Deliberative Reform

I should have called the last post "Deliberative Reform."

"Comprehensive Reform" is the process where, every 30 years or so, Congress passes a massive bill that tries to set immigration policy for the next 30 years.

"Deliberative Reform" is the idea that Congress must address a problem each year. Rather than one big bill, Congress would address the immigration problem each year. They would pass separate bills that set the immigration quota, the temporary worker quota and a final bill that addresses humanitarian and law enforcement issues that popped up the previous year.

Going into a multi-year deliberative process would allow us to break the expectation of amnesty while giving us the ability address the immigration mess in a humane manner.

Comprehensive Reform is the Problem

Last year I supported the efforts for "comprehensive immigration reform." I did so because I felt it was necessary to include the sticks in the same bundle as the carrots.

Watching the comprehensive reform bill fail, it struck me that it the comprehensive reform process itself that is the failure. The way Congress goes about bill writing these days is they overload every bill with earmarks and special provisions that they become a convoluted mess that no-one can understand.

The worst part of the comprehensive reform approach is that it puts out nation on a cycle of having to reform the last comprehensive reform every thirty years or so.

The Reagan Amnesty bill was a reform of post war comprehensive packages that favored European immigration.

The problem with the Reagan Amnesty bill was not that it gave amnesty, but that it created an expectation that there would be amnesty with the next comprehensive reform bill. If enough people immigrated without permission, it would be possible to force the US into a new amnesty.

Amnesty in and of itself is not evil. If done correctly, amnesty can restore the rule of law.

The problem with the Reagan Amnesty is that it was made with an expectation that immigration policy would take the form of an amnesty every thirty years or so.

The expectation of future amnesty accelerated the breaking of the law.

With Congress tied in the rut that looks for comprehensive solutions, we've been mired in a rut.

Don't you see? Comprehensive reform fails because the "comprehensive-reform-mindset" is the problem.

The answer to this current problem might be to do something rather simple: Rather than having a comprehensive bill, Congress should face the immigration mess in small deliberate bites. Rather than passing one bill with an immigration quota, temporary worker quota and law enforcement provisions. Congress should pass each provision separately.

Each year, Congress should produce a bill that sets the immigration quota for the year, a bill that sets the temporary worker quota and a bill that updates the law enforcement efforts.

The problem is not the people who want to immigrate to the United States. The problem is that we have a broken political system;

A disciplined effort that addresses the problem each year with clean, deliberate, earmark free bills would do more to solve the problem than any fence or amnesty.

The goal for 2009 should not be to pass a comprehensive reform, but to start a deliberative multiyear effort.

The Venue for Compassion

In my last post, I stated that the reason you want stricter enforcement of immigration laws is so that you can have a more liberal quota of visas and legal immigration.

Although this position is compassionate at its core, it is very easy to frame the position as harsh. People who hold my position are wrongfully labeled xenophobic.

In reality, what is going on is an argument about the correct venue for compassion.

IMHO the Federal Government is the correct venue for compassion in immigration. Immigration is a national concern. You cannot leave immigration to a city or even a state government. If a city had the right to grant citizenship status, you are guaranteed to see a corrupt system with one city selling green cards for people who would then move throughout the nation.

One of the primary reasons that immigration has become such a mess is that progressive groups have played the game of trying to make a national issue a local issue. Gathering a group of people together to oppose a deportation is a very sensational action that makes the people involved in the protest as compassionate activists against an evil system.

The problem, of course, is that, as these local efforts become more organized and vocal, the national government starts becoming stricter. The loud local actions on behalf of the illegal immigrants seem to be taken as call for more illegal immigrants to violate the terms of their visa or to cross a border illegally.

Eventually, what happens, is the system becomes swamped. Even worse, the broken system actually starts leading to real xenophobia.

This is one of those ironic twists of reality. The actions of the loud progressive activists who pretend to altruistic compassion by undermining immigration laws end up creating a society with more real xenophobia than the people who were labeled xenophobes because they believe the national government is the proper venue for compassion in immigration.

Of course, the national government is not the proper venue for compassion in all aspects of life.

In my opinion, the proper venue for compassion in health care is as close to the patient as possible. That is the proper venue for compassion would be the family and the local community.

Once again I find myself at odds with modern progressive thought which seems to think that the Federal Government is the proper venue for compassion.

The Federal Government is distant from the patient and is not in a good position to actually apply compassion. Yet people who favor transferring control over health care decisions to Washington are labeled as "compassionate" and those who favor funding health care through local foundations and charities are labeled as "uncompassionate."

Ironically, again, as the role of the Federal government expands and taxes increase, health care costs have skyrocketed.

Independent doctors, who are incapable of dealing with the complexity of the Federal Goverment system, have all but disappeared in favor of extremely corrupt HMOs.

Anyway, I think this question of the correct venue for compassion is interesting.

The progressive community wants immigration (which appears to me to be a national issue) to be addressed at the local level. Then they want health care (which appears to me to be primarily a local issue) to be handled by a nationalized health authority.

Because I want immigration handled by the national government and individual health care handled by the individual, family and local community, I have earned the label of being a heartless bastard. While the people who routining choose the wrong venue for compassion seem to get lauded as caring.

It is a great puzzlement why the progressive mind seeks to address issues in the wrong forum.

The Reason for Deportation

We have to pay attention to the reasons behind an issue, otherwise we end up undermining our society.

I was listening to a debate where Hillary Clinton was giving her position on immigration. In this debate she ridiculed the Republicans for wanting to "round up" and "deport" illegal immigrants.

Deportation sounds harsh, until one understands the reasons behind the need for deportation.

Deportation is a necessary part of the Visa law. A visa is a contract that allows a person to visit a country for a fixed period of time. If a person violates the terms of the contract then they get deported.

If a country wants to have liberal visa laws, then the country has to deport people who violate the contract of the visa; otherwise the contract of the visa is meaningless. If the contract of the visa is meaningless, then we are forced into be draconian in issuing visas.

Strictly enforcing the expiration of visas by deportations allows us to have a liberal visa law. If we do not enforce the expiration of visas, then we have to have strict visa laws.

It is possible that Ms. Clinton's objective in the speech was to frame the Republican party as xenophobic, and to frame her party as the friend of the Latino.

The problem with this position is that having draconian restrictions on Visas and a big ugly fence on the border is worse for the Latino population as a whole than the deportations that would be necessary to enforce the contract of the visa.

If Ms. Clinton's position was politically motivated, then this is an example of a politician adopting a position for partisan reasons that actually undermines the constituency she hopes to attract.

Is Comprehensive Immigration Reform Really the Right Direction?

In my last post, I broke the boundaries of the politically correct and made a statement that mentioned the race of a group of people. Since I have been branded "conservative" my mentioning race is labeled prejudice.

The prejudicial statement I made is that our immigration policy should favor Latinos. I believe our immigration laws should favor natives of neighboring countries.

While I don't think race should be a consideration in most issues, I believe that, by their nature, immigration laws should take racial, political and economic conditions into account. On the economic front, when two developed nations have similar economic conditions, there is likely to be a parity in migration. In such a case, immigration and worker flow between the nations should be loose.

Politically, we should classify people running from a war torn region as refuges, and not illegal immigrants.

When a racial group identifies itself with an area, laws should take that into account as well.

Finally, we should expect a great deal of cross over between borders. Since our nation borders Mexico, we should be expecting millions of people crossing that border.

Origins are relevant in immigration debates. Since the politically correct climate will not let us talk about this important factor, we find ourselves bumbling along trying to find universals on which to base immigration policy.

I believe our policies should be more open to people from Mexico. For that matter, a temporary worker program is often more attractive to people who want to move between the North and South with the seasons than a full fledged immigration status.

By ignoring origins, we dig ourselves holes. We continually find ourselves falling into absurdities like the accusation that Conservatives demand law and order out of racial hatred.

Quite frankly, the reason that I think we need to be tighter on immigration enforcement is to prevent our nation from being trampled by people coming from distant lands, not from Mexico.

Looking at the demographics of the world, we find that there are over six a half billion people on this crowded planet. Transportation is so easy, a totally open immigration policy would bring upwards to 500 million people into the United States.

Even worse, there are countries eager to shed their excess population and who would shove off its problems onto our overcrowded section of turf. IMHO, the growing Latino population is not the primary danger of the cycle of amnesty. The cycle of amnesty creates a climate where any country seeking more world influence would be wise to shunt off excess population in our direction.

It is the recognition of the world population problem that has me favoring stricter enforcement of immigration laws. The fact that it is politically incorrect to mention people's origins that we are forced to treat Mexicans the way we would treat Iranians who sneak into our country.

In watching the debate over comprehensive immigration fall apart, I can't help but think that our attempt to solve the problem with comprehensive reform is off base.

I do not believe that we can derive a perfect immigration law from the aether. Rather than having a comprehensive system, we would probably be better offer addressing the problem piecemeal.

North South Migration

In previous posts, I brought up the issue of North South migration. I wanted to reword what I was saying.

As you see, I always try to avoid mentioning race. By saying that we should favor north south migration, I mean that our laws should favor migration from North and Central America. Many of the people in these country are identified as Latino.

Perhaps one of the reasons that the immigration debate is so shrill is that people are scared to mention race. In practice, immigration laws must be aware of the immigrants origins and we should give a numeric preference to migration between neighboring countries.

Our migration and temporary guest worker laws should give a strong numeric preference to Latinos. We should be more strict in enforcing immigration laws with people who came from distant lands.

I believe that immigration laws should be aware of origins and race and that migration laws in this country should strongly favor people who are from the American continent. It should be especially aware of indigenous people of the American Continent.

Progressives have been accusing Conservatives of anti-Latino racism when they say they want to give preference to people who are in legal channels.

The Conservatives I know think that there should be a preference for Latinos. They have a hard time wording the sentiment as they feel that even mentioning a person's race is racist.

The truth of the matter is that, by nature, immigration laws must be aware of the origins of the immigrants. In our super PC charged dialog, we are not able to talk about one of the single most important aspects of emigration ... the origin of the people. There should be a large numeric preference for people from neighboring countries.

That means a big numerical preference for Latinos.

I hope that I am not trounced upon for mentioning race and suggestioning that we should have a racial preference in the immigration law.

Immigration: A One Way Valve?

Both Conservatives and Liberal pundits seem extremely unhappy with the current rounds of talks on immigration. The existence of unhappy pundits is sometimes a sign that legislation is going in the right direction. My primary concern in any legislation is simply that the people who are going through legal channels don't get pushed aside by those taking the underground route. Any reform that weighs the needs of the people in legal channels over those set on cheating the system is a success.

I think that the idea of forcing people to exit and re-enter is a waste of precious energy. You could accomplish the same thing with a symbolic exit and re-entry. Rather than wasting energy on plane flights, immigrants could go to the Taco Bell, err., I mean, to the local courthouse and have a symbolic entry to to US.

An angle that I have really not heard a lot of talk about is the migration needs of existing Americans. It seems to me that immigration liberalization in the United States should be discussed in a larger context of free migration of labor throughout the world. Our increasing the number of work permits and immigration slots should be made with a plea that other nations increase opportunities for Americans.

Unfortunately, the way our dysfunctional Congress goes about reform has the potential of creating a one way valve. Despite the faults of the American immigration law, our nation's laws are substantially more liberal than most other nations.

I don't know if we are creating a one way valve. People really don't notice such things when the flow of migration is toward the US.

The ideal of liberal immigration is the free migration of labor. If we were wise we would be using the current liberalization of American immigration laws to force greater liberalization of emigration throughout the world.

My personal experience: After college, I wanted to spend a year or two abroad to expand horizons and learn languages. I applied for a variety of work permits. Every permit was rejected. My friends who wanted to do the international thing had the same experience.

Americans aren't welcome abroad.

If the current immigration reform does not take into account the opportunities of Americans abroad, we will find that our taking on another 12 million people decreases the opportunities for individual Americans have to work abroad.

Documenting the Undocumented

The way that the debate on immigration is going, it is unlikely that we will ever be able to solve this monumental social crisis. Our problem is that people debating the issue are far more interested in attacking their opponents than in solving the issue. For example, Reach Upwards tried writing a post about illegal immigration. He immediately gets a reply that tries to frame the post as anti-immigrant. Being against illegal immigration does not make a person anti-immigrant. Personally, I am opposed to illegal immigration because it creates an exploitable underclass. Having an exploitable underclass in our society allows negative elements in our society to undermine our society.

With this in mind, I will write Kevin's very simple and clear method to handling the undocumented worker crisis:

There are two pools of people we need to think about in an immigration debate. The first is the large line of people wanting to migrate into the country legally. There is a second pool of people who are in the US without permission. Immigration policies should be geared toward balancing the needs of these two groups. There should be a preference to people who are going through the legal process.

The first step in solving the problem is to measure it. The people who are trying to immigrate legally are super easy to measure. They willingly fill out forms, stand in lines and give accurate contact information.

Our immigration system should give preference to people in legal channels. For example, we might give people in the legal channel twice the chance of getting approval to a person who crossed the border illegally.

The challenge is documenting the undocumented. To handle this challenge we should start by creating a documentation process. This process would not be handled by the INS. It could be handled by the Census bureau, drivers license divisions or other such agency. The documentation is at a level below a work permit or amnesty. The primary goal of the documentation is to identify people and for the people to state their intent. The documentation should take biometrics, such as a finger print, or snippet of hair for DNA analysis.

The documentation process should include both negative and positive incentives.

The first goal is to document the undocumented. I think this is what Bush is trying to do with the worker program. I would actually make it simpler. We should have documentation program. We should require everyone who is in the country to get documentation. The documentation would include biometrics (like finger prints). It would ask for the person to express their intent. Do they wish to migrate to the US or are they here temporarily. The documentation program would have to have both positive and negative incentives. The data from the documentation program should not be available to law enforcement. You might give people a one month visa for getting the documentation.

To help give incentive to getting the documentation, we should increase the penalties for people who fail to get documentation.

Once we have measured the problem we should then set liberal immigration and work permit quotas.

We would then use a lottery mechanism based on documentation to let people into the country. We should also establish an repatriation program for the people who lost the lottery so that they can find a new home in an orderly manner.

The process of documentation followed by a lottery and repatriation service is not amnesty. The program is not anti-immigrant as it must be built on a liberal immigration quota. By weighing the needs of the people in legal channels over those who crossed the border illegally, the mechanism rewards law abiding behaviour.

Since this process includes greater penalties for not getting documentation, it punishes illegal behavior.

The whole goal of the documenting the undocumented process is to get all of the people in this immigration mess onto a path that will set them up for a better future either in the United States or outside the United States.

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There are two other important issues that we must address. We need to greatly curtail the influence that national and local politicians have in granting visas and immigration permits. The second thing is that we should get rid of the policy where having a baby in the US immediately qualifies the mother and child for immigration status. Our world is overpopulated, we need to get rid of artificial incentives for people to have children.

Critical Race Theory and Immigration

I finally broke down and bought a copy of The Professors by David Horowitz. While this book is now where near as good as his biography Radical Son, I find The Professors a compelling look into modern academia. For years and years, I thought I was alone in the perception that modern US schools were dominated by Marxist thinking. David Horowitz provides an insightful look at 101 US professors.

Several of the professors listed in The Professors are proponents of an idiocy called "Critical Race Theory." Critical Race seems to hold that the laws white people see are nothing more than an illusion created by our history. Since Hispanics and Blacks, etc., have a different story, our laws simply don't apply.

The professors have clearly turning back the direction of classical liberalism which sought to find universal moral laws that allowed all people to thrive.

Modern liberalism turns the equation upside down. The goal of modern liberalism is to separate people into dysfunctional groups that are incapable of communicating. The classical liberal hates the fact that we are developing an underclass of Hispanics. The modern liberal revels in such division. There is the great hope that such divisions will lead to a master slave reversal.

The classical liberal was someone who truly wanted to liberate people. The modern liberal wants people divided in groups that the intellectual elite can manipulate.

We really do have a problem here. There are groups hypnotized by critical race theory who do want to create a society that is divided by law. They would then be able to ride the friction caused by the division to power.

Immigration and the Baby Boom

The generational timing of the current immigration debate is quite interesting. The US adopted excessively restrictive immigration laws when the precious cargo of baby boomers hit the job market. As the boomers reach retirement age, there is a hew and cry for relaxed immigration. Boomer voices are ringing out loud and clear with the message "We got ours. Now we want servants for our retirement years."

A massive influx of immigrants might even do the trick of saving Social Security. Social Security, as everyone knows, is a Ponzi scheme. The scheme depends entirely one our ability to bring new people into the scheme.

It is strange how national sentiment seems to follow the needs of the baby boomers. The two biggest plusses for massive immigration is that it provides servants for boomers and it might help prop up social security for the expensive retirement demands of boomers.

May Day Protests

I haven't been able to find any good web sites for the planned May Day protests. I am assuming that the point of holding a immigration protest on May Day is to show solidarity with other Socialist Worker's revolutions. Here is an image from a previous rally in Los Angeles:



You know. There is one big problem here. Europe won't take Americans back. They have much stronger border control. It would be in the best interest of the US if any immigration reform took place in light of creating an EU style free trade zone.

Stating the Obvious

Apparently, there is politic support for a plan to give citizenship to undocumented immigrants who've been in the US for more than 5 years and to deport the rest.

Okay, so what will happen when we ask these undocumented immigrants how long they've been in the United States?

Think about it. Here is a person who broke a law to enter the country. When asking an undocumented immigrant how long they've been in the US. They will:

A) tell the truth about when they crossed the border and be deported like a good law abiding citizen.

B) lie through their teeth and come up with false documentation that they have been in the country for x number of years.

As for companies that undercut their competition by hiring illegals. These companies will

A) help point out which workers came across the border in the last five years.

or B) Lie through their teeth and feel self righteous and smug about it.

Of course the main problem with the 5 year cut off is not that it will cause some people to lie. The problem is that people who know they miss the cut off will simply hide.

The time criteria is not the best criteria. Quite frankly, I think people who crossed the borders illegally right after the 1986 amnesty are the worst of the lot. These people specifically worked against a compromise that our country had worked out.

IMHO, the best way to handle the problem is with a lottery. In such a lottery, we would accept a large number of people for citizenship track. It might include a bunch of different points ... years in the US might give you extra points, speaking English might be extra points. However, no group would automatically be completely excluded from the possibility of citizenship.

A lottery would give immigrants an incentive for coming forward to get documentation.

Temporary work permits could also be in the mix. As I said in a past post. We should not give temp work permits to people with the intention of immigrating to the US and we should not give a citizenship path to those people who really just want to work in the US temporarily.

On an unrelated note. A homeless advocate named Ted Hayes seems to be breaking from the dialectical haze and sees that immigration is effectively reducing blacks back into a slavelike existence. The immigration is undermining the salaries for low and semi-skilled jobs that blacks need to realize their part of the American dream.

Bad Form

Watching the news. Apparently immigration services are currently undertaking a massive sweep and deportation of illegal immigrants.

I think it is bad form to start enforcing the laws at the same that we are starting the debate on immigration reform. Of course, this apparent wave of deportations might simply be nothing more than the INS trying to clean its slate of current investigations before new rules takes effect.

Even if this is the case. A sudden increase in deportations while we are in the process of redesigning the law does smack of selective law enforcement.

Selective law enforcement is a sure fire way to destroy the rule of law.

Speaking of selective enforcement: I listened to Rocky Anderson on KPCW. In his pandering to the immigrant vote, Mr. Anderson recounted his opposition to the deportation of undocumented workers at the Salt Lake International Airport just before the 2002 games. This was one of the only attempts at enforcing immigration laws in Utah over the last decade. Mr. Anderson is somewhat right in labeling this act as selective law enforcement. However, I think he is wrong for condemning the INS agents who partook in the law enforcement act.

The problem in this political climate where we do not enforce laws is that law enforcement agents are stuck in the bad position where they have to build a political base and run a PR campaign for each act of law enforcement. The INS selected the airport because they felt security concerns might provide the PR cover needed to enforce the laws.

Rocky Anderson projected all sorts of negative motivations onto the INS. He used the term "hypocrite" a half dozen times. In the present political climate, I fall short of calling the INS hypocrites for selective law enforcement. In an ideal world, law enforcement shouldn't be driven by PR concerns.

The real evil is large number of politicians who have actively thwarted the ability of law enforcement to do their job.

The current system is really what politicians want. They want a draconian set of laws, with selective enforcement that they can belittle and control.

What the people need is clear, enforceable rules.

Regardless, this acceleration of deportations is bad form. Increased border security during the debate would be good form (keeping a bad situation from getting worse is good form).

We need to avoid a world of selective law enforcement. Selective law enforcement, however, is not a fault of the law community, it is the result of our present political climate that sets unrealistic goals and actively works against effective law enforcement.

Guest Workers

The debate on immigration reform needs recognize a few issue.

I happen to agree that forcing a person who is wanting to immigrate into a guest worker program is unfair. Such a system marginalizes the immigrant.

However, we should recognized in our debate that there are people who really want to to be guest workers. There are people who simply want to come to the United States for a few years. Work, then return home with their experience abroad and money from their work.

Forcing people who want to be a guest worker into a citizenship path is as absurd as pushing people who want to be immigrants into a guest worker path.

I would love to be a guest worker in Europe for a year or two so that I could experience a different culture. I would not want to immigrate to France.

This brings up the second issue that I have not heard debated.

All of the debate that we hear is about the need for the United States to liberalize its immigration policies. The debates we have should also bring up the immigration policies of other countries. There are very few countries in this world that allow Americans to work or immigrate to their country.

As the US liberalizes its immigration policies, we should demand that other nations liberalize their policies as well.

California Transplants

Has anyone else noticed that many of the loudest voices in the Anti-Immigrant side of the debate in Utah are from people who fled California?

Utah just does not have a problem yet. We have 85,000 illegal immigrants in Utah. That is roughly the same size as the population of Utahn's living in polygamous families. Estimates of Mormon polygamists in Utah generally range from 60,000-80,000. 85,000 is roughly the population of Odgen. Our illegal immigrant population is just under half the size of Salt Lake City.

California, NM, Arizona and Texas are the places where the problem is most severe. The illegal immigrant population in Ca is several times the population of Utah.

The question is if the people fleeing Ca are just xenophobes, or if they really are telling us the direction that this debate is taking?

Thinking and Rethinking

Happy Easter. If the Easter Bunny left a little brown treat on your pillow, I hope your brown treat was chocolate!

I am feeling good today. I was happy to see 3rd Avenue Dave rethink his position on immigration. Discourse is the process of thinking and rethinking.

Too often politicians don't look at issues. Instead they look at how they can position themselves in social movements to ride the tide to power. Like many I was extremely upset with the way that "progressive" were selling out the unions and greens to pander to crowds of undocumented immigrations.

I am not upset with the immigrants, but with the political wanks. The politicians are the ones that have created our mess by their uniform failure to address issues. The immigrants are pawns.

I am deeply troubled with the large number of politicians who do not invest the time to learn the complexities of the immigration issue. Instead they take the low road and jump infront before crowds to create the illusion of leadership.

A great example here is the large number of union leaders who turned their backs on the concerns of union members to babble about their support of immigration.

Unions were the prime driving force in current restrictive immigration laws. Our problems exist because the left pushed for tight immigration quotas, but would cave in each time people tried to enforce the tight quotas.

When the issue finally reaches critical mass, the left sells out the traditional unionists then tries to project thier political beliefs onto conservatives. It really is a disgusting way to do politics.

I am not upset about different positions on the issues. I am upset with the extent to which the left has undermined our ability to discuss the issue. I admire those people on both sides of the issue who take the time and learn the positions and concerns of their opponents.

The primary problem we face is with the undocumented status of the immigrants. The reason we have this is because modern politics has effectively destroyed our ability to discuss and face issues. In this case we see that pro-labor groups coxed the US into passing excessively strict immigration laws. Other political groups envisioning Hispanic vote as a unbeatable political base actively worked to subvert the laws.

We are now in a really difficult situation where we cannot simply address the issue by setting up rules, because the whole foundation of rule of law has been subverted.

It is a complex and difficult issue that should not be handled by mass deportations, but cannot be handled by a general amnesty. Above all, any immigration reform really needs to start with people caught in a nightmarish immigration bureaucracy.

Solving this problem will require work and quality discourse. Reid's blocking the amendment process was a disservice in that blocking the process stifled debate. In the long run, I think it was good for the nation. A debate as important as the immigration issue really needs to go through several rounds of thinking and rethinking to create a workable solution.

NAFTA and a Borderless N America

The ideals behind NAFTA was to illimate trade barriers and to gradually transform North America into a single economic unit. This logic will will eventually lead to an EU style set up in North America.

Since we apparently lack the political will to secure borders. Perhaps it is time to accelerate the process and start thinking of an open border. The problem with this current immigration law is that we end up filtering out those immigrants who respect laws to the extent that they would not break laws to enter a country.

While we are so caught up in being fair to the people who only obey rules they find convenient that we become horrifically unfair to the people who obey laws, period.

The issue I have not heard discussed in the current immigration debate the extent of the demand for future immigration. If we have open borders, are we looking at just a paltry 20 or 30 million more people wanting to immigrate to the US or are we looking at serious numbers like 100 million plus?

The current nondecision that affectively grants amnesty to the current batch of 12 million undocumented immigrants has already dictated that we will have 12 million more undocumented in the next decade. Having failed to address the current crisis, the next round of immigration reform talks really should begin with a discussion of the total demand for immigration. It is entirely possible that the US has already experienced the brunt of the demand for immigration with the current 12 million illegals plus the 10 or so million that will follow in wake of today's protests. If that is the case, then perhaps it is time to return to the ideals of open borders?

The worst of all worlds, however, is this status quo that punishes people for abiding by laws.

Abandonning reason

I am glad that today's protestors are carrying the American flag rather than the Mexican flag. I am sad that, yet again, Congress has failed to pass any legislation.

I fear that the modern world has simply given up on discourse.

IMHO, the imagined gap between Conservative and Liberal is a non-issue. The real scary issue is the underlying conflict between those who believe we should solve our nation's problems through rational discourse and those who reject discourse and who seek power by manipulating crowds and emotions.

Both Republicans and Democrats seem to have abandonned discourse. The very fact that this immigration debate has been driven by symbolic gestures (minutemen, protests and flag waving wars) are signs that we are systematically abandonning reason in discourse.

BTW: The fact that Congress abandons the debate on immigration reform over a non-issue like the number of amendments to a bill is as absurd at the Congressional tradition of loading all bills with hundreds of pork barrel projects.

Spanish Language Sites

With a growing Spanish Speaking population, I think it is important for web developers to add Spanish language pages to their web sites. To help encourage the development of Spanish Language pages, I give sites with Spanish Language pages a second link.

IF you have a Salt Lake site with both an English language page and Spanish Language page, I will give you a link to both pages.

Here are the pages: Salt Lake City en Español and Denver en Español.

Yes, these pages are small, and my Spanish is horrible. I doubt my sites will ever attract sizeable Hispanic traffic, but an inbound link is still an inbound link. The goal here is simply to encourage the development of bilingual web sites.

Activism and Discourse

Sustained will is the most important element in any immigration reform.

Speaking of sustained effort. I decided to do some web research on upcoming April 10 protest events. (I want to make sure that local political groups are included in my Community Color collection of web sites.) This search was harder than I first imagined. Searching for keywords related to the upcoming protest returned a long string of past protests.

hmmmm,,,,,

While the scheduled April 10 protests will appear to many as a spontaneous outpouring of sentiment. In reality, the protest is just an escalation of a long sustained effort by activists.

(NOTE, I decided against linking to all the different immigration protests I found because it would take too long, and would invariably be incomplete.)

In this regard, the immigration reform debate shows how activism often leads to negative results. By shouting down attempts at immigration reform, the activists end up polarizing people. Even worse, with no immigration reform, the number of marginalized undocumented immigrants increases. The next round of protest invariably escalates. Each round of failed attempts at immigration reform tosses out voices of moderation and strengthens the positions of extremist.

In most cases, the cycle of activism continues until a strong arm (either on the left or right) steps in.

The planned April 10 protests are not a spontaneous outpouring of sentiment. It is a continuation of this cycle of activism stopping the process of discourse.

Activists tend to start with worthy causes, but they invariably undermine their societies and to a system of even greater oppression. It is sad that so few people see this.