{"id":134028,"date":"2017-08-03T07:44:01","date_gmt":"2017-08-03T13:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/03\/and-then-we-go-after-the-legal-immigrants.html"},"modified":"2017-08-03T07:44:01","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T13:44:01","slug":"and-then-we-go-after-the-legal-immigrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/03\/and-then-we-go-after-the-legal-immigrants.html","title":{"rendered":"And then we go after the LEGAL immigrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because when your whole campaign is based on Terror of the Other, then even people who come here legally are fodder for stereotypes, fear-mongering, and discrimination.<\/p>\n

Legal immigration policy is one of those things that isn't quite as clear-cut as to when it's bad and when it's good. Aside from some fringe open borders types, most people agree that there should be some sort of restrictions on numbers and criteria for people to come here legally, as, in fact, there are.<\/p>\n

From there, though, the discussion goes a bit wonky. Do legal immigrants push down wages? While you can probably find anecdata to support that proposition, the overall economic judgment is no. <\/p>\n

Is America being overwhelmed by People Not Like Us? That's a subjective assessment at best, thinly masked racism at worst (it presupposes that there is a singular "like us" to compare to), but the same accusation has been leveled in every era, and we generally look back on those accusations and roll our eyes at the stupidity. <\/p>\n

Does it make sense to encourage people coming here who already speak English? The advantages are obvious (until we get nativists complaining about people using "-our" instead of "-or" and "s" instead of "z"), but the way that tilts the racial and ethnic balance needs to be looked at, too, so that this doesn't become a Poll Tax equivalent.<\/p>\n

Family create stability in society, as the Republicans usually argue vociferously. Does that mean it therefore makes since to restrict further who gets a leg up on coming into the US based on family already here? Hard to see that.<\/p>\n

And, of course, there's the particularly naked hot button here, preventing legal, unnaturalized immigrants from receiving any sort of federal welfare. The arguments behind that are obvious, to prevent the moral hazard of people coming here just<\/i> to get on welfare programs. On the other hand, it's unclear that this is significant problem (some numbers might be nice), and, honestly, circumstances change — that great job that you gave up your life to accept here suddenly goes away, and now you're faced with either starving or trying to finance going back home again? Do the people writing this bill think it's that easy to either move here or to leave? There are a thousand stories of that sort that can and will be told, and how they will play vs. the "Poor furriners are coming to take your tax money!" meme will be interesting to see.<\/p>\n

Given some of the folk pushing this bill forward, it's not unwarranted to suggest this is not a good faith effort to solve an agreed-upon problem, but a modern Know-Nothing movement out to protect White Christians from Them Folk What Ain't. And for many Americans, it calls to mind where we<\/i> might be if someone had said "Only wealthy or gainfully employed people who can speak English are preferred to come here" when our own ancestors were "yearning to breathe free." I, for one, would be writing these words, and the face of the nation today, and what would be lacking that we received from poor immigrants who couldn't speak a word of English, would be very different indeed — and not for the better.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nTrump Unveils Legislation Limiting Legal Immigration<\/a><\/span>
\nThere has been a huge debate about immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, but the administration is looking to cut the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country by half.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because when your whole campaign is based on Terror of the Other, then even people who come here legally are fodder for stereotypes, fear-mongering, and discrimination. Legal immigration policy is one of those things that isn't quite as clear-cut as to when it's bad and when it's good. Aside from some fringe open borders types, … Continue reading “And then we go after the LEGAL immigrants”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":33288,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/19\/because-you-can-always-find-some-way-to-make-your-political-point.html","url_meta":{"origin":134028,"position":0},"title":"Because you can always find some way to make your political point","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 19-Apr-13 9:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"Really? Two legal immigrants who have been in this country for twelve years (legally), since they were kids, apparently go on a killing spree, and this is the reason\u00a0some on the Right want to use as an argument against immigration reform?There are around 40 million immigrants in the US, about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3319,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/12\/19\/round_up.html","url_meta":{"origin":134028,"position":1},"title":"Round-up","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 19-Dec-02 1:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, let's turn down the Hyperbole Meter a tad as we consider the mass arrests of immigrants in California. The press keeps referring to it as a \"mass arrest of...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138834,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/05\/20\/illegal-immigrants-are-terrible-except-when-i-er-the-farmers-need-them.html","url_meta":{"origin":134028,"position":2},"title":"Illegal immigrants are terrible! Except when I, er, the FARMERS need them!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 20-May-19 7:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Donald thinks E-Verify might be too hard for everyone to use.","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Donald-Trump-in-front-of-a-flag.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":27930,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/18\/dear-eagle-forum-get-used-to-being-only-a-plurality.html","url_meta":{"origin":134028,"position":3},"title":"Dear Eagle Forum – Get used to being "only" a plurality","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 18-May-12 4:38pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's the End of America, Goodness, Christianity, and Our Privileged White American Majority! Eeek! Awful non-whitish distinctly-un-pale types are no longer the majority, simply the plurality! Whatever shall we do, as this is a horrible, horrible, horrible disaster!_\"It is not a good thing. The immigrants do not share American values,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130186,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/12\/it-is-now-okay-to-legally-hire-only-less-intelligent-cops.html","url_meta":{"origin":134028,"position":4},"title":"It is now okay to legally hire only less intelligent cops","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 12-Mar-16 6:22am","format":false,"excerpt":"An job applicant to the New London, NY, police department was dropped from the hiring process because he scored too high on a brief IQ test. He sued for discrimination -- and a court has ruled that ..... well, that it may be dumb to exclude high-IQ candidates, but because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Picture2520063a5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Picture2520063a5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Picture2520063a5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":127847,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/30\/when-people-absolutely-positively-have-to-be-tracked-every-night.html","url_meta":{"origin":134028,"position":5},"title":"When people absolutely, positively, have to be tracked every night","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 30-Aug-15 10:59pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Chris Christie has suggested that it should be simple to somehow track immigrants (legal immigrants, mind you) in the US like we track FedEx packages.I suggest that a tattooed bar code, or even just a simple machine-readable number on the forehead would be useful. This could easily be validated at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}