Thinking Out Loud: Immigration

Tally Briggs takes a swipe at and a swing at the U.S. press.

Irshad Manji writes, “Non-Muslim Europeans wonder: When filmmaker Theo van Gogh can be killed in the streets of Amsterdam, targeted because he criticized Islam, and when a Muslim woman who has abandoned her arranged marriage can be shot dead by her brothers in Berlin, what’s next? And who’s next?”

Americans, Mexicans, Canadians and most other Western cultures are no less outraged by this sort of obscene killing. The difference is, Europe has a free, non-corporate-owned press that isn’t afraid of its own shadow and not so completely absorbed by the daily shade of Michael Jackson’s lipstick. If this kind of thing happened in the U.S. and the American press actually reported it, you’d better believe we’d become just as intolerant.

Do immigrants seek new lives in such places as Europe or the U.S. strictly because of job availability, or is it the freedom to make the kind of life they’ve always dreamed of and the West affords? Well, freedom is not only paying taxes and “keeping the welfare state intact,” it’s about respecting your fellow citizens who have allowed you entry into their home in the first place. You can’t pick and choose your liberties in this brave new world you’ve chosen to adopt as your home....

Tally Briggs
Toluca Lake

Burl Estes agrees with , for one sentence.

As Ms. Manji states, “On many matters, from healthcare to women’s rights, the United States can learn from Europe. But on immigration, it’s the other way around.”

She’s right. We can learn from Europe. Socialized healthcare doesn’t work any better in Europe than it does in Toronto, Canada, where she writes. No wonder Canadian patients flock to the U.S. for elective surgery....

Women’s rights? I think women have it much better here than elsewhere in the world.

And Europe has a much worse immigration problem than the U.S. Our southern immigrants, legal and illegal, come here to assimilate and build a better life style. Obviously, our way of life is much better.

But immigrants in Europe, especially those from Muslim and Islamic countries, want to have it both ways. They want the benefits of modern society while clinging to repressive ways. Your sister disgraces the family? Kill her. Then claim our laws and way of life shouldn’t apply to you....

Burl Estes
Mission Viejo

Robert Dickson does a mean impression.

It is time for honesty on this issue. First, we are not talking about legal immigration, but illegal (criminal) immigration. It is this distinction that gets lost in the heated rhetoric of the debate.

Hard workers or not, people who knowingly enter this country illegally are criminals. Branding opponents of this type of criminality as racists is truly disgusting and is a blatant attempt to defer attention from the real issues.

Illegal immigration harms everybody, and this cannot be refuted. Any economic benefit of illegal labor is minuscule when compared to the massive amounts of tax dollars expended to educate and care for millions who do not pay into the system.

All arguments aside, 8-10 million (and probably millions more) people who do not pay any wage-related taxes, yet use the services provided by those taxes, are an enormous and criminally unfair drain on those of us who pay up to half of our income in taxes. These are facts. All the noise about racism must be shouted down by those who are willing to be honest about this issue. We are not racists, we are citizens who want our laws enforced.

Robert Dickson
Costa Mesa

Ed Frye lectures on the nature of capitalism.

The article misses the whole point of immigration. From the U.S. side it is and has always been based on economics. Three hundred years ago, Adam Smith stated capitalism is the best form of economics and he bases this on the business cycle. He asserts that during the depression period of the business cycle business has the advantage of surplus labor, but this is balanced out during the inflation period of the cycle where there is a shortage of labor. This theory was based on an unchanging supply of the labor population.

The Robber Barons of the 19th century saw that by opening up the gates to immigration during the inflation period they could manipulate the labor supply to their advantage. Going back to the 16th and 17th centuries the royalists in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina found white slaves, politely called indentured servants, as a cheap means of increasing the labor supply. In fact in the first half of the 18th century there were more white slaves than black. Again, it was economics....

Today, when the mass of Americans oppose illegal immigration, our elected representatives do nothing to provide a rational immigration policy and thus a large portion of the population is disgusted with their representatives....

Ed Frye
Palmdale

Frank Dayton has heard it all before.

OK, so you dedicated the Opinion section to immigration. And basically it’s the same old stories. Big deal. Let’s face it, nothing meaningful is going to happen until politics and attitudes change. Like most Americans I’m not anti-immigration. I’m anti-illegal immigration. The key word is “illegal.” And that’s the kind of immigration that has to be stopped!!!

So naturally that leads to same old question being asked over and over: Why won’t our government leaders (OK, politicians) do something about it? Answer. Because they are all afraid of being labeled as racist.

And who’s always right there to label them as racist? The American media (L.A. Times included) and every pro-illegal-immigration support group around.

And let’s face it, those groups are nothing but people supporting law breakers. What’s even funnier is the fact that it’s media outlets like the Times that keep calling for illegal immigration reform.... So to all politicians, I say, stop illegal immigration now. America will support you if they see you’re sincere in your efforts.

Oh, and to all you pro-illegal-immigration groups, I’ll ask you the same question so many legal immigrants ask: Why should those who enter our country illegally be allowed to stay and receive support when others went through the process legally?

Frank Dayton
Hesperia

Pete Alberini takes outsourcing advocate to task for his “disoriented logic.”

Swift makes the standard economic argument for outsourcing high tech jobs: It is cheaper, therefore if we don’t do it we will be out of business, because my competitor next door will do it. In a global economy everybody is your competitor next door.

But then, he adds, my company is helping the American economy because it is located here and the profits are put back into America. That’s the part of the story that is a lie. It is disoriented logic: i.e., people need protein, a rattlesnake bite contains protein, therefore rattlesnake bites are good for you.

As a small business owner in a high-tech aerospace business I have to ask myself, “What is it that we have that we can sell our customers?” The answer always is knowledge and experience. The next question we have to ask is, “Who would be willing to pay the price that our operational cost in the U.S. demands?” The answer is the U.S. government and major aircraft suppliers who sell to the U.S government. The question America needs to ask is, “What is it that America has that the rest of the world wants?” The answer is 290 million gluttonous consumers spending lots of U.S dollars.

Conclusion: We are a nation that doesn’t need the world; the world needs us. We have the economic power and military might to make the world play by our rules. What we lack is the courage and will to demand that they do. International sale of products produced outside the U.S. does the American worker no good....

Pete Alberini
La Mirada

Sal Tarantino sharpens the guillotine for .

Although I’m not sure what Mr. Swift’s ultimate point was, other than that capitalism is merciless and we must accept it, he did make some interesting observations that need to be discussed. First, what does it means to be an American and what economic rights does the American nation-state owe its citizens?

If his point is that we have to compete with the Praveens of the world who make $3000 a year then we as Americans are doomed. If the goal of the American CEO is to impoverish us all then I say, let’s get the guillotines of the French revolution out of the museums of France and line up the American capitalists.

I would ask Mr. Swift if he thinks next time our politicians, who are bought and paid for by American CEOs, want to go to war is Praveen going to pick up an M-16 or does Mr. Swift expect some young American patriot to do it? Every day American multinational corporations fire American workers and hire the Praveens of the world for a dollar or two a day to do the same work that American citizens were doing. What loyalty should these displaced workers have to this nation-state?

Sal Tarantino
San Diego

C. Heinrich May predicts a Ford’s in ‘s future.

Clearly outsourcing American jobs to India produces benefits for those companies that choose to do so, however I would disagree that it lifts all boats. Essentially Mr. Swift argues that the few must sacrifice for the benefit of the many. He describes this process as progress. He goes on to lament metaphorically that the least seaworthy will founder and the strong will right themselves and sail on.

For many the experience of losing ones job can be completely overwhelming and, for the worker near retirement, devastating. The reasons why companies offshore are many: reduced labor costs, increased profit, job security and higher wages for those that remain.... Simply put, the production worker is sacrificed to save the company name, the front office and the management team. For some 20 years now I have watched this process repeat itself, again and again with great disgruntlement, a process that routinely forfeits the production worker so that those who occupy office space and drive BMWs can continue to do so.... Let’s face it, Mr. Swift, at worst if your company goes under you may end up living in my lower-middle-class neighborhood and driving a Ford, but I doubt you will sink to the bottom like so many others have.

C. Heinrich May
Twentynine Palms, CA

Minuteman Tim Donnelly has some questions for “so-called fair-minded journalist” .

I just finished reading as worthless and factless a piece by Marc Cooper as I have ever read in any newspaper. What a complete waste of time. Time and time again I read rubbish in the LA Times, but never anything this offensive. I was in Tombstone [Arizona] on April 1st, and any reporter worth his salt realized the story was not in the numbers.

What Marc never bothered to ask was why would so many hardworking, normal Americans from every walk of life leave their homes, leave their families, leave their jobs, and pay their own way to travel thousands of miles to patrol a hot, dusty stretch of desert?

When it became apparent that we were not the toothless, “white-supremacist” racist trash that so-called fair-minded journalist expected, why not dig deeper?

If Marc had dug deeper, I am sure he would have unearthed a very compelling and deeply moving story about how illegal immigration has personally impacted the lives and community of almost every Minuteman who showed up on April 1st.

When an activist showed up in my town to denounce my community as “racist,” he was as short on facts and long on rhetoric as Marc Cooper.

At that moment, I knew I could no longer stand by and seethe at the injustice. I had to stand up and do the very thing that Marc denounces. Act. No more talking, no more writing, no more hand-wringing. I had to do something more.

The “proper” authorities have completely failed to protect the citizenry from the many costs of illegal immigration that no one ever talks about.

What do we do when the law fails us all?

Who will stand up for what is right even if it is not popular?

It is the Minutemen that Marc Cooper dismisses as “yahoos” who answered that call.

The Marc Coopers of the world try to squash our righteous anger by telling us this problem is too “complex” for such simple action....

Don’t speak to me about the 3,000 migrants who chose to risk death crossing the border when 3,000 of your own countrymen have been gunned down in the streets of America by 3,000 illegal alien killers who did make it across.

Don’t you dare try to tell me I don’t have a right to control who comes into my country.

Since 1998, our “good” neighbor to the south has refused to extradite any of these 3,000 killers who roam free in Mexico.

Until today. They released one.

Maybe the Minutemen helped simplify a seemingly complex problem by simply standing up and being counted.

“We the people” will no longer be silenced by your name-calling and your condescending comments.

Tim Donnelly
Twin Peaks

Julian Camacho Segura gags over our immigration issue.

I opened my Sunday opinion section to disgust, utter gagging as I read from your “experts.”

If there was sanity in this discussion then maybe you would incorporate opinions from real experts across the spectrum, from Chicano Studies professors who study and teach about the tradition of the U.S. reaching into Central Mexico for their labor class. The more impoverished the better, a higher profit margin.

You could incorporate experts such a Luis Alberto Urrea in “The Devil’s Highway” and maybe read that undocumented Mexican migration provides $300 billion into the U.S. federal budget. We know this money returns to California in the form of grants and medical [care], including Social Security for many of those complaining.

You would also learn that 80 cents of every federal budget dollar in Mexico goes to pay their foreign debt, primarily Wall Street and many stock investors.

Then you would have to interview border residents.... And lastly, a business person who will admit that they profit from this racial labor arrangement.

Then maybe your Opinion section on immigration will have merit. For all I read is sheer hypocrisy.

Julian Camacho Segura
Whittier