and thus likely undermine their plot. The firewalls that permitted this travesty were put in place by Leftist Clinton appointees.

Lawyers, unlike military or counterterrorism experts, have a very different view of protecting the nation. They believe that the “rights” of terrorists take precedence over the rights of Americans to be protected against them.

This might be why the Village Voice, a very liberal weekly, opposed Aunt Janet when word circulated that she might be appointed to head the Department of National Security. She was scorned for having taken any action to defend Arizona’s border with Mexico. To the Voice, her failure to welcome every illegal Mexican at the border was a sin.

Napolitano is the ultimate political animal, always ready to test which way the wind is blowing, always eager to run to the front of the parade, and now prepared to ensure that the indifferent and dangerous policies of the Obama administration will be reflected in the work of her mega-agency.

As we have seen with the Hurricane Katrina fiasco, probably no U.S. government agency can effectively deal with an act of God, but the National Security Agency should surely be expected to motivate its personnel to remain vigilant against potential threats. They are some very good people who get up each day to protect us. They know who the enemy is, whether it is an al Qaeda operative attempting to sneak into the nation or a Mexican drug smuggler. We owe them our thanks and our respect.

The problem for the rest of us is that Aunt Janet cannot bring herself to use the word “terrorist” or even refer to “9/11”. This is perfectly understandable when the President cannot bring himself to refer to “the war on terrorism.”

Immigration in Reverse

By Alan Caruba

America has an estimated twelve million illegal immigrants and, for an increasing number of them, the downturn in the economy, particularly in the housing construction sector, is even worse for them than for native-born Americans.

An Associated Press report out of San Diego says that “Thousands of Latin American immigrants both legal and illegal are going back home…” Hard hit along with housing construction are the landscaping and restaurant industries.

The reverse immigration out of the nation will hit Mexico hard and officials there are predicting that between 20,000 and 30,000 above the usual number will head home, not just for the holidays, but because there is no work to be found here. They will return to a nation suffering from the increasing carnage of bodies resulting from the wars between the drug cartels.

The hard times are reflected as well in the fact that illegal aliens are sending less money back home. It has been between $25 and $50 billion a year in good times. Many from Latin American nations have come here illegally to support their families and they are not just Mexicans. However, other than Mexico’s oil industry, remittances have represented a significant part of that nation’s economy.

Add to that the estimated $338 billion that illegal aliens cost Americans in terms of welfare, food assistance, education for their children, incarceration for crimes, and the estimated losses in wages to native-born Americans whose jobs they take. There is a long list of ways illegals are a drag on the economy and the taxpayers who maintain it.

Reportedly, the vast majority of Mexican immigrants who have lived here for a few years will stay put because job prospects in Mexico are far worse than here. Then, too, both candidates for president are in favor of extending yet another amnesty. That alone will keep them struggling to remain, despite the overwhelming opposition from native-born Americans.

Americans are learning that there is a price to be paid for not maintaining our borders and those that have crossed them illegally are learning that the “free lunch” they’ve enjoyed so far may be coming to an end.