[macintologist]

http://www.badnarik.org/plans_immigration.php

Immigration is among the most contentious issues facing America today, and the specters of terrorism and war have only added fuel to an already fiery debate. Let's take an objective look at immigration, borders and legitimate national security concerns.

By any reasonable measure, immigration is not just beneficial to the American economy but indispensable to the goal of a nation of freedom and opportunity. This nation was built on immigration. Allowing peaceful people to enter our country is not just an option. It's a benchmark by which we measure whether or not we're living up to the American ideal.

This does not mean, however, that the national defense must be sacrificed to some naive conception of "open borders." The right to enter the United States is not the same as the right to enter the United States in contravention of its legitimate interest in securing itself against those who would do it harm.

Immigration and borders are two separate issues. When they are mixed, the result is both deadly to peaceful immigrants and subversive of the security of the United States.

Peaceful immigrants should be allowed to enter the US at conveniently located Customs and Immigration stations, subject only to brief vetting to ensure that they are not terrorists or criminals. They should not be forced by restrictions or quotas to place their lives at risk by crossing the border at remote locations, often under the guidance of ruthless "coyotes" who are as likely to leave them to die as to get them safely across, and to then lead lives of fear of detection, detention and deportation. I do not regard the existence of the social "safety net" as a good excuse for excluding immigrants. The welfare state needs to be eliminated. It would need to be eliminated whether immigration was an issue or not.

Not only are immigration restrictions bad policy in and of themselves, they make national defense a more difficult task. Immigrants crossing into the US illegally, because they were denied legal entry for no good reason, provide cover, by sheer dint of numbers, for terrorists and criminals. The black market in smuggling humans constitutes a vector for bringing the nation's enemies into our homeland.

Coupled with open, easy immigration for the peaceful, I advocate a vigorous national defense against our enemies. Terrorists and criminals who attempt to enter the US via a Customs and Immigration station should be denied entry and, where applicable, arrested or extradited. Terrorists and criminals who attempt to enter the US via other points along its 95,000 miles of border and coastline should be treated as what they are: invaders against whom our armed forces must respond. There are obvious exceptions Cuban and Haitian "boat refugees" who don't have much control over where they make landfall, for example but they are exceptions, not the rule.

As a Libertarian, I reject a conception of national defense that keeps American troops overseas, meddling in the affairs of other nations. Instead, I advocate a national defense which, sans any attack which might require retaliation elsewhere, focuses on the logical area: the nation's borders. As president, I would work to eliminate the Border Patrol and treat border issues as what they are: defense issues coming under the mission and scope of the armed forces. In an age where the equivalent of a large invasion force can be packed into a suitcase-sized box containing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, no lesser response will do.

I think allowing peaceful people to come and work and enter through proper Customs would be a great thing, and would make it easier to spot criminals and terrorists trying to come across the border.

Why not just make it so Mexicans who want to immigrate to the US to work and live only have to apply for a work visa at an appropriate US consulate in Mexico and then enter the US legally? What's with the quotas?

What do you think?

[vmarks]

You would think this would work, but then it would ignore folks like Mike Hawash, an Intel employee who everyone thought was peaceful, but he was part of a group of Oregonians who were collaborating with Taliban. It ignores the fact that there are more people like Hawash already in the United States, already collaborating with US-and-EU-recognized terrorist groups.

Attempting to find and prosecute those people while opening borders wide to a flood of people who also look apparently peaceful is problematic.

The biggest influx of non-Mexican illegal entry is through Arizona, http://www.azcentral.com/specials/sp...curity-ON.html - http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.p...82404a1_border

From Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, coming in through Mexico?

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=22979

Former Intel Corp. engineer Maher Mofeid "Mike" Hawash apologized to his family and took full responsibility for his actions Monday as he was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for conspiring to fight against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
"I do not blame anybody but myself," Hawash told the court as his wife, Lisa, looked on from the front row. "What I have done was completely out of my character, and I clearly knew that it was an illegal act."
Hawash's sentence, the lightest handed down to any of the six male members of the group, was based in part on his agreement to testify against his fellow travelers. Federal prosecutors called the agreement a "crucial" factor in getting four of them to also plead guilty.
U.S. District Judge Robert Jones, who said Hawash's involvement in the conspiracy had been a "mystery" to him from the beginning, agreed that the lighter sentence was appropriate.
"I'm convinced that you will never commit another criminal act," he told Hawash.
Co-defendants Muhammad Ibrahim Bilal, 24, and his brother, Ahmed Ibrahim Bilal, 26, also were sentenced Monday to serve eight and 10 years, respectively.
The sentencings marked the apparent end of an odyssey that began in fall 2001, when six of the so-called Portland Seven flew to China in an attempt to enter Afghanistan for the purpose of fighting against forces of the United States.
Hawash, a Jordanian-born Muslim with a master's degree in electrical engineering, was joined on the journey by five other Portland Muslims. According to prosecutors, Hawash -- who has a wife, three children and a house in Hillsboro valued at $273,650 -- had become acquainted with the men in part through two Portland area mosques.
The other members of the group are:
� The U.S.-born, Saudi Arabia-raised Bilal brothers, who apparently had high school educations and worked at assorted jobs.
� Portland transplant Jeffrey Leon Battle, 34, who left his ex-wife -- Portland Seven co-conspirator October Martinique Lewis, 27, so impoverished while he was in China that his Muslim "brothers" had to support her and their young son.
� Portlander Patrice Lumumba Ford, 32, whose advanced degree in Far East studies and fluency in Mandarin caused lead prosecutor Charles Gorder Jr. to suggest that he "should be working for the State Department" instead of heading off to prison.
� Habis Abdulla Al Saoub, 38, a native of Jordan who prosecutors say was the group's leader because of his past experience as a "holy warrior" against the Russian army in Afghanistan.
Battle and Ford, who did not cooperate with the government, received 18-year terms in November. Lewis, who did not travel to China, was sentenced to three years in December.
Al Saoub, who reportedly had fought against the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s, was never arrested. According to CNN, he may have been killed in October while fighting near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but the information has not been confirmed.
Hawash, 39, described the former mujahedeen "freedom fighter" Al Saoub as the group's leader and prime motivator. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the U.S. decision to go to war with Afghanistan, Hawash said Al Saoub made the case that Muslims were being wrongly attacked as scapegoats and needed assistance from fellow Muslims.

[macintologist]

vmarks, I was thinking that, when the peaceful non-criminal non-terrorist Mexican wants to come work in the US, they would go to a US Consulate in Mexica, apply for the work visa, and before being granted the work visa there would be a proper background check.

By allowing peaceful immigrants to come through a legal port of entry such as Brownsville, El Paso, San Diego and other cities, you prevent them from having to cross into the US illegally. By significantly reducing the number of people crossing the border at illegal points of entry, we can make it easier on Border Patrol to catch the bad guys.

Am I making sense?

[Curios Meerkat]

Forget about vmarks - each and every topic for him is an excuse to copy/paste more anti-muslim slurs....

As for your proposal: - but it will never be implemented or advocated by any mainstream political entity: cheap labor is crucial for the economy, and if those people were to work legally (even at sub-minimum wage) the costs will skyrocket.

I think anyone living, working and paying taxes in the US should be a citizen.

[thunderous_funker]

I thought Libertarians worshiped at the alter of the marketplace for every issue?

The simplest solution is for undocumented workers to have collective bargaining rights. One big fat undocumented worker Union to demand decent working conditions and wages.

The instant that happens, the Invisible Hand will very quickly round them up, shut the border and never lure them into our country with jobs again.

I promise.

[vmarks]

Originally posted by Curios Meerkat:
Forget about vmarks - each and every topic for him is an excuse to copy/paste more anti-muslim slurs....

Confronting the very real problem of terrorist supporters within the United States is not an anti-Muslim slur.

When the topic is border control, one issue is the real instances of folks from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq having entered the US illegally from Mexico. Recognizing the situation of a porous border being taken advantage of by those who agitate against the US, as opposed to those coming to make a better life for themseves, is not an anti-Muslim slur.

What I copy/pasted and linked to were not anti-Muslim slurs, but the local newspapers where the news stories covering the conviction of Mike Hawash and the non-Mexican immigration were reported. Not weak sources like the Guardian, or blogs, or wikipedia.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by vmarks:
Confronting the very real problem of terrorist supporters within the United States is not an anti-Muslim slur.

When the topic is border control, one issue is the real instances of folks from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq having entered the US illegally from Mexico. Recognizing the situation of a porous border being taken advantage of by those who agitate against the US, as opposed to those coming to make a better life for themseves, is not an anti-Muslim slur.

What I copy/pasted and linked to were not anti-Muslim slurs, but the local newspapers where the news stories covering the conviction of Mike Hawash and the non-Mexican immigration were reported. Not weak sources like the Guardian, or blogs, or wikipedia.

Why do I get the feeling that this thread has suddenly stepped through a wormhole to find itself in the 1940's?

Don't get me wrong, America certainly needs to protect itself. But protecting ourselves is something that we've done spectacularly well over the decades.

Our history should caution any patriot against unnecessary reactionary xenophobic hysteria.

[Sven G]

BTW, shouldn't borders have been abolished many years ago...?

Well, that could be one of the main items in the agenda for the next revolutionary wave, maybe...

[sideus]

I support Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly on this one. Put the National Guard on the border.

http://tancredo.house.gov/ - An excellent proponent of a stronger border.

[Athens]

Originally posted by macintologist:
http://www.badnarik.org/plans_immigration.php


I think allowing peaceful people to come and work and enter through proper Customs would be a great thing, and would make it easier to spot criminals and terrorists trying to come across the border.

Why not just make it so Mexicans who want to immigrate to the US to work and live only have to apply for a work visa at an appropriate US consulate in Mexico and then enter the US legally? What's with the quotas?

What do you think?

Quotas are to insure that resources are not exceded.

For example look at Vancouver, in the last 20 years the city has grown by a million people. Schools now have portables to meet the needs of extra students, last summer we had to put in place heavy water ristrictions because we didn't have enough. Freeways and roads are now getting cloged up with to much traffic. Hospitals are now suffering longer wait times. All this is from controlled growth. Imagine open boarders which allows even more people in. Many cities have the same problems. Growth has to be limited to what can be handled.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Our history should caution any patriot against unnecessary reactionary xenophobic hysteria.

It's ok for people to react with xenophobic hysteria as long as their ancestors were reacted to with xenophobic hysteria in the past.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by sideus:
I support Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly on this one. Put the National Guard on the border.

http://tancredo.house.gov/ - An excellent proponent of a stronger border.

Ok. I hope you don't mind the price of all your produce at the supermarket increasing 300%.

Most advocates of such measures are either ignorant or indifferent to the very real economic impact such action would have.

But if you seriously don't mind the consequences, then go right ahead.

[gumby5647]

sorry kids. The only way you'll fix the problem of Illegal Mexicans from pouring over the boarder is to address the problem at the root.

Putting boarder patrol and all this other jazz at the Mexican boarder is worthless. In the words of Ron White..."You're trying to tack a solution that has nothing to do with the problem".

The problem is...with 8.6 million people living in it....Mexico City is one of the top 10 most populus cities in the world. And its a freaking DUMP! Car's still running on leaded gasoline...DDT still being used...and un-drinkable water. Who in their right mind would want to live there knowing how much better things are in California or Texas.


Fix Mexico and it's economy ...and you'll fix the immigration problem. make it so people actually want to live there!

[The Oracle]

Originally posted by gumby5647:
And its a freaking DUMP! Car's still running on leaded gasoline...DDT still being used...and un-drinkable water. Who in their right mind would want to live there knowing how much better things are in California or Texas.

Many european cars are diesel, and drinking their tap water is ill-advised.

[finboy]

Originally posted by vmarks:
Confronting the very real problem of terrorist supporters within the United States is not an anti-Muslim slur.

To some folks, everything is an anti-Muslim slur.

[typoon]

Originally posted by sideus:
I support Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly on this one. Put the National Guard on the border.

http://tancredo.house.gov/ - An excellent proponent of a stronger border.

Why just the National Guard? We should call back all but one division in Europe. Those thousands of troops then could be deployed to protect not just our souther border but also the vast northern border we also have.

Acutally I like Savage's suggestion of telling Vincente Fox that for every illegal immigrant we want 20 million barrels of oil from them.

[Salah al-Din]

Immigration will be a "problem" for the west as long as they don't realise what the root of the problem is.

Help the other nations build up their nations and free up the economy and you will reduce the immigration "problem" until it dissappears. Keeping the inequality in this world will make this "problem" grow. No matter how much you guard your borders you will have this problem unless you start helping the less fortunate nations on this little planet of ours.

[typoon]

Originally posted by Salah al-Din:
Immigration will be a "problem" for the west as long as they don't realise what the root of the problem is.

Help the other nations build up their nations and free up the economy and you will reduce the immigration "problem" until it dissappears. Keeping the inequality in this world will make this "problem" grow. No matter how much you guard your borders you will have this problem unless you start helping the less fortunate nations on this little planet of ours.

it's a little tough to do when you have repressive gov'ts in some places.

[Salah al-Din]

Originally posted by typoon:
it's a little tough to do when you have repressive gov'ts in some places.

Yup, it sucks that the West has sucked up to repressive regimes just to get a hold of the nations natural resources.

Just stop doing business with nations that are repressive(for real and not based on fantasy and politics like now) and see how long they last.

[thunderous_funker]

The tens of millions of illegal workers in this country are not here in pursuit of freedom from political persecution or any other idealistic notion.

They came here for the tens of millions of JOBS that are given them with little or no legal consequences. In fact, our immigration policy makes illegal labor a hugely profitable enterprise with the predictable marketplace consequences (hint: increase in illegal labor force).

There is an entire shadow economy in this country based entirely on the profitability of illegal labor. Until that is addressed, no amount of guns or money spent at the border will stop it.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally posted by Salah al-Din:
Immigration will be a "problem" for the west as long as they don't realise what the root of the problem is.

Focussing the attention of citizens onto immigrants is always a popular and effective technique.