New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | September 7, 2006

Kerry Howley counts the ways that the 9/11 attacks moved the immigration debate even further away from reality.

Comments

|9.7.06 @ 2:32PM|#

When the hell were open borders ever a mainstream position outside the elite? Immigration has never been popular and illegal immigration from Mexico is extremely unpopular. People didn't turn against illegals after September 11th in fear of terrorism. They were always against illegals; politicians and the media just ignored the popular opinion. Howley can rewrite history all she wants and think that the whole popular revulsion to illegal immigration has to do with fear of terrorism instead of crowded schools, crime, welfare rolls, employment, wages and over extended public services all she wants. But that is not going to change reality.

|9.7.06 @ 2:32PM|#

When the hell were open borders ever a mainstream position outside the elite? Immigration has never been popular and illegal immigration from Mexico is extremely unpopular. People didn't turn against illegals after September 11th in fear of terrorism. They were always against illegals; politicians and the media just ignored the popular opinion. Howley can rewrite history all she wants and think that the whole popular revulsion to illegal immigration has to do with fear of terrorism instead of crowded schools, crime, welfare rolls, employment, wages and over extended public services all she wants. But that is not going to change reality.

|9.7.06 @ 2:32PM|#

When the hell were open borders ever a mainstream position outside the elite? Immigration has never been popular and illegal immigration from Mexico is extremely unpopular. People didn't turn against illegals after September 11th in fear of terrorism. They were always against illegals; politicians and the media just ignored the popular opinion. Howley can rewrite history all she wants and think that the whole popular revulsion to illegal immigration has to do with fear of terrorism instead of crowded schools, crime, welfare rolls, employment, wages and over extended public services all she wants. But that is not going to change reality.

|9.7.06 @ 3:22PM|#

John - speaking of history, everything you just wrote could have been written just about any time in US history. Just replace "Mexican" with "Irish", "Jewish" or whatever other type of immigrant you want, "terrorism" with just about any other kind of ism and "Sept 11" with any other date, and no one would know the diff.

|9.7.06 @ 3:47PM|#

Lowdog,

My intention was not to start an immigration debate. Howley acts like everyone was kosher with immigration until 9-11 happened and now all of these crazies who are afraid of terrorists have changed the debate. That is bullshit. The majority of this country, rightly or wrongly, objected to open borders long before 9-11. They were just ignored by their elected leaders.

Tim Cavanaugh|9.7.06 @ 3:55PM|#

John, I have never said this because it's been said before by so many commenters and I don't like to weigh in on stuff like this, but will you please read and digest the article before pontificating about it? Your description of the article is exactly wrong, as demonstrated by the article's very first sentence, which reads: "At the beginning of September 2001, immigration was much in the news." The argument is that the same anti-immigration forces have added an anti-terrorism patina to the same arguments they were making before.

You are free to differ with that argument, but you are not free to differ with a 180-degree mischaracterization of that argument. Well, actually, you're free to do that too, but it's bad hockey, John.

|9.7.06 @ 4:26PM|#

"The shift is conceptual, captured in language if not in law. When Joe Lieberman told The New York Times that "fences are going to go down between these two countries," he was expressing a mainstream political position. The most illuminating part of this sentiment is not the hope Lieberman expressed but the clich� he chose to express it. Back in 2001, after all, the word fence was just a metaphor. "

Tim that is not how I read her article at all. I read the above quote to basically mean that we are only talking about fences and really shutting off the borders because of 9-11. I disagree. People wanted to shut off the border long before that. The debate hasn't changed one bit because of terrorism. Yeah, it has come the forefront in the last year but that would have happened regardless of 9-11. If Howely isn't saying that fears of terrorism is what is driving the move towards immigration restrictions, then what is she saying? If she is not saying that, then it is a pretty pointless article.

|9.7.06 @ 4:51PM|#

John - you're just further illustrating my point. People who already live here and are in no danger of being deported are always (in a general, overall population sense) against immigration. I'm not trying to start an immigration debate, either, except to say that you don't have a point. People don't like furriners. So fucking what? When has a population in general, in any country, ever liked furriners?

That people don't like furriners and use many wrong reasons to say why isn't what I'm talking about at all.

Tim Cavanaugh|9.7.06 @ 5:33PM|#

Maybe I'm slow, John (my ancestors emigrated from another of those impoverished, majority-Catholic countries plagued by centuries of misrule, so it's quite possible), but I'm still not seeing where you get from the passage you quoted to "everyone was kosher with immigration until 9-11 happened."