Immigration Rising

More evidence for Matt Welch's observation that immigration is soon-to-be-a-major-electoral issue again: Cincinnati has signed on to accepting matricula consular cards issued by Central American governments such as Mexico and Guatemala. The cards allow immigrants, regardless of legal status, to get drivers' licenses, open bank accounts, and conduct other basic transactions. Businesses like them because they bring more above-ground cash into play; opponents decry them because they make life easier for illegal and legal immigrants alike.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that 402 cities have started to accept the cards. At the same time that the Queen City is saying yes, two area congressmen, Republican Reps. Rob Portman and Steve Chabot have voted for legislation banning them. Chabot has even cosponsored legislation mandating that only passports can be used as legal i.d. by non-residents.

Both Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and George W. Bush nationally are courting the latino vote, the population most heavily invested with the matricula consular. Whether you're for or against the cards (or for or against immigration), this will be interesting to watch play out.

Comments

[John]

If I'm a towelhead terrorist, I visit my friendly local Mexican consulate and slip the employee a couple hundred dollars.

Then, I have bright shiny new matricula consular that lets me get on airplanes & crash them into infidel-populated skyscrapers.

[Ken]

They make life easier for illegal immigrants?

So it's then easer for the illegal immigrants to continue breaking US law? Why should anybody abide by the law when they just need one of these cards?

Maybe we should issue pistol permits to all robbers - it would make their lives easier.

[Madog]

A lot of people seem to think this sort of thing will lead to more influence by Mexico on the US. It seems more likely to work the other way around. If more and more US residents are of Mexican descent then eventually Mexican domestic affairs are going to become more of a concern to the US. If you're a Mexican politician, and you have a lot of ties to constituents in US congressional districts why not use those ties to get US congress men to use the US to lean on the Mexican government in your favor?

I have a feeling that the ultimate result of all this immigration won't be "Aztlan" or the annexation of the Southwest by Mexico, but the annexation of Mexico by the US (possibly as some sort of 3 nation North American version of the EU).

[Virginia Dare]

Speak of the devil - VDare.com just mentioned something about Matt Welch and Reason.com:

Link is:
http://www.vdare.com/pb/goodbye_guzzardi.htm

Excerpt:

***********************************************
I'm not quite so sure about Reason Magazine's Matt Welch. We've had to reprove him before. And in a piece today reporting the horrifying (to Welch) return of the immigration issue, he complains of Joe's last column:

"These are no gentle gibes in VDare-land. La Raza and MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan), are routinely described as Nazi-style fascists, plotting the reconquista of the Southwestern United States." [links in original]

Hmmm, I just entered "Nazi-style fascists" into the VDARE.COM search engine, only to learn that the expression has never been used on our site.

I didn't think so.

Welch does conclude:

"As always, open debate is preferable to ducking the issue. For those interested, Reason has an excellent page full of immigration-related articles and resources." [links in original]

Significantly, the page hasn't been updated since June 2000 - apparently the last time Reason had an idea on the subject.
***********************************************

[Lonewacko]

"opponents decry them because they make life easier for illegal and legal immigrants alike."

Yeah, when we aren't beating puppies with rocks.

Legal immigrants have no need for MC or similar cards, they're only of use for illegal aliens. Accepting MC cards from illegal aliens leads to more illegal immigration.

Here's a detailed backgrounder on the cards. The FBI doesn't like them, but should we trust them, or our friends in the Mexican government?

And, to put the MC cards in their proper context:

"By populating the United States with millions of Hispanics who are tied economically, politically and linguistically to Mexico, we are able to exert enormous influence and pressure on U.S. policy and its dealings with Mexico."

[Robert Hutchinson]

Hmmm, I just entered 'Nazi-style fascists' into the VDARE.COM search engine, only to learn that the expression has never been used on our site.

I wonder if the author tried "overly literal smartass" next.

**********

Why should anybody abide by the law when they just need one of these cards?

Why should anybody abide by the law simply because of the thought-squashing effect of the phrase "it's the law"? It's the law that the government can tear down your house if ConGlomCo greases enough palms and chants the mystic phrase "eminent domain". It's the law that the government can force you to die miserably because it's scared of a plant (or so the official line goes). And it's the law that you can only reside on the other side of an imaginary line if you have the right paperwork and your personal bureaucrat isn't having a bad day.

[Logan Feys]

Open borders might very well doom the cause of liberty in America. Borderlessness is empowering America?s most zealous enemies (Bin Laden is all for wide open borders in America!) and putting our most basic freedoms in peril.

I hope you?ll take a look at my article "Ushering In Civilization?s Destroyers: How Altruism Is Aiding Militant Islam?s March toward Global Domination." It begins:

"In the twentieth century, the Nazis tried to takeover the world and failed. The Communists nearly succeeded. Now, in the twenty-first century, emboldened religious fanatics have their sights set on global domination. The Islamic conquest of civilization has already begun. The United States and Europe have laid out the welcome mat for their destroyers."

How and why are civilized countries continuing to accommodate terrorists, even after 9-11? What must be done in order to save civilization? Find out my answers by reading "Ushering In Civilization's Destroyers":

http://www.individualistvoice.com/islam.html

-Logan Feys

[john s bolton]

Re: Logan Feys- You are correct to point out the danger to the West, to our freedom from aggression and to our survival, from hostile foreigners. It is also quite right to mention, as you do, the role of mass altruism as contributing fundamentally to the weakness of response towards them. My site, entitled 'diversity the anti-merit people' comments much further on related points.

[JOSE LOPEZ]

Most of us are illigal imigrants
the Navajos are native Americans
the rest of us came from somewere else
Where did your ancestors came from ???