Immigration thoughts - Wednesday

I hate to call a fellow member of my church a moonbat; that's especially so if that moonbat is a Cardinal. I'd been raised to respect the office, if not the man. It's just that some clergymen make that respect hard to deserve. From TMH's Bacon Bits

Controversial liberal prelate Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles, a top dog at the often left leaning, U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, has essentially called for treating the USA’s borders as if they were the Berlin wall. One could almost hear him demanding “Mr. Bush, tear down that wall!”

This open-borders, leftist-leaning cleric is directing his priests to violate immigration law and to encourage illegal immigration, thereby encouraging other Catholics (the illegals) to violate Church law, which clearly requires Catholics to recognize the rights of politicians to establish immigration law.

His directives also fly in the face of required Roman Catholic behavior. A Catholic — be he citizen, priest, illegal, or cardinal — is required, under pain of sin, to submit to civic authority and follow all civil laws, with the rare exception being serious moral wrong, as in performing or assisting at an abortion.

Sorry, I don't agree that it's immoral to keep out those who have no right to enter our country.

We're pretty generous with citizenship in the US. Not only do we take in refugees, but we also treat them just like the home-grown citizens. Not for us the European attitude of bringing in guest workers, then treating them like unwelcome invaders when they no longer serve our purposes. We've even elected many newly-made citizens to high office.



But, this welcome is clearly a privilege, not a right. It is offered, first to those who have skills or education our country could use. Then, as we have the ability to absorb the newcomers into our country, we allow a certain number a year. Our experience is that limits are needed - too many flooding in from a single country or region, and they will have difficulty assimulating. So, the numbers are rationed.

Meanwhile, the CDC has issued a report:

Overwhelmingly, the study found, those immigrants have lower rates of obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure; have less disability; and are less likely to acknowledge having mental health problems.

Yeah, starving is so good for the figure!

Found via WorldNewsDaily, a story about illegal immigration in the Financial Times:

The number of illegal immigrants in the US has continued to grow by nearly half a million each year in spite of US efforts to increase security at the country’s borders, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

The study, by the Pew Hispanic Center, said that the population of unauthorised migrants reached between 11.5m and 12m last year, accounting for nearly a third of the foreign-born population in the US. That number is up from roughly 8.4m in 2000.

The continued rise was driven primarily by the strong demand for low-skilled work in the US. “What we’re seeing is a labour migration that is tied to employment opportunities,” said Jeffrey Passel, the study’s author.

The findings come as the Senate is set to take up on Wednesday legislation aimed at stemming the flow of illegal immigrants coming to the US. The Senate judiciary committee is launching a three-week effort to produce a bill that the committee’s chairman, Republican Arlen Specter, hopes will create new legal channels for foreign workers in the US.

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The proposal, outlined by committee staff on Monday, would allow those illegally in the US to apply for renewable two-year work visas, and would create a new guest worker programme to allow new workers to come to the US legally.

That contrasts with legislation that passed the House of Representatives late last year and would toughen enforcement against illegal aliens but would not allow for new guest workers. Differences between the House bill and the Senate version would have to be resolved later this year.

The Pew survey underscored the substantial presence of illegal workers in the US labour market. It estimated about 4.9 per cent of the US labour force, or 7.2m workers, was composed of unauthorised migrants.

That's a figure, in case you hadn't figured it out, that's just over (by .2%) the unemployment for the US.

Now, to be fair, "full employment" is around 3% or so. That leaves a little slack for people interested in changing jobs. Really full employment is, contrary to popular belief, not all that good. It means that it's hard to fill jobs (and those that are employed are working extra hard).

Frankly, I'm not all that crazy about "guest workers". That's a little like holding out a treat, then taking it away. Talk about noblesse oblige!

I'd rather see us raise the numbers of legal immigrants into the US. That requires more planning and foresight. But, it also means that we don't callously use the temporary worker as disposable "things".

That's too European.

Tags = Immigration