While the White House tries to turn the November election into a John Wayne revival, various House Republicans are riding off the Reservation for more promising country. Immigration topic key in Colorado –By Carl Hulse The New York Times September 6 2006 is bad news for the RNC script writers:

AURORA, Colorado It was not by chance that Republicans brought their summer tour of hearings on illegal immigration to this growing community just outside Denver…Not only is Aurora bearing the costs of schooling and providing other services for a significant population of illegal immigrants. It is also in the heart of a swing district …many Republicans, on the defensive here and around the country over the war in Iraq, say they are finding that a hard-line immigration stance resonates not just with conservatives, who have been disheartened on other fronts this year, but also with a wide swath of voters in districts where control of the House could be decided.

Apparently, there are three parties in the fall elections – Democrats, White House Courtiers, and the House Republican leadership:

Leading Republicans, saying they want no compromise on immigration, are encouraging their candidates to keep the focus on border control, as in legislation passed by the House, rather than accept a broader bill that would also clear a path for many illegal immigrants to gain legal status

The angry confrontation thrust the session into the headlines, reminding residents that the issue remained a leading one in the House race between Rick O’Donnell, the Republican nominee, and Ed Perlmutter, the Democrat…The issue remains on voters’ minds “because people are trying to keep it on their minds,” said Perlmutter, who accused Republicans of staging the hearing for political gain

(The Horror! The Horror!)

Just a few weeks ago politicians and analysts suspected that immigration had lost its political punch in Colorado, after the Legislature enacted a tough immigration overhaul including tighter identification rules for those seeking state government services.

But the issue refuses to die.

At the hearing in Aurora, Governor Bill Owens, a Republican, testified on illegal immigration’s costs to the state, saying the influx was not a driving issue when he first took office but had since risen to the top of Colorado’s concerns

Yes, that Bill Owens.

If this goes on, one may have to believe the System works.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, Point Reyes National Seashore is an absolute gem of natural beauty, located less than an hour’s drive from the city. The park includes hiking trails of amazing variety, with sights ranging from dense woods to hidden lakes, bird-friendly landscapes, a lighthouse known for whale-watching and a beach waterfall. Of course the vistas of the Pacific Ocean are spectacular.

Now this unique place has been violated and damaged by pot growers, very likely the Mexican drug cartels that have trashed many other American parklands.

The discovery of 22,740 marijuana plants growing in and around Point Reyes National Seashore last week wasn’t only the biggest pot seizure ever made in Marin County. It was an environmental mess that will take several months and tens of thousands of dollars to clean up. [...]

Federal officials believe as much as 80 percent of the marijuana on public land is grown by Mexican drug cartels that have turned to places like Point Reyes National Seashore, Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park and Whiskeytown National Recreation Area in this era of tightened border security; growing the drug here is far easier than smuggling it in. The plants found in Point Reyes last week were valued at around $50 million, Dell’Osso said. [...]

Lt. Scott Anderson of the Marin County Sheriff’s Department said the pot farm’s similarities to those found in other national parks suggests it was the work of a Mexican cartel that probably employed undocumented immigrants. [Pot farms ravaging park land, San Francisco Chronicle 9/6/06]

A 2003 Christian Science Monitor report on the invasion of Mexican organized crime contained an accurate assessment of the situation [Drug cartels thrive in US national parks, 6/10/03]:

“This is massive-scale agriculture that is threatening the very mission of the national parks, which is to preserve the natural environment in perpetuity and provide for safe public recreation,” says Bill Tweed, chief naturalist at Sequoia National Park. “[Growers] are killing wildlife, diverting streams, introducing nonnative plants, creating fire and pollution hazards, and bringing the specter of violence. For the moment, we are failing both parts of our mission, and that is tragic.”

This destruction is another result of Washington’s treasonous failure to enforce the borders. Mexican criminals increasingly destroy our supposedly protected lands with no interference from American law enforcement. We should remember the terrible murder in 2002 of Park Ranger Kris Eggle by a Mexican drug smuggler in Organ Pipe National Monument as a warning: visiting nature preserves is no longer an escape from immigration anarchy.

Oxford University Press will release a book this month called Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States, consisting of a collection essays on the topic. One of these essays, written by Hiroshi Motomura, is currently available on the Chronicle of Higher Education website (Immigration: How ‘They’ Become ‘Us’). In it, Motomura describes three possible ways in which the American people have and do view the lawful immigrant, or permanent resident. The problem of illegal aliens is not addressed.

The first – and he claims, the oldest – perception is that of “immigration as transition,” which involves seeing the new immigrant as a future citizen.

It treats lawful immigrants as Americans in waiting, as if they would eventually become citizens of the United States, and thus it confers on immigrants a presumed equality. We Americans no longer view immigration as transition, nor do we think of immigrants as Americans in waiting. We treat new immigrants as outsiders until shown otherwise. They may later become citizens, but we no longer treat them as if they will.

Second, is the perception of “immigration as contract” and it seems to be the most prevalent one in current debate, but not in the MSM.

The offer that immigrants accept by coming to America may be a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Their bargaining power is very weak, and there is no real negotiation. And yet immigration as contract is accurate to describe this view of immigration because it adopts ideas of fairness and justice often associated with contracts… Immigration as contract is based on the sense that fairness and justice for lawful immigrants do not require us to treat them as the equals of citizens. [For one thing, they can be deported if they break the law.] Though immigration as contract is a model of justice, it is a model of unequal justice, which turns not on conferring equality itself but on giving notice and protecting expectations.

The MSM, I would say, views immigrants in terms of “immigration as affiliation,” which evolved out of the idea that because an immigrant is present in the U.S., he deserves a certain kind of justice, no matter what his citizenship status. Immigration as affiliation argues that

…lawful immigrants — even if convicted of crimes that make them deportable — should be allowed to stay in the U.S. if they have been here for a long time and have strong community ties. The longer they are here, and the more they become enmeshed in the fabric of American life, the more these lawful immigrants should be treated equally with citizens. This view of immigration is not based on the justice without equality of immigration as contract, nor on the presumed equality of immigration as transition, but rather on an earned equality.

Ultimately, Motomura concludes that “immigration in transition” is a perception that needs revival. He proposes that immigrants who are in the process of fulfilling their residency requirements (usually 5 years) should be treated as citizens in waiting; they would be eligible education, health care, welfare, etc., as well as voting privileges and the ability to sponsor family members into citizenship. If the immigrant does not apply for U.S. citizenship after his five years are up, he loses all his privileges. This plan, Motomura suggests, will secure a more stable American identity for incoming citizens, and encourage immigrants to more fully connect themselves with our national identity.

While Motomura’s assessment of the perception evolution over time may be accurate enough, he fails to consider the very important question of why things have changed. We no longer treat immigrants with a presumed equality because immigrants have overwhelmingly taken advantage of America’s generosity. How can one earn something, simply by existing in a certain time and place? Lack of assimilation and attitudes of entitlement have forced U.S. citizens to take on the heavy burden of providing for millions of immigrants who provide no benefit to the U.S. economy or culture.

The offer that immigrants accept by coming to American should be a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, because we’ve got a lot to lose and almost nothing to gain.

A reader sent me a couple of interesting links. The convention that Miller’s spokesman Marino referred to in my earlier post, had as its slogan “Legalization for All”.

Now were Marino and Miller unaware of what “Legalization for all” meant? That seems rather doubtful since, this was spelled out pretty clearly in the political statement of the movement sponsoring the convention Miller Brewing donated to:

WE CALL FOR:

The legalization of all immigrants

We demand permanent legal residence, with the option of citizenship, for those who want it, within the period of four years as indicated in the last changes to [immigration] law. This permanent legal residence should be offered to all undocumented immigrants living in this country at the time the law is passed.

Permanent legal residence should be extended not only to those “who work and pay taxes,” but also to family members living in the United States. At the same time, previous pending visa applications should be immediately processed.

Likewise, permanent legal residence should be extended to those who are unable to work and pay taxes due to physical or mental disability. The right to permanent legal residence must be non-discriminatory, and therefore extended to all immigrants regardless of race, national origin, gender, sexual orientation or religion.

Now, Miller did get some obsequiousness for their $30,000:

We immigrants are not a “problem.” We are the answer to an expanding economy that requires more workers than it produces in the United States.

Corporate American has found a way to get a workforce that doesn’t mind a household income that has been stagnant for the last 6 years.