Robert Putnam and Jeb Bush talk sense on immigration:

Proponents and opponents of immigration agree on one thing: Learning English is crucial to success and assimilation. Yet learning a language as an adult is hard, so first-generation immigrants often use their native tongue. Historically, English has dominated by the second or third generation in all immigrant groups. Most recent immigrants recognize that they need to learn English, and about 90 percent of the second generation speak English, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Research by sociologists Claude Fischer and Michael Hout published in 2008 suggests that English acquisition among immigrants today is faster than in previous waves.

Residential integration of immigrants is even more gradual. Half a century ago, sociologist Stanley Lieberson showed that most immigrants lived in segregated enclaves, “Little Italy” or “Chinatown,” for several generations. This segregation reflected discrimination by natives and the natural desire of “strangers in a strange land” to live among familiar faces with familiar customs. Only with suburbanization, encouraged by government policy in the 1950s and 1960s, did the children and grandchildren of the immigrants of the 1890s and 1900s exit those enclaves. That many of today’s immigrants live in ethnic enclaves is thus entirely normal and reflects no ominous aim to separate themselves from the wider American community.

Immigrant intermarriage, then and now, also demonstrates steady progress over generations. In the 1960s, more than half a century after Italian immigration peaked, about 40 percent of second-generation Italians married non-Italians. This pattern characterizes today’s immigrants: 39 percent of U.S.-born Latinos marry non-Latinos, according to the Pew Research Center. Intermarriage among second-generation Asian Americans is even more common. Today’s immigrants are, on average, assimilating socially even more rapidly than earlier waves.

Unfortunately the demagogues completely ignore all this, instead choosing to spread hysteria and ignorance (which is much more profitable).

President Obama is set to call for an overhaul of the immigration system:

Obama has said a comprehensive solution means “accountability for everybody” — from the U.S. government meeting its obligation to secure the border, to businesses facing the consequences of knowingly employing illegal immigrants, to those who enter the country illegally owning up to their actions before they can begin the process of becoming citizens.

Recent developments on immigration influenced his decision to give a speech, White House officials say, most notably Arizona’s enactment of a tough anti-immigrant law and protests across the country against it.

“He thought this was a good time to talk plainly with the American people about his views on immigration,” spokesman Bill Burton said.

I’d have to hear the details before forming an opinion on this plan, though I’m generally supportive of a path to earned legalization for illegal immigrants already in the U.S. Given that it’s an election year, however, it’s highly unlikely that anything will pass. Republicans, even those prone to support immigration reform, are in no mood to help the president, and Democrats from competitive districts will also be cautious about touching the subject.

President Obama is aware of this and realizes the prospects for passage aren’t good. This is probably an attempt by Obama to rally Hispanic support, a group with which he has seen his approval rating drop dramatically.

In an article that reads like something from The Onion, Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) claims to have uncovered a terrorist plot to breed baby jihadists in the U.S.:

Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert, speaking on the House floor last week, cited as his source a “retired FBI agent.” He said the agent explained to him that foreign terror groups are looking to “game our system” by sending pregnant women to the United States to give birth to terrorists-in-training, who would have the added advantage of U.S. citizenship. Of course, the plot wouldn’t come to fruition for decades.

“It appeared they would have young women, who became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby. They wouldn’t even have to pay anything for the baby,” Gohmert said. “And then they would return back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists. And then one day, 20, 30 years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life.”

This is one of the most creative (not to mention ridiculous) conspiracies I’ve ever heard, but obviously there are numerous problems with it, the most notable being, how exactly is it known that such children would grow up to be terrorists? It’s true that many children can be raised and/or brainwashed to believe certain things, but it’s by no means a given that a child will adopt his parents’ political views wholesale. And even if he is convinced that America is evil, it’s quite another to strap a bomb to one’s chest (or fly planes into buildings, etc.).

Of course, an even bigger question might be, if these women are terrorists and they’re already in the United States, why wouldn’t they go ahead and launch an attack of their own, instead of simply coming here, giving birth, and returning home with the hope that in 20-30 years their little bundle of joy might kill someone? Seems to me if you already have a terrorist on the ground in the U.S., it would be smarter to go ahead and use them to launch an attack today, instead of waiting several decades for their children (who may not even become terrorists) to do so.

I don’t think Gohmert thought this through.

I’ve kept quiet for a while on the new immigration law in Arizona, which requires (not allows, mind you, but requires) law enforcement to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being illegal, and requires immigrants to keep their papers with them at all times. The bill passed the Republican legislature and was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican.

The bill goes way too far, of course, and certainly creates a bigger, more powerful government, something conservatives are supposedly against. It’s rife for abuse and will take police focus away from murderers and rapists and onto gardeners, waiters, and maids. Illegal immigration is definitely a problem, but throwing civil rights out the window is not the way to address it.

What I find most interesting is how the GOP establishment of Arizona so willingly signed on. Sure, it’s likely to give them a temporary boost (Gov. Brewer’s approval rating jumped 16 points), but in the long term (and by long term, I mean weeks or months, not years) it’s going to cost the state a fortune. Every civil rights group in the country is going to sue, and who will pick up the bill for the defense? The taxpayers of Arizona, of course.

That might be justified if there was reason to believe the bill would withstand a court challenge. But it’s flagrantly unconstitutional and everyone knows it. Immigration policy is foreign policy, and states have no power to institute foreign policy. Just as they can’t enter into treaties with foreign governments, they cannot regulate immigration. Only the federal government can. That the federal government has done a poor job of it is certainly worthy of condemnation, but that doesn’t change the Constitution. And this does not even deal with the civil rights issues, which may alone be enough to get it thrown out.

Politically, it will further alienate Hispanics and push them away from Republicans, perhaps permanently. Most of those 70% of Arizonans who support it will likely not even remember it a year after it’s been struck down. But Hispanics will remember for years to come, just as African-Americans remember Nixon’s “southern strategy” of nearly four decades ago.

So it appears that Gov. Brewer and her allies in the Arizona are willing to run roughshod over individual rights, spend the state into a oblivion on legal challenges, and possibly drive Hispanics away from the Republican Party for good, all over a bill that has very little chance of ever being enforced. I hope that 16-point jump in the polls is worth it.

My pal Adrienne Royer ponders the responsibility of pro-life forces in passing Obamacare, concluding:

It was the fault of the Republican party and Republican House members for not doing a better job in presenting their arguments. Pro-lifers should not be blamed for the failure of the party.

I generally agree. Right to Life exists to reduce and/or eliminate abortion; nothing more, nothing less. It’s their job to focus solely on abortion. Republicans and conservatives, on the other hand, took the easy way out by arguing the bill would fund abortions and health care for illegal immigrants instead of making broader arguments against government health care. Abortion and illegal immigration, of course, are emotional issues and are much easier to boil down to pure populism than are the constitutional ramifications and long-term impact of socialized medicine.

So instead of trusting people to grapple with the bigger issues, opinion leaders were lazy and latched onto abortion as a reason for opposition. The result was predictable enough: Democrats passed an amendment banning federal funds for abortion, giving the Blue Dogs enough cover to support Obamacare. If it is to be defeated in the Senate, a more comprehensive case against Obamacare will have to be made. Here’s hoping it is.

Bob Barr, former Georgia congressman and Libertarian party nominee for president, has sent out an e-mail excoriating John McCain and Barack Obama for their stances on illegal immigration. Money quote:

It is the duty of the federal government to secure our borders from criminals, terrorists and those seeking to take advantage of the American taxpayer.

Apparently, not all of our politicians believe that. But I do.

This issue is one of the most important national security issues facing America today. An insecure border allows foreign criminals, carriers of communicable diseases, terrorists and other potential threats to enter the country unchecked. We must be aggressive in securing our borders while also fighting the big-government “nanny state” that seeks to coddle even those capable of providing for their own personal prosperity. We must recognize the fundamental problem — a complete breakdown of respect for immigration laws in this country prompted by an utter failure to enforce those laws.

Don’t the voters in America deserve the chance to vote for the rule of law in our country — and send a strong message to ALL of those politicians in Washington, D.C.?

I have to wonder how this is playing with Libertarian party activists. The Libertarian party has always been strongly (some would say extremely) pro-immigration. For example, the Libertarian Party National Platform in 2000 stated: “We therefore call for the elimination of all restrictions on immigration, the abolition of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol, and a declaration of full amnesty for all people who have entered the country illegally.” Hard to square with Barr’s position.

Of course, Barr had to change a number of positions to earn the nomination, including his stance on the war in Iraq, the war on drugs, the PATRIOT ACT, and the Defense of Marriage Act. A number of Libertarian activists–who demand ideological purity–question his commitment to libertarianism. This will give them another reason.

Still, he could attract some disheartened immigration hawks to his camp. It’ll be interesting to see if they can be convinced to support the pro-immigration Libertarian party who happens to be running an anti-immigration candidate. I doubt they will be.

Drew Carey investigates the situation at our southern border and offers a reasonable and obvious solution. You should definitely watch the video.

Aunt B takes to task those who favor denying birthright citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. She contends that it is hypocritical to argue for strict constructionism on the one hand while ignoring what the 14th Amendment says on the other:

Many of you are clinging desperately to the notion that the 2nd Amendment means what it says. Well, if Representative Lynn and her colleagues succeed in making the 14th Amendment mean something other than what it clearly says–”All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”–what kind of precident do you think that sets for the next time one of us Lefty crackpots tries to argue that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t mean what it says?

What kind of precident is Lynn trying to set? And are you prepared to say that rights enumerated in the Constitution don’t apply should some Legislator gets a bug up her butt to undermine them?

I have mixed feelings on the whole birthright citizenship debate; I don’t want to punish babies for the misdeeds of their parents, but I also don’t want to encourage illegals to have children just so it will be harder to deport them. It is a more complex issue than partisans on either side want to admit.

I doubt that that the Framers had this in mind when they wrote the 14th Amendment, but it says what it says: the children of illegals ARE entitled to U.S. citizenship. If Rep. Lynn or anyone else want to change this, they should push for a new constitutional amendment that would explicitly deny birthright citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. Until such an amendment is ratified, they do not have a legal leg to stand on.

Via ACK

Wearing a cap can solve illegal immigration! So says Newsmax:

The magical cap is available here. But wait, there’s more! The same e-mail also promotes a Newsmax/Dick Morris investment seminar. Ah, Newsmax–your one stop shop for political commentary, shady financial advice and medical quackery!

Jon Henke:

One reason there’s so much illegal immigration is that we make it so damned difficult to immigrate legally. We’re practically begging migrants to avoid our immigration system.

We could do a great deal to reduce illegal immigration simply by raising the quotas, lowering the paperwork barriers and processing people quickly. That - not a silly wall that will slow down migrants by a grand total of three minutes - is where immigration reform should begin.

I wonder if Lou Dobbs or Michelle Malkin will mention this.

Fred Barnes has some solid advice for Republicans:

AS EVERY REPUBLICAN knows, Democrats are short-sighted in their views on national security, pursuing antiwar arguments that are bound to come back and haunt them politically. This was the case with the clamor among Democrats to pull out of Vietnam and may be the case now as well with their calls for American troops to flee Iraq. The result of this antiwar noisemaking is a reputation for weakness on national security.

Yet Republicans are doing the same thing on another issue, trading away long-term gain for the immediate joy of pleasing voters who may (or may not) decide the winner of the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. That issue is immigration.

By dwelling, often emotionally, on the problem of illegal immigration as a paramount issue and as if nothing is being done to deal with it, Republicans are alienating Hispanic Americans, the fastest growing voting bloc in the country. What’s worse is many Republicans are oblivious to this or insist that losing Hispanic voters doesn’t really matter because they’ll never be reliable Republican voters anyway. These Republicans buy the notion that a sizable majority of Hispanics are and always will be Democrats.

Barnes goes on to explain why the defeatist attitude among many Republicans when it comes to winning Hispanic votes is wrongheaded. Republicans would be wise to listen, but immigration concerns have become a source of fear mongering on the right.

Via Cyberhillbilly

Phil Ayers suggests using military service as a path to citizenship:

This article suggests using military service as a means for obtaining citizenship. This is certainly an idea worthy of consideration. But, to those people who say that forcing people to become “cannon fodder” to become citizens is immoral, I would respond, “is it really? Is it too much to ask someone to serve in the greatest military in the world - in order to become a citizen in the greatest country in the world?”

Sounds like a good idea. While military service should not be th only way to gain citizenship, I think it should be one way.

I’m not the biggest Wonkette fan around, but I have to admit… this is pretty funny. Especially the comments.

Steve Gill is all animated, as he often is, about former Border Patrol agents Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, now spending a decade in the slammer. He compares their conviction to another famous case:

The truth will out [sic], just like it did in the Duke Lacrosse case. Once again, it is the PROSECUTOR who belongs in jail!

All hyperbole aside, and regardless of whether Compean and Ramos belong in prison, this comparison is not valid. In the Duke Lacrosse case, a rogue prosecutor accused innocent players of a crime of which there was not nearly enough evidence for a conviction. In the case of Compean and Ramos, there obviously was enough evidence for a conviction. Both were, after all, convicted by a jury of their peers.

These two agents have been made into heroes. I tend to agree that their sentences are overly harsh, but to say that they deserve no punishment is to completely ignore the rule of law. Compean and Ramos clearly committed several crimes, as Andrew McCarthy (writing in National Review, hardly a pro-illegal immigration magazine) points out:

Here’s the dirty little secret the agents’ partisans never tell in their relentless media rounds. You want to be mad about a miscreant like Aldrete-Davila getting away with importing scads of marijuana into Estados Unidos? Then be mad at … the “heroes.”

The rogue duo had two easy opportunities to arrest Aldrete-Davila: First, when he attempted to surrender and Compean decided it would be better to smash him with the butt of a shotgun than to put cuffs on him, as it was his duty to do; and then, when the “heroes,” having felled the unarmed, fleeing suspect with a bullet fired into his buttocks, decided to leave him there so they could tend to the more important business of covering up the shooting.

Since it’s hard to decipher the facts amid the noise, it’s worth remembering that a jury of twelve impartial Texans convicted the agents of almost all the charges, beyond a reasonable doubt, after a two-and-a-half week trial. Many complain, with some force, about the aggressive charges brought by the government against Compean and Ramos, but you don’t have to like this case to understand that — barring some demonstration of irrationality (and there has been none) — the factual findings necessary to that verdict merit respect. They are certainly more reliable than hype from those with an ax to grind.

Indeed. What happened to Steve Gill’s highly principled belief in upholding the rule of law?

UPDATE: This post is taking part in the Beltway Traffic Jam.

What do King George III and Lou Dobbs have in common? Hint: It has to do with immigration.

I guess the anti-immigration folks would think that King George was a greater patriot than Thomas Jefferson.

…the more they stay the same. Some anti-immigration cartoons from the past.

Via Michael Medved

Ed Morrissey looks at two studies on immigration, both by Heritage Foundation scholars, that come to two radically different conclusions.

Can you guess who said this:

“[B]ecause we allowed ourselves to wait until we woke up one day and found 12 million illegals here, there’s no easy solution. And I think that you have to realize that you’re either going to drive 12 million people underground permanently, which is not a good solution. You’re going to get them all together and get them out of the country, which is not going to happen. Or you’re going to have to, in some way, work out a deal where they can have some aspirations of citizenship, but not make it so easy that it’s unfair to the people waiting in line and abiding by the law.”

Or this:

“We haven’t enforced the law, in terms of employers. … For 20 years, we’ve not enforced the law, and that’s a part of the problem. You can’t enforce it all on the backs of the employers. People falsify information that they give employers and all that. That’s not a solution to the problem.”

And this:

“You know, if you have the right kind of policies, and you’re not encouraging people to come here and encouraging them to stay once they’re here, they’ll go back, many of them, of their own volition, instead of having to, you know, load up moving vans and rounding people up. That’s not going to happen.”

So who made these statements? Ted Kennedy? George Bush? No, it was Fred Thompson who said all of these things, and much more. Not that I’m upset about it; I think he was absolutely right. I’m just wondering why the Malkinites over at Hot Air are so revved up about him, given their near derangement when it comes to anything that doesn’t involve mass deportations.

Only not really. When I saw the headline I was hoping for some inflammatory photos and first-class outrage generation from Malkin. Sadly, I was disappointed. I just don’t see anything at all that in these photos that suggests support for insignificant reconquista movement. Heck, the first protester is even carrying an American flag! (As a side note, supporters of building a fence should definitely take note of the last photo. It clearly illustrates how effective a fence along our border with Mexico would be.) Yes, the Che Guevarra shirts are disheartening, but nothing I don’t see white kids sporting everyday even here in the remote mountains of North Carolina.