Personally, whenever I think about the increasing racial diversity of the country at all, it’s usually in the favorable context of better food choices both at grocery stores and in restaurants. The truth is, I don’t really think about racial diversity much at all. Yet, it seems to be an all-consuming preoccupation of a large percentage of the Republican base. The candidates are going across the country trying to talk about jobs, regulations, taxes, and other economic issues. That makes sense since the economy is horrible and people continue to tell pollsters that jobs and the economy are their number one concern. But the candidates keep discovering that Republican voters are obsessed with our southern border (even in New Hampshire).
KEENE, N.H. — Mitt Romney opened his town hall meeting here talking about the economy — his thoughts on growing business, getting government out of the way — just as he does nearly every other campaign event. But when he opened last week’s forum for questions, the first voter he called on didn’t seem concerned about any of that. He wanted to know the Republican presidential candidate’s stance on border security.
A similar scene played out in South Carolina a few days later, when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) attended a town hall meeting she assumed would center on the economy, jobs and the federal deficit — only to see the assembled voters react most passionately to her comments on illegal immigration.
I understand that illegal immigration is unfair to the people who are trying to immigrate legally. At the same time, I also understand that illegal immigrants are moving here because there is a legitimate demand for their labor. We could improve the situation by providing a lot more legal openings for people to immigrate from Mexico and Central America. The thing is, what’s bothering the base of the Republican Party is not really that these folks are breaking our immigration laws. What’s bothering them is that they’re not white and English isn’t their first language.
The result is that, once again, conservatives come up with positions that can’t be satisfied because they involve magical thinking. Whether it’s Bachmann’s plan to fence “every mile, every yard, every foot, every inch” of the southern border, or it’s Romney’s plan to crack down on employers who hire undocumented workers, no Republicans are willing to address the demand for their labor. Who is going to harvest the fruit in this country if not Mexicans, Guatemalans, etc.? If you won’t let them come here legally, and you’re successful in barring their entry into the country, you’re going to have a problem.
“After enacting House Bill 87, a law designed to drive illegal immigrants out of Georgia, state officials appear shocked to discover that HB 87 is, well, driving a lot of illegal immigrants out of Georgia.
It might be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Thanks to the resulting labor shortage, Georgia farmers have been forced to leave millions of dollars’ worth of blueberries, onions, melons and other crops unharvested and rotting in the fields. It has also put state officials into something of a panic at the damage they’ve done to Georgia’s largest industry.
Barely a month ago, you might recall, Gov. Nathan Deal welcomed the TV cameras into his office as he proudly signed HB 87 into law. Two weeks later, with farmers howling, a scrambling Deal ordered a hasty investigation into the impact of the law he had just signed, as if all this had come as quite a surprise to him.
The results of that investigation have now been released. According to survey of 230 Georgia farmers conducted by Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, farmers expect to need more than 11,000 workers at some point over the rest of the season, a number that probably underestimates the real need, since not every farmer in the state responded to the survey.
In response, Deal proposes that farmers try to hire the 2,000 unemployed criminal probationers estimated to live in southwest Georgia. Somehow, I suspect that would not be a partnership made in heaven for either party.
You either need to accept that the country isn’t going to retain the same racial dynamics as in the past or you need to convince a ton of white people to immigrate from Europe to take back-breaking jobs in our fields.
How many undocumented workers do you think would not prefer to be documented? If people didn’t let race get in the way of sane policy, we wouldn’t have any people working here illegally because they would have been invited in. Of course, if you invited them in, you’d have to pay them more. That’s another reason the GOP’s top donors don’t want a sane immigration policy anymore than their racist base.
A fine example of a rather famous early 70s prediction, is it not?
Exactly.
Illegal immigration hurts the country in many ways that have nothing to do with the race of the immigrants. Illegal immigrants lower wages for entry level jobs. They lower the quality of public schools due to the effort that must be put into teaching them in their own language (this is a huge industry in California, and a big drain on our school budgets). They tend to be poor and undereducated, and bring along the problems associated with these factors such as health problems and increased crime rates. Does our economy really need illegal immigrants to function? I hope not, because, aside from the above negatives, it is immoral for us to exploit what is essentially slave labor. I agree with Romney (gack! That was hard to write!) that we need to go after employers of illegal immigrants. Perhaps many repubs are racist. But you don’t have to be a racist to be against illegal immigration.
The point of my Georgia example is that you can’t fix this problem by scaring away the undocumented workers because that just results in food rotting in the fields. If you tell the Georgia farmers they can’t hire the undocumented, then their food goes to waste.
It took all of two weeks for reality to punch the GOP in the face.
They are here because we need them here. Romney says we can turn off the magnet. Sure, Georgia turned off the magnet. How’d that work out?
It’s magical thinking.
The part of the equation that you’ve left unsaid is that our food prices are kept artificially low by the hiring of undocumented workers.
The other option to fruit rotting in the field is to hire American / documented workers to harvest the fruit – but at that point you’re letting market forces dictate prices and wages. And nobody wants to pay $7 for a can of peaches or $5 for a pear.
So the all-powerful market at whose altar the conservatives usually kneel is really the reason that undocumented workers are here in the first place. Our agricultural economy is literally built on the backs of their hard work.
Correct.
And tell me this. If you could work at Wendy’s for minimum wage or work in the hot summer sun picking lettuce for minimum wage, which would you choose?
In order to attract sufficient legal workers, you have to actually pay more than minimum wage.
This would cause substantial inflation in food costs.
If both of those jobs paid minimum wage, people who made minimum wage wouldn’t even be able to afford eating at Wendy’s.
How much food inflation would it really cause? Or would the CEO and his cronies have to take a haircut pay wise?
get the numbers right please!
the hyperbole about how high food prices would be if workers were fairly paid is ridiculous.
If a pear costs $1 today, how much of that do you think goes to the field workers? I’m going to guess 10%. It can’t be much more than that considering the farmer’s other costs, his own profit, and the profits of the shipper and the supermarket. So with field workers getting maybe $5/hr their share is a dime a pear. So if they got $50/hr they’d get $1/pear and the cost would be $1.90, not $5.
Well, the hyperbole was intentional. I thought I picked numbers ridiculous enough that nobody could possibly take them seriously, but I guess I missed the mark.
Also, too, I’d like to point out the irony of imploring someone to get the numbers right and then using the phrase I’m going to guess as part of your own analysis. By your numbers, a field worker only picks 50 pears an hour.
Yes, we need them; it is clear, unfortunately , that we do. One of your other points was that repugs are racist because they are against illegals. That point is what I was objecting to. Maybe they are racist, but that isn’t proven by their being against illegal immigration.
The more difficult point which no one wants to address is how to make an economy that doesn’t run as an apartheid system. Will farmers/hotels/restaurants go out of business if they can’t hire people for slave wages? I don’t think they will, but it may be painful to get there.
Have you been to New Hampshire? If you’re living in New Hampshire and you’re number one issue is building a fence along the southern border, you might be a tad obsessed with the racial makeup of the country.
Maybe they read the paper and are worried about an issue of national importance.
I think you’ve got the causality backwards.
Their anti-immigration stance is driven by their racism. If they weren’t racist then a whole bunch of options – like opening up the borders for more legal immigrants – would be something they’d advocate for. It would be a free market way of doing things, after all, if you just opened up the borders and let whoever wanted to compete for the jobs take the jobs. They don’t do that though. Instead they advocate for building a fence to keep the brown people out (notice that the guy in New Hampshire isn’t pushing for a border fence with Canada).
And of course the whole “illegal” immigration scam is something that the large corporate farms love. Because by having these “illegal” workers they can pay sub-par wages with few benefits and have workers who are scared to death they’ll get discovered and deported. Sure occasionally the big farms have to pay a fine – but the amount they save more than compensates for the pitiful slap on the wrist fines that they get for employing undocumented workers.
So the racism is encouraged by the rich overlords because it fills their pockets. Imagine that! Why, I can’t believe that rich guys would use racism as a tool to control poor and middle-class white people! The very idea!
I would not necessarily advocate for increased levels of immigration for poor undereducated workers, no matter their race, for reasons I outlined in my first post. Does that make me a racist? I don’t think so.
I agree that the system is largely driven by the drive for corporate profit.
No, not necessarily, but it makes you an American Exceptionalist and a nationalist. Perhaps you don’t have a problem with that, but I do. It is ridiculous to favor a certain type of people because of imaginary drawn lines.
More legal low-skilled immigration would be a good thing, especially for an economy that desperately needs demand. Further, we should allow foreign doctors and lawyers to practice here, but professionals love that protectionist attitude. Free movement of people is a win-win.
OK, I guess I’m a nationalist in the rather weak sense that I think the US should be able to have some control over who comes here to live. Since I’m Canadian (green card) I guess that makes me a Canadian US nationalist, or something.
How can you be against immigration reform when you were lucky enough to be awarded a green card?
I guess I don’t feel that the US should be responsible for correcting the many woes of Mexico’s corrupt system by allowing free immigration. If we want to make it the 51’st state, I guess we could do that but I don’t think many in Mexico would like it. Doesn’t mean I’m not for some reforms of the US immigration system. But a pure amnesty is a bad idea — tried in the 80’s. At least we have to go after employers who break the law .
You, like my Canadian dad, got your green card in large part because you came from a country that is majority white and wealthy. Sorry, but it’s true.
Go down to Mexico and try entering the US as a Mexican national. Tell us how that works out for you.
Why does this argument sound so damn familiar? Oh that’s right. It’s the argument white folks have used for decades to oppose integration and busing OF AFRICAN AMERICANS INTO WHITE SUBURBAN COMMUNITIES.
You are right, some of my above arguments did, and still do, apply to busing. In the case made for busing, one argument is that the negatives for the involved schools is outweighed by the positives for the groups that were/are suffering discrimination. What are the positives in the case of turning a blind eye to illegal immigration? Cheap lettuce? Reduction of population pressure in Mexico?
This is all right wing framing. Illegal immigrants in California have not done anything negative to the public schools, really – it’s the chronic defunding of those schools that is the real problem, and it’s more of a problem in predominently hispanic communities because those communities have less money to offer up in property taxes to make up for the massive state shortfall.
Countries like Canada, Switzerland, The Netherlands kick our ass in school despite having multi-lingual populations. Multi-lingualism is not a problem. It’s actually a good thing. You just have to be willing to spend the proper amount of money on your schools.
As for being “poor and undereducated” – er, schools are supposed to educate children. That is what they do. Whether they are “poor” or not is nobody’s business.
This is what happens when Dems can’t construct a coherent narrative for our economic situation: scared voters try to figure it out themselves and it usually involves blaming dark-skinned people. The GOP very cleverly capitalizes on this, but also feeds it. Their strategy is based on a much more realistic understanding of human nature: our innate tendency to label certain groups of people “the other” and blame them for society’s problems.
And lest Dems smugly think that this strategy scares off more Latino voters than it gains in scared old white dudes, get ready for Vice President Rubio. The Latino vote won’t swing heavily to the GOP nominee, but with Rubio on the ticket, unemployment high, and Obama’s continued failure to make any meaningful progress on immigration means that key voter bloc will stay home like they did in 2010.
I think this highlights another key area where Progressives get so frustrated with Obama. Obama likes to paint us as ideological purists, but with a few exceptions that’s a straw man argument- the differences are almost entirely with Obama’s politics, or rather his lack thereof. From the cheap seats of most progressive political observers, its really hard not to conclude that Obama’s just lousy at politics.
I hear this argument alot that with Rubio on the ticket it somehow changes the dynamics with regards to Hispanic voters and GOP/Dem voting patterns.
I can undestand an argument about Hispanics not voting in larger numbers for Dems because of some notion that not enough has been done in terms of immigration reform by any party, but anyone who uses this argument that Hispanics on bloc will vote GOP or abstain from voting because a Hispanic in on the ticket, either doesn’t really understand that it’s the dynamics within the Hispanic community in itself if complicated. It’s one of the reasons, IMHO, that trying to predict Hispanic voting patterns is more nuanced than just “Hispance vote for Hispanics”.
I have a friend who is Mexican American, and another friend who is Puerto Rican, and I asked them both would it matter to them if having an “Hispanic nominee say a Cuban on a ticket” would it make them more
likely to vote for that ticket. They both said no.
I think that so many people like to group “Hispanics” together as one “nationality” like what is done with African Americans, but what doesn’t seem to be taken into account, is that a large number of African
Americans, such as myself, can trace their family history in America back to slavery. For many AA, beyond genealogy studies (which can be damn expensive), the vast majority of us ONLY know of America as our “nationality” (this of course excludes people born of African immigrants, who by nature of being born to an immigrants can trace their history beyond America’s shores). IMHO, this is why AA voters while not a monolith, tend to voter in similar patterns to one another because we have “shared experiences” with other AA. Hispanics are not as easy to group together as some might think.
The Hispanic population in America is comprised of many different countries/nationalities. Do not make the mistake of calling someone who is Dominican a Mexican, or calling someone from Puerto Rico a Cuban,
for every South American country there is, there is just as likely an Hispanic demographic that is represented, so Hispanic to me is just a catch all used by people who either don’t care or wants to ignore the real nuances that are within the Hispanic community.
All that is to say, that just because there is a “Cuban” on the GOP ticket, doesn’t mean that a Dominican or a Puerto Rican or Costa Rican voter will vote for them.
Rubio wouldn’t be on the ticket to win any state BUT Florida. He doesn’t need votes from the entire Latino diaspora, just in Florida. He won 55% of the Latino vote in Florida. President Obama is highly unlikely to win Ohio again, so…so goes Florida, so goes the election.
Racial and cultural pride mean a great deal more to Latinos than party loyalty. They may be toiling In vegetable fields, but they are not on the Democratic plantation.
We don’t yet know who the Republican nominee will be, but we know with 100% certainty who the VP nominee will be.
I’m not ignorant of the nuances inherent in the terms “latino” or “hispanic” and of course there’s incredible differences, on a micro level between how various ethnic groups vote in different parts of the country, But the macro level is instructive as well: will those voting blocs vote like they did in 2008 or 2010? And given the electoral college, the Florida vote and how Rubio affects how Cubans vote could be all that matters.
And of course I wasn’t implying that latino voters are so simple as to just check a box for the dude with the latin last name- but voters are subject to cross-pressures that cut across how they would be “expected” to vote based on baseline indicators like ethnicity and income level. Maybe Rubio on ticket + enhanced voting restrictions put in place by GOP governors = democratic voter who doesn’t vote.
Is your position that Rubio on the ticket will have no effect on how latinos vote? Is your position that Rubio on the ticket is a net negative for the GOP getting latino votes? That it hurts their chances in Florida?
Do you mean progressives like Booman who argued right here on his own damn blog that Democrats pushing immigration reform wasn’t politically smart during an election year? I should know because I was one of the few that didn’t co-sign his opinion. Other than Kos, I challenge you to cite an aggressive push for immigration reform before the midterms on any liberal blog or by any progressive group other than Latino groups! Kos’ front page diaries garnered scant support by his own members. Democrats left, center and right ran like hell from immigration reform, but you will ignore that FACT to blame Obama for collective cowardice. Booman readily admitted his position was progressively incorrect, but it was an honest political assessment. Fuck your liberal revisionist bull shit!
Ouch. I was referring to Kos and I think other progressive blogs were pushing Dream Act stuff. Kos is a big part of the progressive blogosphere, probably unfairly so, but there it is. And I’m not saying this is an easy situation, or that there are easy solutions to these political challenges- just saying the obvious that Obama hasn’t figured them out yet.
I don’t wanna hear shyt about how the POTUS should be afraid of ‘ Vice-President’ Nominee Rubio.
You mean Senator ANCHOR BABY RUBIO?
Anchor Baby Rubio who won’t even lead the charge for the DREAM ACT/IMMIGRATION in the Senate?
Anchor Baby Rubio who doesn’t even have an IMMIGRATION SECTION on his website?
W-T-F?
THAT would be like, during the 1960’s, having a Black man in the U.S. Senate, during the time of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, and having said Black Senator say..
as RUBIO has said about the DREAM ACT…
THIS DOESN’T INVOLVE ME
I, and countless other Black folk would respond,
Nigger, what the fuck are you talking about?
BUT, from the Latino organizations on Anchor Baby Rubio?
FUCKING CRICKETS.
THE DEMOCRATS aren’t the one who nixed the DREAM ACT AND IMMIGRATION REFORM when Shrub wanted to do it.
THE DEMOCRATS aren’t the ones, creating, in state after state the
WHAT ABOUT IF YOU AIN’T WHITE, DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND LAWS.
and, if the Latinos choose to vote for the GOP after all of this….
then, they get what they get.
Pretty much. The idea that Latinos will just automatically support Rubio en masse if he’s on the ticket strikes me as the same argument that Obama’s 90%+ support among blacks is primarily due to his blackness. It’s just silly, and wrong. Race is icing on the cake, in terms of voter enthusiasm; it’s the issues that matter.
Also, any fear I had of Rubio vanished recently after his SS/Medicare “weakness” comments. Just mind-boggling. The guy doesn’t have much of a shelf life IMO.
I was trying to find something that says how the law is shaking out in Georgia a few months later. Haven’t found anything, and I really want to.
Anyhow, a fence on the border really WOULD affect immigration. For one thing, it would slow down people crossing there giving more time for border patrol to go there. Whether that’s good or bad is not something I’m saying. Another thing is that if it’s maintained, fences can be used to make it less likely that people will cross in truly desolate areas where they are just as likely to die in the desert.
Not even Perry is as crazy as you are.
I’m not crazy and I would appreciate a retraction.
What actually happened was the article I’d read was a while ago and I screwed up memory of it.
The fences channel traffic, but because people don’t live in the shitty parts, they fence the nice parts channeling immigrants into the shitty parts where they are more likely to die. That’s bad. They also cost a lot of money. That’s bad. They are difficult to upkeep. That’s bad. They cross lots of different people’s lands. That’s bad.
All of which makes fences a bad idea.
But factually they ARE a deterrent. Where there are fences they reduce border crossings because they enable border patrol to get there more quickly. There is a question of how many resources that could take. So there we go, clarified and corrected!
I am a Latino who doesn’t actually give a fuck about immigration policy, but I am fascinated by the Drug War in Mexico so there’s some overlap in the stuff I read.
The best way to slow down “illegal immigration” is to improve Mexico’s economy, end the Drug War, and make it easier to come here legally. All of those things go hand in hand.
Moreover, immigration could be a conduit for how we’re going to improve the country as a whole in the future, and we need to make it easier. Japan is going to be in some tough shit due to their ageing population coincided with an extremely strict immigration policy. China’s demographic problems aren’t looking good, and Europe/Russia are the same.
Immigrants bring vibrancy, fresh ideas, and diversity is always a good thing. Bringing the undocumented workers out of the shadows will have untold benefits, especially relating to crime and the defacto slave labor they provide.
One of the few times it’s worth citing Reason:
http://reason.com/assets/db/07cf533ddb1d06350cf1ddb5942ef5ad.jpg
Also, it’s very troubling to me that we have so many Democrats against immigration. This isn’t just a GOP problem, Booman. Unions are especially hostile to competing with immigrant workers.
Could you clarify this? I read that as unions being opposed to un-unionized illegal immigrant labor which can drive wages downward and unfairly compete for jobs.
I’m assuming that legal immigrants are as open to joining a union as native-born Americans. Maybe I’ve confused what you’re saying.
I’m a child of legal immigrants. My parents filed tedious paperwork to sponsor their extended family for immigrant visas. They then housed and supported those family members upon their arrival in the US.
I support the DREAM act and a path to citizenship for the illegal immigrants that have settled and started families here. They, quite obviously, provide value to our economy and social fabric. However, there are some costs and issues that can’t be ignored.
I feel bad for Latino and Hispanic friends who’ve been the victims of hatred and ignorance. There are some who just consider all Latinos to be Mexicans and illegals. No distinction. And even if they were illegal, no room for compassion.
It’s been my experience that a lot of white union workers in the Rust Belt are opposed to both legal and illegal immigration, as they think we should focus on “Americans first.”
Now the official policies of the organizations have gotten MUCH much better since the late 80’s and 90’s. In fact, most of the labor unions were opposed to Georgia’s bullshit law. But you can still see a populist fringe that is opposed to immigration that’s still left over from before that period. They would rather deport these people than look for ways to bring them out of the dark.
what they say: the border isn’t secure!!!!111!!
what they aren’t saying: there are still obvious immigrants in my sight, round ’em up and if they end up being citizens………well that can be figured out later
Also, too, Obama has increased deportation levels over his predecessor so that allows the debate to shift even further to the right on the GOP’s terms. I’m aware of recent memos but I’ll believe there’s a reprieve when there’s evidence beyond a press release.