Every so often, the Republican Party apparatus shows signs of intelligence. A spectacular case was the valiant January attempt by Arizona National Committeeman Randy Pullen to prevent the Bush Amnesty/Immigration Acceleration Bill wrecking the Republican’s electoral prospects. It failed, but certainly highlighted the problem – and the culprits.

Now the Washington state Republican Party has proposed to strike at the Jugular of the force transforming America – the bizarre 1898 Supreme Court decision on the 14th Amendment (30 years after “Ratification”) which created Birthright Citizenship – quite contrary to what the framers of the 14th Amendment intended. [State GOP opposes citizenship for illegal immigrants' children -THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Monday May 29 2006]

The idea that a child is entitled to citizenship simply because the mother happened to be in the national territory at birth was always rare in the world, and the European nations have decisively eliminated any traces in recent years. At the time the 14th Amendment was passed it was not even envisaged that Indians would be deemed Americans!

It lays bare the motivations of the Open Borders Lobby that they have not offered this concession to facilitate acceptance of the purported “Guest Worker” concept. If “Guest Workers” include young women, children born will be “Anchor Babies” and no one will ever have to leave.

In contrast, Switzerland effectively refuses to give citizenship to its foreign born or descended population – and consequently does not have to consider them politically, despite a higher proportion (20%) than present in the US.

Needless to say, the Republican Convention keynote speaker, State Attorney General Rob McKenna [who has a particularly evasive contact mechanism ] freaked out

citing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which confers citizenship on everyone born in the United States.
“I believe the Constitution provides otherwise,” he said. “I believe that if you are born here, you should be a citizen.”

demonstrating he does not know the legal history of this crucial question, nor understand the issue.

The Seattle Times account, no doubt correctly, expressed doubt that Congressman Doc Hastings [R- 4th District/ AKA Zirkle Fruit] would pay attention:

U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings of Pasco told the delegates before the debate began, “When we leave here, we’ll talk about our platform.”
Hastings may not, though. He has been an outspoken supporter of a guest-worker program that would allow agricultural workers to legally stay in the country temporarily.

Tough stance on immigration –by Andrew Garber The Seattle Times May 28 2006

Of course, it is precisely the cheap labor hogs Hastings represents who should be most interested in the concession of fixing the 14th Amendment problem – if they had the brains, and the strength.

Edward P. Lazear is the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. Barrons just did a story on him, and a paper he presented to the Hudson Institute:

THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM IS THAT YOU MUST BE able to speak English to get along in this country, which is why President Bush suggests that illegal immigrants from Mexico learn the language as a pre-condition for citizenship. That’s no big change in U.S. policy. You’ve always had to pass a language test. But one of the President’s top advisers would like to go one up on Bush and make Mexican immigrants learn English before they even get here.[Raising a Language Barrier By Jim McTague ]

Here’s a part of it that a reader forwarded to me.

Before he succeeded Ben Bernanke at CEA in March, Lazear wrote a paper that stated, “By almost any measure, immigrants from Mexico have performed worse and become assimilated more slowly than immigrants from other countries.” We found the document, written in March 2005, posted on a Stanford University Website.

Lazear was discussing legal immigrants. More legal immigrants come from Mexico than from any other country, he said. About 16% of all legal immigrants — 115,000 — came from Mexico in 2003. He added that they earn less money than other immigrant groups and end up on welfare more frequently. The primary reason: U.S. policy permits Mexicans to enter the country on the basis of family ties, not job skills, according to the paper.

“ABOUT 3% OF MEXICANS come in on employment skills preference, whereas 13% of non-Mexican immigrants come in through this channel,” Lazear wrote.

As a result, only 49% of the legal immigrants from Mexico are fluent in English before arriving here, versus 80% for non-Mexican immigrants.

“Mexicans start below other groups in levels of English fluency when they arrive in the U.S. and never catch up,” he wrote.

The typical non-Mexican immigrant has at least a high-school diploma and an average income of $21,000, Lazear reported. Mexicans, on the other hand, usually have less than an eighth-grade education and an average income of $12,000 a year.

“Those who are admitted to the U.S. because they have desirable skills are more likely to speak English, have high levels of education, and obtain higher salaries than those who are admitted on a random or family basis,” Lazear said. He cited a paper he wrote in 2000 noting that immigrants from North Africa had the highest levels of education and English fluency.

“Even when compared to Hispanics, Mexican immigrants fared badly, with 62% of the non-Mexican Hispanics being fluent in English,” Lazear wrote. To survive, the Mexicans tend to settle in communities where about 15% of the residents also are from Mexico. He cited another scholar’s report that Mexican immigrants disproportionately take up residence in states with high welfare benefits.

CEA chairmen typically meet with the President several times a week. When we asked if Bush and Lazear have ever discussed the paper, guess what we were told by both the White House and the CEA? That’s right: “No comment.” Six figures! What a job. What a country.

The Lazear paper they’re talking about is this one

Mexican Assimilation in the United States Edward P. Lazear Hoover Institution and Graduate School of Business Stanford University March, 2005(PDF)

As you can see, the facts of Mexican assimilation, or lack of it, suggest that the United States, given a choice, would be better seeking immigrants elsewhere, starting with English-speaking like Canada, England, and South Africa.

I haven’t read the whole piece, because I don’t have a subscription, and thus I’m not clear whether Jim McTague thinks the problem is that Lazear knows what’s going on as far as the “Mexican Wave” of immigration is concerned, that he has committed a “Kinsley Gaffe”, w hich will cause someone to take offence, or the reverse: that he knows what’s going on, but isn’t trying to make the President see it.

If it’s the latter, it’s not Lazear’s fault; the President doesn’t listen very well.

The Daily Kos has a recent diary covering the recent Senate assault on wages and working conditions of American nurses. Some Democrats are starting to realize there is a contradiction between being the party of working people and being the party of Open Borders.

The recent aburdity of the immigration bill that passed the Senate raises the question: How should the senate be reformed? The situation has degenerated to the point the Senate is now an exclusive country club with pretenses of being a legislative body. The problem may lie in the election of senators in states-a jurisdiction so large, that it takes enormous sums to run in many of these elections. Thus, the senate is absurdly biased in favor of concentrations of wealth–as its recent immigration legislation shows. I have previously suggested that if the US had a more truly proportional election system(as endorsed by leading left figures like Dennis Kucinich and Lani Guinier) , we’d see expansion of anti-immigration sentiment in the house. The original intent of the founders of the US was the that the House represent the population “in miniature”-thus proportional representation would be utterly consistent with their intent. The purpose of the senate was in part to provide checks upon the house.

Perhaps we should simply recognized that the direct election of senators has been a mistake-and go back to election of senators by state legislatures. My Republican legislator disagrees with me on just about everything-but he’s sure a lot more accessible and responsive than my Senator’s staffers.

Beyond this, I think we should consider serious campaign finance reform. The average Congressman spends almost half of their time fundraising. I would suggest 100% public funding for all federal elections. The available funds could be given to a pool of citizens selected by lottery from the voting roles-who could distribute these funds to candidates of their choice. Candidates would only have to appeal to a limited pool of citizens to get funding.

We should also expect our senators to be seriously devoted to the public service. I see no reason why Senators, Presidents, Vice Presidents, Supreme Court Judges, Cabinet officials and heads of key house committees shouldn’t be selected from a pool of folks that have made a lifetime commitment to public service–and be expected to actually live on their salaries and pensions. If they loose an election, the federal government is surely large enough to find meaningful employment for them someplace. The salaries of Ministers in Singapores substantially exceed those of their American counterparts–as do the penalties if they are seen taking money from anyone. We in America need leaders that are devoted to their jobs-not looking to cash out in via a book deal, corporate board membership, lobbying job or giving speeches for a cult leader(as W’s father did when making six speeches for Rev. Moon at $1 Milion each).

What does this have to do with the issue of immigration? I think we need to view immigration expansion in recent years as a form of corporate welfare and electoral corruption. If we make congress more responsive to voters and less concerned with corporate money, the problem is much more likely to be solved. Those of us concerned about immigration should be willing to consider radical solutions to address this problem.

The Sydney Morning Herald writes:

DOCTORS working with immigrant communities in Sydney’s western suburbs hope human genome mapping will address high rates of infant death and birth defects in children born to first cousins.

A study at Auburn Hospital found almost 20 per cent of pregnant women admitted to the maternity ward in one year were married to their first or second cousins.

The research found babies were three times more likely to be born with birth defects and six times more likely to die in the womb or in infancy than babies in the general population.

But despite the alarming findings, published in 2001, there has been little research in the field since.

Westmead Children’s Hospital geneticist David Sillence said the issue of marriage between blood relatives was extremely sensitive in communities in which it was practised, including Lebanese, Turkish, Iraqi, Iranian and Pakistani. Gene test push for married cousins, by Erin O’Dwyer, May 28, 2006

Similarly, 55% of all married people in Britain of Pakistani origin are wed to their first or second cousins. Why is cousin marriage so common among Muslim immigrants? It’s traditional in many countries from Morocco into parts of India. One old-fashioned reason is that it lessens sibling rivalry over things like inheritances. If you force your daughter to marry your brother’s son, her first cousin, then you and your brother will share grandchildren in common.

But immigration provides a new reason. If you are an immigrant in a nice English-speaking, making your daughter to marry her cousin back in the Old Country generates a new visa for your extended family. ,

So, it’s important to note that when the “family reunification” justification for immigration is trotted out that, when it comes to Muslim immigrants, their families are often “unified” through inbreeding to an extent that we find creepy.