Just a few examples:
Oregon HIV Housing Task Force
"Today, there are two topics: first we will focus on the Hispanic population, included issues specific to undocumented persons and farm workers in Oregon."
"There is currently a housing waiting list: There are about 100-150 people on the list for Phase 1 units. The list for Phase 2 is shorter but the housing is specifically set-aside for persons who are have a Social Security number. Phase 1 units do not require a SS number and specifically serve undocumented Hispanics. "
These housing units "specifically serve undocumented Hispanics." I am positive that legal action could be taken against the state on multiple grounds over this action.
Migrant Million Housing Program
The 1999 Oregon Legislative Assembly allocated $1 million through SB 5511 to the Emergency Board "for migrant housing" charging Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) with administering this "Migrant Million."
I can think of better uses for a million dollars.
MIGRANT CLINICS IN OREGON
This is the list of clinics that Alberto Moreno, Migrant Health Coordinator for the state of Oregon, sent me for my [imaginary] illegal alien friend who needed free health care. Some of these clinics are taxpayer funded.
Letter to Ways and Means Human Services Subcommittee
Question: What are the citizenship requirements for Citizen/Alien-Waived Emergent Medical (CAWEM) benefits and OHP Standard?
Response: ...a noncitizen may not have any legal status (undocumented) with USCIS but may still be eligible for the CAWEM benefit.
"May still be eligible?"
Disclosing SSN and Citizenship Status
Example: Mom comes in to apply for food stamps for self and her three children. Mom lists the three children on the application as the people she is applying to receive benefits for. She lists herself as another person in the HH, and does not want benefits for herself. There are a few reasons Mom might not want benefits for herself; one might be that she is an ineligible non-citizen, and does not want to disclose her status, and does not have a valid SSN.
There does not seem to be the same urgent rush to fix this legal loophole like the jihad to stop the "gun show" loophole.
Statement of Governor Kulongoski
We are Americans not due to our birth or immigration status, but rather because we choose to accept the concepts upon which the country is founded.
No Mr. Kulongoski, to be an American you must be born here or have completed legal immigration and citizenship classes. "Accepting concepts" does not make you a citizen. Of course, if this were the standard, many of the illegal aliens still wouldn't qualify as they don't have any respect for America and would prefer to fly the Mexican flag. (pictured below)
21 comments:
"We are Americans not due to our birth or immigration status" .....un-freakin-believable...
how a lunatic like this can become governor is hard to fathom.
Shouldnt the worm in that picture be the American Flag?
I try really, really hard not to hate people, but the people involved in this wanton disregard for the laws of our great nation regarding immigration are coming dangerously close to making me hate a bunch of people.
Daniel and all immigrant "haters"...er...Americans. This article, no doubt from your favorite newspaper, points out a reality that in all of your rantings here, no one seems willing to confront. First we have a demographic reality of an aging native-born population (i.e. baby boomers) who are about to retire and put a huge draw on social security. Two features of the off-spring of the baby boomers exacerbate the problem: they are well educated and they have low fertility rates. An American economy large enough to support the aging baby-boomers cannot exist without foreign-born labor (documented or otherwise). Add to this your apparent unwillingness to confront the form of hyper-capitalism presently in fashion, by which an elite business class, yes, fellow Americans, are selling your country right out from under you. There's little doubt that NAFTA has fueled illegal immigration from Mexico. Yet, from the right, I heard little in opposition to CAFTA as that one quietly passed. How many letters did you send to your Congressmen in response to CAFTA? I know it's more fun to have these cutesy little bitch sessions that demean Mexicans, but if you want to talk seriously about the problem, you should go to the source: the federal government and the business lobby.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-latino25sep25,1,6749414.story
I should add onto that, blaming the illegal immigration "problem" on liberals and Mexicans -- though neither presently wield much power in this country seems to me an instance that your beloved gunslinger of a talk show host, Lars Larson, calls "rearranging the deck furniture". You might want to stop that. This country's in trouble. Merely kicking out all undocumented immigrants and silencing all liberals won't change that fact.
Anonymous #1, since he was a judge at one point you would think he would have some understanding of the law.
Gunslinger, criminals deserve our contempt.
Anonymous #2, CAFTA "passed quietly?" You've got to be kidding. Bush had to throw his full weight behind it and even then it barely passed.
I certainly don't have anger just toward the liberals on this issue, Bush is a HUGE part of the problem and the Republican party seems to want to go along with him. I CAN however feel anger towards the CRIMINALS as they CHOSE to break the law. (They do still have free will right?)
And kicking out all the illegals is EXACTLY what we should do.
We are not demeaning Mexicans, just criminals who violate our laws.
Hey Neighbor...
DANEgerus in Sherwood
http://www.danegerus.com/weblog/
Linked and blogrolled ya...
Daniel -- using capital letters is not effective argumentative device. My frustration with this issue is that little constructive debate takes place in the media or otherwise. It's all the typical theater of the salacious, as is the tired old rhetoric of this blog. If Bush grants amnesty to the undocumented, your argument, based completely on your revulsion of their "criminal" status, goes right down the toilet, because all of a sudden, they would be legal. Let's not deceive ourselves, however, since, as with IRCA passed by Reagan in 86, immigration pressures would persist. Moreover, our national debt, committments to Iraq and the gulf coast, make it seem highly unlikely that the resources exist to round up all of the undocumented and send them home. Wait "Bill Mexico!" right? So that they can default on another IMF loan? Where do you think the IMF gets its money? From private banks, aka, the same business class that profits from low-wage immigrant labor.
In my humble opinion, Americans should take a more active role in debating the country's role in the global economy. Mass migrations of peoples take place within this context, and failing to realize this is short-sighted. But, blog on.....
There is one thing that would make me like illegal immigrants: sales tax in Oregon.
How do banks profit from low-wage immigrant labor? Do we have immigrant bankers now? I haven't seen any lately, nor would I want them handling my personal information.
If we make it near impossible for them to do anything in this country without going through the proper process of becoming a citizen, the incentive for coming here illegally will be much lower. We don't have to round them up, just make it impossible for them to make money, drive a car, or get housing.
Anonymous said: "If Bush grants amnesty to the undocumented, your argument, based completely on your revulsion of their "criminal" status, goes right down the toilet"
And if he gives pardon to all the rapists then is rape less reprehensible? I value our nations sovereignty. Without borders we are not a country.
What would you do? Continue on our current path? If not, what practical solutions for change to you suggest?
Daniel -- I'm not going fall into the absurd type of argument where rape is equated to working illegally in the U.S. just because both fall under a rubric of a "crime". Would legalizing rape be on the same level of reprehensibility as adjusting the status of working undocumented immigrants (those with no criminal record) to legal?
What would I do? I would suggest that the US adjusts its global economic policy. It should urge a change in the World Bank/IMF so that the governments in developing nations have more control over their economies (e.g. can put restrictions on the rate and the taxation of foreign capital and investment, can have a say on who owns capital in their countries, can have a say in the wages that foreign companies pay to their employees, labor laws, etc). Most developing countries around the world have by now entered into structural adjustment agreements with the World Bank, whereby, they are bailed out of economic crises by money coming mostly from western banks (Tim Lewis, you might want to read this), but the catch is, the World Bank can dictate, on a very detailed micro-management level, how the developing nations run their economy, nearly always dictating that the country place no restrictions whatsoever on the flow of foreign capital investment. The result has been devastating to those economies: foreign-capital goes in and comes out quickly, with little concern for actual investment, currencies are de-stabilized, etc. ect. The money ends up back in the western banks. Theorists interpret the masses of immigrants from developing countries to modern ones as people following those massive amounts of capital out of their country.
So, that's the first thing I'd do: Use US global economic policy power to change the way the IMF/World Bank deals with these developing nations so that foreign companies cannot so easily "speculate" on cheap labor in those countries. This would help keep jobs in the US. I'd also make it illegal for "American" companies to set up their "headquarters" in the Bahamas in the interest of minimizing their tax liability. More than anything I can think of, these types of actions undermine national soveriegnty, conceived of as being in the interest of the majority of her citizens rather than in the interest of wealthy elites.
Of course, this will all scare the hell out of you as it certainly must bear the mark of "socialism"? I'm actually quite moderate, and believe that even capitalism should be moderated. These ideas were part of the political mainstream during most of the 20th century, which indicates how far towards hyper capitalism we have recently swung. Check out "Globalization and Its Discontents" by Joseph E. Stiglitz (hardly a radical, but rather a nobel prize winner and former World Bank Economist). I am in general agreement with his recommendations.
What I wouldn't do: rearrange the deck furniture.
So what you're saying is illegal immigrants are working illegally in the US, sending the money back to their country via western banks (check out Bank of America in MEXICO) and aren't keeping OUR money in THEIR country so it's our problem? Tell me if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying.
I'm almost (read: almost) inclined to agree that we should keep our investments local, however how will that effect our economy as well as theirs? Aren't other countries better off having US investments in other countries?
I would like to add a couple of things.
First. Man up, or Woman up, and post your name, or email or something.
You did not answer the question at all, just ranted about global economy. The question was
" What would you do? Continue on our current path? If not, what practical solutions for change to you suggest? "
Your only suggestion is to change global economy? PRACTICAL, and easy.
Not once did you mention how you would deal with the problem of people coming to our country illegally, working and not contributing back to our society. Thanks Banco De Americanas.
Once again, you have a broken record yourself. Where do you get your information. Please forgive us for not hanging on the every word of a person who posts anonymously, and gives no real answers.
Tim Lewis -- I'm not going to try to explain further the role of western banks calling the shots on loans the IMF gives to countries that Tony the colonialist prefers to call 3rd World. Read the book I referenced in my last post, "Globalization and Its Discontents" by Joseph Stiglitz. It's pretty accessible.
Gunslinger -- Forming a new global economic policy in the US is practical. In fact, as I see it, it's really one of our only viable solutions short of making war on troubled "3rd World" economies. Colonialist Tony might rally behind this latter idea, but I don't think a majority of Americans would. Legalization of those here illegally is only a temporary fix. An amnesty won't work, I don't think, in the long term. Cutting off the flow immediately would have disastrous impacts on our economy, so that's not viable. Whether it's true or not, many businesses, in fact, complete industries, believe so much that they are dependent on Mexican labor that they recruit there. The only way, I see, of addressing the problem in the long term, is by addressing the source: global economic inequality. Start by restricting greedy multinational companies with absolutely no respect for national boundaries, and completely hell bent on finding the lowest wage anywhere in the world. How is that not practical?
Tony -- with all due respect, your observations about American culture are sophomoric. Becoming American for the immigrants at the turn of the last century was something that happened over generations. And, much of what they brought with them from the Old World was incorporated into the the "unique American" culture. No country in the history of the world has lived without witnessing cultural change. It's natural in the course of a nation, especially a modern one, that is economically and politically involved in all corners of the world. Unlike the immigration of old, which was stopped cold by the Great Depression and WWII, immigration from Latin America is constant, generation after generation since 1965. Each generation is constantly reminded of the culture from which they originate, by new arrivals. That's to be expected. But research on immigrants consistently shows that on indicators of assimilation -- English language proficiency, educational attainment, occupational mobility, etc -- Mexican origin people assimilate at roughly the same rate as all other immigrants.
Oh, and as for manning up, my name is Will, and I'm a sociology Phd candidate at a univerisity here in the US. As many ignoramuses do, don't confuse sociology with socialism. My studies have concerned analyses of immigrant assimilation. I have seen scholars devote careers to researching the kind of questions that so many of you here assume to be true so as to further your cause. So, my gut reaction is to react strongly to these sweeping assertions about immigrants that are nowhere supported in the scholarly literature. But, my point here is not to take up the cause for the immigrants, but rather to argue that your energies are misdirected if you are truly concerned about what you perceive to be the immigrant problem. I'm not even an expert on globalization, but the field is more and more crossing over into my own, as observers continue to note the relation between globalization and immigration to western industrialized nations.
Forgive me if I do not provide my e-mail address. This seems to me quite a combative group, and I've got work to do without having to sort through e-mails threatening to do me harm (which happened when I made known my e-mail to another group of right-leaning bloggers) or questioning my character.
Oh, and before any of you go there...I'm privately funded.
Thank you for clearing that up.
Will,
You provided excellent information.
Will, I'll admit that your make a better case than the guys who simply call me a racist.
However I don't believe your solution will happen any time soon and that the economic viability of Mexico (or any other country) depends more on the corruption of local government and the culture than anything else.
Outside forces can only do so much. I don't see amensty or guest worker programs as a solution either. If we cut off the illegal immigrant labor then the market will adapt either through higher wages, mechanization or relaxed labor laws.
But I'm going to come back to this: Illegal immigration is illegal.
Well, so be it, Daniel. It's your right (hell, it's your blog), and this seems as good a time as any to break off the discussion.
As for the nature of corruption in Mexico or something inherent in their "culture" as being the source of their economic situation, I'm certainly not willing claim the depth of knowledge I feel is necessary to make such an assertion.
Maybe you could go read a book about it and pass the ideas off as your own.
You are truely the scum of the earth!!! What happened to humanity? I personaly am white but welcome immigrants to this country!! Illegal or legal!! We should take care of eachother not mud sling and call innocent people criminals. You are the criminals!! If you hate illigal imigrants you get out in the field and do the jobs americans wont do. We have homeless men begging for money on the side of the road but they wont work in a factory for less than minimum wage and unsafe working conditions. If you have kids I think you should send them to the feild since you don't want illegals working here. What goes around comes around. Someone someday will treat you the same way you are treating these hard working people. charisma_916@yahoo.com
You are truely the scum of the earth!!! What happened to humanity? I personaly am white but welcome immigrants to this country!! Illegal or legal!! We should take care of eachother not mud sling and call innocent people criminals. You are the criminals!! If you hate illigal imigrants you get out in the field and do the jobs americans wont do. We have homeless men begging for money on the side of the road but they wont work in a factory for less than minimum wage and unsafe working conditions. If you have kids I think you should send them to the feild since you don't want illegals working here. What goes around comes around. Someone someday will treat you the same way you are treating these hard working people. charisma_916@yahoo.com
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