Letters page
Staff writer Antonio Sierra exposed himself as an illegal immigration advocate who used intellectually dishonest rhetoric to manipulate Americans into accepting foreign lawlessness in our country. His rant against legal language, citizens and immigration law was meant to shame Americans into a paralysis of self-censorship, but he will fail if we understand the tactics he used.
To elevate illegal invasion to the status of normal immigration, Sierra first tried to commandeer our terminology by convoluting logic. By re-labeling illegal aliens as regular “immigrants,” and using the fact that regular immigrants become citizens, he argued that illegal aliens are also de facto future citizens. Sierra also tried to blur the distinction between legal and illegal entry by calling any reformist legislation “anti-immigrant.” Confused yet? He hopes so.
As with other illegal alien supporters, Sierra dismissed criticism of illegal immigration by stating “No human is illegal” — a slogan that appears at every illegal alien rally. No border enforcer ever claimed that humans were illegal, but that they were sneaking illegally into the U.S. File Sierra’s criticism under “Diversionary Tactics,” and if Sierra ever confronts a burglar in his house, I hope he remembers his own adage that because this human is legally alive, he couldn’t have broken any law.
Lawbreakers typically feel bad or embarrassed when they hear an accurate description of their behavior, but this shouldn’t stop citizens from calling it as it is. If we applied Sierra’s sanitized and manipulative language to other forms of subversion, then drug dealers would be “undocumented pharmacists” and human smugglers would be “irregular tour guides.” It’s bad enough that propagandists are called “journalists.”
Lyneil Vandermolen
Tualatin
I could probably make a career out of trying to add some balance to the immigration views of the East Oregonian, but it’s probably not advisable since they purchase ink by the barrel. However, I have to say something about the Guest Column from Antonio Sierra on Saturday, October 10, 2015.
Antonio summarizes and supports the recent decision by the Associated Press to stop using the term “Illegal immigrant.” Mr. Sierra then extends that logic to the term “alien” or, more specifically, “illegal alien.” The proposed “acceptable” substitute term is “undocumented immigrant.” The AP style book change and every piece that has been written to support it are all attempts to blur the distinction between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants, as if their presence here in relation to the U.S. immigration law shouldn’t matter at all.
Webster’s Dictionary defines “illegal” as “not according to authorized law” or “not sanctioned by official rules.” Black’s Law Dictionary defines “illegal alien” as “an alien who enters a country at the wrong time or place, eludes an examination by officials, obtains entry by fraud, or enters into a sham marriage to evade immigration laws.” Doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination, does it?
By all means, if the term “alien” conjures up images of little green men or spaceships (or even Ray Walston for that matter) then let’s drop it from the definitions used to describe this population. Even though the current immigration statutes of the United States expressly define an “alien” as meaning “any person not a citizen or national of the United States” and there are hundreds of references to “alien” in the statutes, we might as well call them something entirely different simply because the “political correctness police” say that language may be inflammatory.
The point is that these are not terms that have “become increasingly antiquated” as Mr. Sierra contends. As a matter of fact, if we were going to follow the AP’s logic that “human beings can’t be deemed illegal, only the acts they commit” we would have to call that population “undocumented immigrants who are here illegally” in order to be fair to the rest of the population that is here legally. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? I’m sure the AP simply forgot to add that extension to the acceptable alternative description that they proposed for their style book.
Tighten your wallets taxpayers, here comes two hundred thousand Muslim fanatics! How many will this really turn into, three hundred, four hundred thousand, half a million?
I just learned Obama, the worst president in American history and the biggest indebtor to the bankers, is bringing in 15,000 more Muslims from Somalia. What do you suppose that number will turn into? Do you really think that our Muslim president is going to have anyone counting heads?
We fought these nut jobs in Somalia, remember "Black Hawk Down," the book and movie? The only thing larger than the number of unwanted, un-needed, America-hating, third-worlders flooding America is the number of jobs flying out of America.
Have you noticed that the only requirement for mass immigration in to our country is that they be non-white and hateful towards whites and Christians? A word to the wise, get your guns and get your ammo, lots of it, you are being set up.
Sharon Ramirez's letter of Sept. 21 states that since 2000 there has been 33 cases of alleged voter fraud and one of an ineligible alien voting. Sharon, you have proved my point, can any thinking person believe that only one case of illegal alien voting has occurred in the last 15 years? This shows absolutely nothing is being done about this problem and nothing will be done until we have a Republican governor and a Republican controlled state government.
"You know comrades", says Stalin, "that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is important is this — who will count the votes and how." Memoirs of Stalin's former secretary, pub. 1992.
The Statesman Journal has neither corrected nor apologized for the Aug. 28 thumbs down it gave Donald Trump for the Jorge Ramos exchange.
Ramos didn’t ask a question at the Aug. 25 question-and-answer event. He leapt to his feet without being called on and began pontificating with the left’s favorite mantra: “You can’t deport 11 million people.” No question, just declarations from Ramos.
I think the entire exchange was a metaphor for illegal immigration: Ramos broke the rules (like illegals), cut the line/pushed to the head of the line while others waited to be called on and he jumped up and began shouting (expected special treatment). Trump had Ramos (the rule-breaker) removed.
Crowded classrooms. Traffic gridlock. Loss of farmland. Increasingly severe water shortages in the West.
Failing social networks. Bridges and roads in disrepair. Stagnant wages. Decreasing numbers of family-wage jobs.
That’s with the current U.S. population of approximately 321 million. The U.S. Census Bureau now projects that another 103 million immigrants will come to our country over the next 50 years.
That presumably includes the 100,000 Syrian refugees the Obama administration wants to relocate here, among whom will almost certainly be some Islamic State members and/or Islamic State sympathizers.
Will somebody in the “open our borders” crowd please explain to me how that’s going to be good for America?
With the exception of the Native Americans who preceded us, we are a nation of immigrants.
From the first permanent English settlement in North America, founded on the banks of the James River on May 14, 1607, the country grew to 13 colonies that won a revolutionary war against all odds. Our Constitution was adopted in 1789, and the Bill of Rights was added in 1791.
There was little immigration from 1770 to 1830, but legal immigrants swelled to more than 2 million between 1830 and 1850. Between 1850 and 1930, a wave of nearly 25 million legal European immigrants made the long trip to the U.S. Congress changed the nation’s basic policy about immigration in the 1920s, not only limiting the number but also assigning slots according to quotas based on national origins. However, the legislation excluded the Western Hemisphere from the quota system and allowed immigrants to move freely from Mexico, the Caribbean and other parts of Central and South America.
Legal immigration from 1930 was limited so the earlier wave of immigrants and those limited numbers coming thereafter could be adequately assimilated by the country. In 1952, further legislation affirmed the national-origins quota system and limited total annual legal immigration to a little more than 175,000 per year, according to Wikipedia.
While efforts to limit legal immigration were being implemented, the primary labor source for much of the agricultural industry in the United States was coming from Mexico, both legally through the bracero program and illegally. Between 1944 and 1954, the number of people entering the country illegally coming from Mexico increased by 6,000 percent. Efforts to return the people living in the country illegally had limited success because of questions surrounding the ethics and sometimes mistreatment used to force their return, and the program was abandoned, according to Wikipedia.
By the 1980s, concern for the number of people entering the country illegally spurred Ronald Reagan and Congress to pass the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. This act was sold as a crackdown. It gave amnesty to those who had been here since 1982 (estimated to be 5 million), imposed penalties on employers who hire people living in the country illegally and was intended to tighten the border. However, the employer penalties were effectively gutted, and Congress didn’t provide the money for border security. As a result, the act was largely a failure other than to legalize several million people who should not have been here in the first place.
In the succeeding years, neither Congress nor any of the presidents have seen fit to address themselves to the increasing problem of people entering the country illegally and the looming problems they bring.
President Barack Obama, through his overt efforts to fundamentally change the USA, in many cases unconstitutionally, has exacerbated the problem with his recent executive order (blocked by the court but proceeded anyway) shielding those in the country illegally from deportation (upward of 4 million), lack of control of the borders (per Sen. John McCain, 4 million in 2002 alone coming from 75 countries and 120,000 children alone this year), release of people in the country illegally who have criminal convictions (36,007 in 2013 alone) and lack of action against “sanctuary cities” (276 local jurisdictions in 43 states and the District of Columbia have adopted sanctuary policies).
The seeds of our destruction are being sown. Continued uncontrolled immigration is no less than an invasion that will overwhelm our ability to assimilate immigrants and expose us to infiltration by terrorists. Congress has abrogated its responsibility for addressing itself to the immigration problem for far too long.
Democrats haven’t because it seems they are looking for more voters regardless of where they get them, and more recently, Republican leaders, particularly the House Leadership, seem to be more interested in marginalizing their conservative members than taking any effective actions. It has taken a controversial billionaire businessman presidential candidate to bring the issue to the fore. Hopefully his attention to this issue will force appropriate actions to be taken sooner rather than later.
Maybe the most laughable canard bleated out by the open borders crowd is, “To eliminate birthright citizenship you’d have to change the Constitution.” But the statement has no basis in reality.
Birthright citizenship can be eliminated by Congress. The clause the border bleaters cling to is: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States … . But in 1868, when the amendment was adopted, there was no restriction on immigration. It didn’t cover Native Americans until 1924, so citizenship has obviously already been changed legislatively.
Then there are the pesky words, “… subject to the jurisdiction thereof …” Senator Lyman Trumbull, an architect of the amendment, said that meant “not owing allegiance to anybody else.” So it certainly wouldn’t apply to Mexican migrants, who wave Mexican flags on California streets all the time. But the final nail in the open borders folks’ coffin is Section 5, which states: "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
The U.S. and Canada are the only major modern countries in the world who still grant birthright citizenship. It’s way past time to change that.
Robert Bennett
Our grandchildren were born in London. They're American citizens because their parents are American citizens.
They did not get British citizenship or dual-citizenship simply by being born in the United Kingdom. Birthright citizenship doesn't make sense. Babies should take the citizenship of their parents.
The 2016 elections will be here before we know it.
In the meantime, we’ll hear about all the wonderful accomplishments of the candidates and their solutions for correcting everything that’s wrong.
Immigration reform is one of the top issues, with proposals to use guards, fences and walls to close the U.S.-Mexican boarder.
Mexico won’t build, or maybe even help build, a wall or anything else so long as American dollars flow into their country.
Illegal immigrants work here and send their earnings home to their families in Mexico.
If we prohibited the employment of illegal immigrants, wouldn’t that accomplish the same thing a wall or fence would?
The 11 million illegal immigrants who are already here are the result of past failed attempts at immigration control. They’ll have to be dealt with, but there’s no Band-Aid repair.
Wouldn’t it be nice to hear all — or any — of the current presidential candidates say their first priority if elected would be to get members of Congress to work together on developing a workable plan to take care of the existing immigration problem, and then fix, in a humane and moral way, what’s happened in the past?
– Guest columnist Ira Mehlman argues enforcing laws will deter immigrants from entering or staying illegally.
– Columnist Ira Mehlman says the U.S. economy will not collapse without unauthorized immigrants.
The most important thing to recognize when considering the problem of mass illegal immigration is that unauthorized immigrants are rational people who make rational decisions.
For decades, the United States has failed to enforce its immigration laws, and under the current administration the federal government is openly refusing to enforce most of those laws. In addition, an increasing number of state and local governments are bestowing significant benefits and protections on people who violate our nation's immigration laws.
Under the circumstances, we should not be surprised that up to 12 million people are living here illegally. We should probably be surprised that there aren't more.
A second thing to consider is the reason why we have immigration laws in the first place. While immigration always benefits immigrants — they would not be here if it didn't — it often has an adverse impact on large numbers of people in the receiving nation.
Our immigration laws exist to protect vital interests of the American people such as jobs, wages, how tax dollars are spent, access to quality public services and to limit runaway population growth, to name just a few.Dealing with mass illegal immigration requires that we deter as many people as possible from entering or remaining in the United States illegally, coupled with a meaningful threat of enforcement against those who are not deterred.
First and foremost, we need to convince unauthorized immigrants that they are unlikely to find employment in this country. E-Verify, an electronic database that allows employers to verify the employment eligibility of the people they hire, must become mandatory for all employers, and meaningful penalties must be imposed against those caught skirting the requirement.
Faced with a diminishing number of employers prepared to hire them, unauthorized immigrants will likely make rational decisions. Fewer will come here and, over time, many who are here will make the decision to return home.
Despite the dire warnings of business lobbyists and advocates for unauthorized immigrants, our economy would not collapse. Just as our economy adjusted to the presence of large numbers of people working illegally, it will adjust to their absence. The economic output of those workers will not be lost; it will be replaced, likely at higher wages, by some of the 90 million working-age adults in this country who by circumstance or choice are not currently participating in the formal labor market.
Other federal and local incentives to illegal immigration must similarly be terminated. In many places, unauthorized immigrants can receive taxpayer-subsidized college educations (including Florida), drivers licenses, professional licenses and assurances that local governments, including law enforcement, will shield them from identification and removal.
Deterrence must be backed up by the meaningful threat of enforcement. Under policies adopted unilaterally by the Obama administration, 87 percent of unauthorized immigrants in the United States face no credible threat of removal. While it is reasonable to prioritize the removal of criminal aliens (although the administration is even doing a poor job of that), it is self-defeating to assure the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants that laws will not be enforced against them.
Deterrence coupled with the threat of meaningful penalties for violation is the way all civil laws are enforced — whether it is the IRS ensuring tax compliance, or the highway patrol enforcing speed limits. It is fair, it is humane and it is necessary to protect the public interest.
The same strategy can and should be applied to controlling illegal immigration so that our laws can achieve their primary mission: serving the economic, social and security interests of the American people.
Ira Mehlman is media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a nonprofit that promotes stronger border security and stricter immigration limits.
