Patterico's Pontifications

5/16/2006

Bush’s Immigration Speech

Filed under: Immigration — Patterico @ 6:59 am



I didn’t see it. I was at the Magic Castle with Mrs. P., her relatives, and our friend Justin Levine. Allah has the reaction roundups, here, here, and here.

Let me know what you thought.

31 Responses to “Bush’s Immigration Speech”

  1. Positively Clintonian in its emphasis on appearance over substance. It reminds me of nothing so much as President Clinton’s declaration of war on terrorism and then doing absolutely nothing, with the results we all know.

    Alan (5c10bd)

  2. Agree with #1–“Positively Clintonian”

    President Bush said he would hire 1,500 additional Border Patrol Officers. We need more personnel to enforce laws requiring employers to hire only citizens or legal residents and an easily accessible database that would enable employers to verify the validity of social security numbers presented by prospective employees.

    Stu707 (18fdc8)

  3. His speech will find him lacking in base support and may cause damage in the elections this fall. It’s supposed to be a middle of the road speech, so why are all the liberals so happy with it?

    It isn’t at all conservative, that’s why. Bush continues to abet the invasion by rewarding bad behavior based on the length of time the criminals have been engaging in the crime and he calls it a ‘path to citizenship’.

    The reason they don’t apply for citizenship is they don’t have to. No duh.

    This amounts to the kind of logic that rewards your dog for piddling on the carpet and then wonders why he isn’t housetrained.

    Kathy (c02b80)

  4. Bushwa, pure unadulterated Bushwa. Minutemen should be funded and then get out of their way.

    paul from fl (001f65)

  5. Actually, Stu, he said 6000 more over 2 years.

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  6. I don’t know why anyone is surprised by Bush’s position on this: he’s been extremely pro-Hispanic all his career. He wants massive immigration, and always has. It’s the historic Republican position.

    What surprises me is that most of the “conservative” opponents are so dead set on supporting the leftist, union-driven immigration laws from the last century. A true conservative would want to go back to the “old days” of Ellis Island, where 99% of people who came, got in. Until 1920, there was no such thing as an “illegal immigrant.”

    There’s a pretty good historical recount of the immigration laws in todays LA Times op-eds.

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  7. Patterico–

    The speech reads much better than Bush presented it. As usual.

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  8. Actually, Stu, he said 6000 more over 2 years.

    Kevin, I stand corrected.

    Stu707 (18fdc8)

  9. Fact, GWB isn’t serious about border security. He was governor of Texas and knows the issue well. If he saw it as anything close to a national priority, he could have called out the troops after 9/11. We would have built a fence and illegal immigration would be under control by now. His speech was a testimonial to pretense.

    Support for the House position is the only remaining option for any hope of securing our boarders.

    Black Jack (d8da01)

  10. I, for one, welcome our Mexican overlords.

    Remember the media is good at getting your slaves to work in your underground sugar mines.

    Kent Brockman (6d2c1f)

  11. I’m still trying to grasp what constituency Bush is trying to satisfy when it is clear that at least of plurality of the electorate is for enforcement and repatriation of illegals. We hear that it’s these shadowy “Big Businesses”, but is that really true? Could Wal-Mart or ADM really hide thousands of illegals?

    My own theory points towards the unions, and most specifically the education lobby. California spends over $50 billion a year on public education, and that kind of change is bound to create some unusual market distortions. In the ramp up to the protests and boycott, the papers ran numerous stories about the loss of funding that would result from student absences. The mayor and other public figures also warned about the funding shortfall, going so far as to threaten that parents might be billed for the lost amount.

    A story in today’s SGV Tribune discusses El Monte’s enrollment decline and the need to fire 20 teachers. What do you think would happen if there was a concerted effort to deport illegals, or even just enough of a threat to cause the children to stay home? The school system would implode.

    Could it be that an illegal child in public school generates more revenue for the education industry than an illegal farm worker does for ADM?

    TakeFive (2bf7bd)

  12. Sad Same old nothing. Wimpering, shoddy lies.

    RJN (c3a4a3)

  13. I join the choir. Pure Clintonian triangulation. Make the liberals happy, mollify the moderates and tell the conservatives “ok, vote Democratic and then see what you get”.

    BTW: A military man, who I think knows what he’s talking about, commented at another blog that the National Guard idea is a fraud. Among other things, National Guard troops would be mobilized there when they would be scheduled for their annual training maneuvers. The net result will either no training or no participation in border control and in his estimation neither. Just National Guardsmen hanging around with Border Patrol agents wasting their training time.

    nk (4d4a9d)

  14. I must say that I’m impressed with the ballsy commenters here thus far. ‘Refusing the Bush-flavored kool-aid – hat’s off to you.

    But Kevin, I don’t believe that the Unions want many immigrants since it floods the market with workers, driving the wages down – not good.

    Psyberian (dd13d6)

  15. I don’t believe that the Unions want many immigrants since it floods the market with workers, driving the wages down – not good.

    I don’t think the unions really care that much about wages per se. It’s the weekly skim of membership dues and control of the pension fund piggybank that really interests the unions.

    This was clearly demonstrated to me during the grocery strike when one of the union reps told me that most supermarket employees don’t want full time work, which came as news to some of the checkers I was standing next to. Of course the union settlement “allowed” more part-timers and they got to hang on to the bigger prize – control of the pension fund. So instead of skimming from one full time employee, they get to skim dues and pension management fees from 3 part timers.

    As long as the unions get their vig, they could care less what the wages are.

    TakeFive (2bf7bd)

  16. My mistake, I should have addressed my Union comment to you Takefive (not Kevin).

    Well, your stance on Unions doesn’t jive well with the conservative claim that unions demand high wages and therefore drive companies out of business because of it.

    Also, there are fools out there, but I don’t think many people would pay union dues long unless they thought that they would get something in return, and that usually means more pay or benefits. Why do you think that truck drivers make so much? I don’t think it is in spite of their unions.

    Psyberian (dd13d6)

  17. TakeFive–

    Most of those Hispanic children in public schools are US citizens. Now, you might want to change the 14th Amendment so that a child isn’t a citizen if its mother is here illegally, but that’s not the law today. Nor are the courts likely to sit still for changing that by statute, and especially not retroactively.

    BTW, I’d support that kind of change. My argument isn’t that I like illegal immigration, but that under current law there is very little legal opportunity to immigrate for most people, and what legal immigration we have is designed to bring in dependents, not workers. We need to fix this, because otherwise it’s King Canute and the tide.

    Kevin Murphy (805c5b)

  18. Claire–

    The text was frequently eloquent. It reads very well, and is well-reasoned. Bush, on the other hand, is one of the poorer presidential communicators, and he butchered it.

    Kevin Murphy (805c5b)

  19. TakeFive, I agree mostly with you. I work in education and they are scared out of their wits when enrollment takes a dip. They need more students=illegal immigration. Some unions, like SEIU, who are growing need more members=illegal immigration. REal estate agents need more people to pay $500K for a 1000-sq-ft house, and immigrants are willing to live together=illegal immigration.

    High real estate prices produce tax revenue. Higher consumer sales produce tax revenue. All in all, many businesses–and the pols who collect taxes from them–need more people. From anywhere, any how.

    Patricia (2cc180)

  20. It was an unmitigated disaster Patterico. Nothing more, nothing less.

    Allan Bartlett (dd8671)

  21. it was an attempted distraction from more serious issues that bush is clueless to solve, and from bush’s well-documented mistakes. 70% of americans now realize bush attacked the wrong country. gas prices aren’t going down. the medicare drug “benefit” is for the insurance industry, not the older sheep being herded into it. katrina was woefully mishandled. people at the top of the executive branch were complicit in outing an undercover cia agent for political gain. there’s no hay to be made talking about this stuff, and the old alarm about gays getting married is losing its aura of dire threat, so, what’s there to say?
    how about “brown people are swarming over our southern border toward us, threatening our way of life?”
    yeah, that’ll suck in some rubes and run some time off the clock.

    assistant devil's advocate (76e072)

  22. Well, your stance on Unions doesn’t jive well with the conservative claim that unions demand high wages and therefore drive companies out of business because of it.

    I think it jibes quite well – just look at General Motors (or the city of San Diego). The unions will of course demand higher wages to placate the troops and maintain loyalty, but they will more importantly do what is needed to keep their numbers and income up.

    Here in So. Cal, before the UFCW struck Vons [Safeway], they signed a lockout agreement with Albertsons and Ralphs effectively cutting off the livelihood and forcing the loyalty of thousands of unwilling participants. In the end the union caved on pretty much everything, except control of the pension fund which Vons had been trying to wrest away because of mismanagement. The supposedly non-negotiable two-tier wage structure brought in a raft of new dues payers and pension fund contributors at the expense of the old timers.

    Between the (gasp!) medical co-pay and the reduction in hours, some of the checkers at my Vons have told me they now have a lower net income. What do you want to bet the union’s cash flow is as strong as ever?

    TakeFive (2bf7bd)

  23. Most of those Hispanic children in public schools are US citizens.

    Not really sure how you can document that since proof of citizenship is not required to enroll. Just going by empirical evidence, look at the numbers that disappeared when the border patrol was briefly doing interior enforcement in San Bernardino last year. Even in far away, but heavily Latino El Monte there was a noticeable effect.

    But my lager point was that even a small interruption in per-student funding causes shockwaves in our educational-industrial complex. During the recent protest & boycott marches one of my coworker’s sons stayed out of school to support his friends who are citizens, but have illegal parents. It didn’t really matter to the school if they were legal or illegal – the school still lost funding those days. Now imagine what would happen if there was even a hint of real interior enforcement. Do you think the teachers union will endorse border control?

    Patricia points out what I feel is a major contributor to the run up in real estate prices. Just too damn many people competing for the same space. Of course our economically ignorant public officials think the solution is to build low income housing. High prices seem to be the only remaining, if feeble barrier to increasing population in southern California.

    TakeFive (2bf7bd)

  24. High prices seem to be the only remaining, if feeble barrier to increasing population in southern California.

    Excuse me, but that doesn’t lock out illegals, but locks out modest Americans who don’t live 3 families to a house.

    Understand that the banks will make a mortgage to an illegal family because they don’t balk at higher than usual interest ratesso the bank makes more money off of illegals than American citizens. The illegals pay a higher price and higher interest for a home because they’ll have several people with several income streams living in the house.

    Understand there is a significant amount of Hispanic families who do NOT support the pro-illegal/open border position.

    I want to sound a word of caution … I’m foresquare for securing the borders, infact, IMO they should permanently under the control of the military. That MUST come first. And as much as I want illegals to migrate back to Mexico..not only isn’t it feasble to have some sort of massive roundup and forcible deportation of 12 million people (and no matter how emotionally satisfying it is to contemplate such a solution to a long frustrating problem) but it is a particular human disaster just waiting to happen.

    Think of it. Please tell me how you’ll pull up a bus to the home of a family that’s been here 15 years…who own their home, own a business, have money in US banks, have American citizen children in school…and cart them off with only the clothes on their back. Do you confiscate their property? Do they forfeit their home? Business? Furniture? Cars? And now that you have them on the bus, where do you go with them?

    Practically, you cannot “round’em up”.

    What you can do is dry of the jobs that had them travel here in the first place. Biometric ID cards to be able to hold ANY job. Criminal punishment of employers who hire illegals.

    Then THEY will sell their property and leave.

    Darleen (81f712)

  25. Is it so hard to understand that this country is our home and that you dont enter my home and help yourself to the snack bar and then demand that I serve you drinks! Glad to see so many of us agree!!
    I have been telling you all along..Bush is just a photo op, platitude making device!!
    Anyone surprised at this post in view of my previous ones?

    Oh one more thing.. some say the text was eloquent.. wonder who actually wrote it??

    charlie (e16458)

  26. Is it so hard to understand that this country is our home and that you dont enter my home and help yourself to the snack bar and then demand that I serve you drinks!

    Its odd isn’t it? Odd that people can’t just come up with the convenient analogy that analogizes away inconvenient parts of the problem.

    actus (6234ee)

  27. Staying on topic, i.e. the President’s speech, it is clear three days later that he did not exercise leadership. The fence, the real fence not the virtual fence, passed because of Senator Sessions and because 2/3 of Americans want it. He should just stay out of this and sign whatever Congress finally gives him.

    nk (bfc26a)

  28. Not to beat up on pobre President Jorge Arbusto demasiado (poor President Bush too much). He did give us Roberts and Alito. I listened to Hugh Hewitt late last night and his guests thought that McCain-Feingold has a chance of being overturned in the next two months.

    nk (bfc26a)

  29. Actus, congratulations on succeeding where Charlie failed. While most stopped clocks are right twice a day, you’ve just proven that a few really badly mangled ones manage to be wrong all the time.

    Xrlq (66db43)

  30. While most stopped clocks are right twice a day, you’ve just proven that a few really badly mangled ones manage to be wrong all the time.

    Some of us are always ahead. rather than being protectionists for the past, we’re progressives for the future.

    actus (6234ee)


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