Letters page
The political insanity is destroying our country. Our politicians are failing to do what is right to maintain a strong country.
They fail to establish English as our official language, which is becoming a bigger nightmare every day. They fail to seal our borders. They keep talking amnesty for these illegal immigrants who are flooding our schools with their numerous offspring, many of whom don’t speak English and overcrowd our classrooms.
We are no longer noted as a country with a top quality educational system, which is vital for our survival.
The general public also helps to feed this nightmare when they hire illegal immigrants to paint, roof, build or maintain their yards. The thought might be that the cheap labor is a good deal, but we must remember that most of these folks are paying little or no taxes and that a lot of their needs are being subsidized with our tax dollars.
While we hope to leave our country in better shape for our children, I now pray that we don’t leave them a total disaster.
Jim Elvin
Salem
Kudos to Callie Vandewiele for her comments regarding the Coke ad that aired during the 2014 Super Bowl (Feb. 4 Outlook). I would like to add to her well-done article.
I support immigration, just not illegal immigrants. When the ad started, I stopped eating my popcorn and thought, “What the ...” and then as the ad continued, I went, “Wow, what a creative way to acknowledge who America is.”
We are all of those people in the ad and are citizens of the greatest country on earth.
My view is that people who are here illegally do not love this country enough to find a way to become legalized citizens, and therefore are undermining our country. Coke is spot on with its intent and did a great job expressing it. Wish there was a way for them to express the difference between legal and illegal immigrants.
Kathleen Overton, Gresham
This is not swearing. A leak in a dam can be referred to as a dam leak!
Our Mirror Pond problem is like our problem with illegal immigration. Both problems involve a two-step solution: (1) stop the leaks and (2) develop a comprehensive plan.
Regarding illegal immigration, our government has been struggling with a comprehensive plan for four decades while failing to take step 1, secure the “leaky” border. As a consequence of trying to take step 2 first, we have spent billions of dollars, we have millions of illegals, and we have no comprehensive plan yet — after 40 years.
Regarding Mirror Pond, we are also approaching the problem backwards, step 2 before step 1. As a consequence, we have had six months of unsightly mud and stink and no hope for a comprehensive plan in the immediate future. How about taking step 1 first? Fix the dam leak and restore Mirror Pond to its original beauty. Then let the various commissions, boards and other bureaucrats squabble over the alternatives and come up with a “comprehensive” plan that the voters can approve (or disapprove). Maybe they can come up with something better in less than 40 years — but don’t count on it. So how do we accomplish step 1? Get two or three bids to “plug the hole” and pick the best one. Split the nominal costs among the city, the park district, and the power company, and get on with it. This is not brain surgery.
Fix the dam leak!
Philip Peoples
Bend
Some are denigrating the referendum on Senate Bill 833 as a minor patch on a bigger problem, illegal immigration....
In Oregon, bills have been introduced in the Legislatures to implement E-Verify here, and Oregonians for Immigration Reform has worked to promote them.
Meantime, citizens are fortunate to have the opportunity to vote down SB833, a harmful bill that would encourage and accommodate illegal immigration.
Regarding the commentary "Encouraging economic innovation" (Jan. 26):
Laura J. Mazel argues in favor of granting driver cards to immigrants on the basis that they "power innovation," are "Nobel laureates," are "business owners" and are "some of our brightest minds."...
The driver card issue is not about those who enter our country legally but rather about those 12 million people who have crossed our borders illegally, mocking our autonomy, our laws and the very principle of equity upon which our nation is founded....
Promoting lawlessness in any guise is not the solution to our illegal immigration problem; consistently enforcing our laws is.
On Jan. 1, a number of laws took effect that the Oregon Legislature passed in 2013. Thanks to the signatures of 58,000-plus Oregonians, however, the law granting driver cards to illegal immigrants was suspended and referred to the November 2014 ballot....
The Oregonian has styled driver cards a matter of "personal freedom" for illegal immigrants. But Oregonians should commit to a different freedom: that of their economically vulnerable fellow citizens to find work without having to compete with people who have broken into our nation. To that end, in November they should reject illegal-immigrant driver cards....
Does the immigration status of a criminal defendant matter? Of course it does. It's only human for citizens to resent the criminal acts of illegal immigrants more than the criminal acts of legal residents....
In the case of the accident in which two little girls in Forest Grove lost their lives, the sorrow for them is more because citizens are aware that if we had true enforcement of the immigration laws, the culprit would not have entered this country illegally and two little girls would probably still be alive....
In this context, it is not surprising to read bitter comments following articles such as those recently published in the Forest Grove Leader. Legislators and presidents past and present have grievously short-changed citizens on immigration law enforcement.
Elizabeth Van Staaveren
McMinnville
Will House Republicans Follow the Money or Their Consciences on Immigration in 2014?
“Follow the money.” It’s still the surest way to trace the roots of a political disaster: Watergate, the S&L crisis, the mortgage meltdown, Obamacare, and just about every other avoidable mess that has shaken this nation over the past half century.
It will also be the surest way to trace the next political disaster if John Boehner and his inner circle of House Republican leaders decide to force through a package of immigration bills that include amnesty for illegal aliens, and massive increases in future immigration. The primary reason why Boehner and company might move on immigration in 2014 – perhaps the only reason – is money: lots and lots of it.
Granting amnesty to millions of people who broke our laws, who occupy millions of jobs in our economy, and who (along with their U.S.-born kids) consume billions of dollars in public resources, fails every test of good public policy, not to mention basic common sense. Vastly expanding access to new foreign workers at a time when more than 20 million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed, and millions more find themselves downwardly mobile, would pound the final nail in the coffin of our once robust middle class.
Nevertheless, that sort of immigration “reform” is exactly what business interests in the United States are demanding, and they are prepared to spend huge sums of money to get it. Having invested heavily in winning approval by the Senate for S.744, the so-called Gang of Eight bill, these interests are likely to spare no expense to get the House to follow suit.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a $136 million a year lobbying juggernaut in Washington, has placed immigration at the top of its legislative wish-list. The Chamber’s lobbying effort is being spearheaded personally by the group’s president Thomas Donohue. Achieving this goal, said the New York Times, would be “the capstone to his long career.”
The collective fire power of the business lobby is aimed directly at Republican lawmakers in the House. Asserting de facto ownership of the party, the Chamber’s “mantra,” according to its chief political strategist Scott Reed, is “No fools on our ticket.” [Emphasis added.]
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Chamber has set aside $50 million to “impose discipline” on Republicans who are not towing the Chamber’s line. Among the policy areas where the Chamber intends to impose discipline is in furtherance of their effort to “push ahead on at least incremental overhauls of the immigration system.” Given the resources of the Chamber, and the priority they are placing on amnesty and greater access to foreign workers, it is reasonable to assume that additional money could be forthcoming if it was deemed necessary to push their immigration agenda over the finish line.
The Chamber’s $50 million budget to steamroll politicians who try to stand in their way could be matched or exceeded by Mark Zuckerberg. Last fall, the Facebook founder announced plans to spend $50 million (his own and other tech titans’) to get an immigration bill through the House. Other billionaires, including George Soros, Rupert Murdoch and Michael Bloomberg, also stand ready to open their wallets.
President Obama and congressional Democrats have already chosen a side in the immigration debate: They’ll take the cash. They also stand ready to reap the votes of millions of future low-wage, government-dependent voters a decade or two down the line. A sizeable number of Senate Republicans have also opted to take the cash (without the prospect of long-term political benefits). More recently, Speaker Boehner indicated where his allegiances lie when he hired Rebecca Tallent, a political strategist for a business lobby group, to be his immigration policy advisor.
Now it is up to the rest of the House Republican caucus to decide if they will follow the money or follow their consciences. In siding with struggling American workers and taxpayers they risk alienating some very big campaign donors. But the alternative is nothing less than acquiescing to the demise of the middle class in America – an avoidable political, social and economic disaster from which this country is unlikely to ever recover.
Democrats are currently crying big crocodile tears about jobless Americans running out of emergency unemployment checks, and they’re accusing Republicans of being cruel monsters for not voting to extend the benefits. Curiously, these same Democrats vote consistently for illegal-alien amnesty, which would immediately loose millions of workers into the legal job market, thereby increasing competition for employment. In fact, all Senate Democrats voted for the deeply flawed immigration-amnesty bill last year.
Notably, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the Senate bill would reduce average wages in America for 12 years, increase unemployment for seven years and reduce per-capita gross national product growth for more than 25 years. The Senate bill also doubles legal immigration at a time when the accumulation of immigration, outsourcing and smart machines have created a jobless economic recovery for Americans. The automated future will require far fewer humans for manufacturing and services.
The pose of Democrats that they are the friends of the American worker is simply not credible , given their open-borders strategy aimed at creating a permanent Democrat majority of big-government voters.
America doesn’t need more imported labor now or anytime soon, owing to the effects of globalization and automation. Washington must get real about the economic realities workers face now and going forward.
BRENDA WALKER
Berkeley, Calif.
The guest viewpoint by Phil Carrasco in the Dec. 7 Register Guard, “Driver’s licenses for immigrants is human rights issue,” carries a seriously misleading title and continues to mislead readers throughout.
The “immigrants” discussed are illegal immigrants. There is a significant difference between immigrants and illegal immigrants. To ignore the difference is to ignore our immigration laws and those who abide by them. To ignore the difference is to disrespect our national boundaries and dissolve our national sovereignty.
It is not a “human right” to immigrate to the United States without reference to the laws of this country. Nor is it a “human right” to work or drive here.
Immigration laws exist in all advanced countries, and for good reason. Their purpose is to protect and benefit first and foremost all the citizens of that country.
Millions of people around the world would like to live in the United States and would move here if they could. The population increases resulting from open borders would overwhelm this country, with disastrous consequences.
Oregon does not need to depend on illegal labor. There are more than enough citizens to do the work, but they rightly expect fair wages and decent working conditions. Employers profit from illegal immigration because they can pay substandard wages and pass on to the public the costs of providing subsidized housing, medical care, schooling and other services that would be unnecessary if adequate wages were paid and working conditions were fair. The cost of illegal immigration to Oregon taxpayers has been conservatively estimated at $1 billion annually.
Oregon’s agricultural economy is said to depend on immigrant labor, but rarely mentioned is the fact that farmers may be having difficulty finding workers because even illegal aliens don’t want to do “that kind of work.” Other developed nations are moving more quickly than we are toward mechanization in agricultural industries. But as long as an illegal workforce is available, there is no motivation to do so.
Carrasco cites a study from the Immigration Policy Center claiming that illegal aliens spend $8.4 billion of their own income in this state every year. If U.S. citizens held the jobs that illegal aliens now hold and received fair wages, these citizens would no doubt spend even more than the $8.4 billion cited. Many of them would be off unemployment and food stamps, and they wouldn’t be likely to send money out of the country in the form of remittances.
It is an injustice to force citizens to compete with illegal aliens for jobs — yet that’s a common problem today in agriculture, construction, hotels, restaurants, landscaping, maintenance and more. Greedy employers abusing U.S. visa systems bring in foreign workers to replace citizens in professional occupations, particularly the so-called high-tech industry. A culture of corruption has arisen with the skirting of fair labor standards.
Most citizens would rather pay a bit more for their food and other goods and know these don’t come from illegal or exploited labor. Most citizens understand that fair wages, good working conditions and respect for law are necessary to maintain our democratic form of government.
Our lawmakers, instead of working to discourage illegal immigration into Oregon, passed Senate Bill 833 last year on the pretext of “road safety.” The bill accommodates illegal aliens (and their employers) by allowing them to obtain state-issued identification in the form of driver privilege cards.
But “road safety” is a red herring to hide the real issue, which is the hiring and employment of illegal aliens — a practice that undermines the rule of law, depresses wages, inflates the population, stresses our already-endangered natural environment, and causes a declining quality of life for all.
Public-spirited volunteers organized a referendum campaign on SB 833, and succeeded with broad support among Oregon voters. It’s highly unusual for a referendum to qualify on the first test of signatures, and this petition did.
In fact, it set the record for the number of individual signature sheets received by the secretary of state’s office.
Citizens concerned about the rule of law and the continued viability of our nation should vote no on Referendum petition 301 in November, and retire SB 833 permanently to the archives of bad legislation.
Cynthia Kendoll is president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform and active in Protect Oregon Driver Licenses, the organization that referred SB 833 to the ballot.
