This is Linda Chavez’s latest column, which has cause a lot of discussion among the Republicans who were attacked:

Some people just don’t like Mexicans—or anyone else from south of the border. They think Latinos are freeloaders and welfare cheats who are too lazy to learn English. They think Latinos have too many babies and that Latino kids will dumb down our schools. They think Latinos are dirty, diseased, indolent and more prone to criminal behavior. They think Latinos are just too different from us ever to become real Americans. … .Townhall.comLatino Fear and Loathing, By Linda Chavez

And this is a parody of the White House spin on opposition to amnesty by Frank J. semi-pro humorist:

IMMIGRATION BILL FAQ

Q. I’m concerned that the immigration bill focuses more on giving illegal immigrants amnesty than border protection. Does the President share these concerns?
A. The President doesn’t hate brown people.

Q. This isn’t a racial issue. Many people think this bill will only encourage more illegal immigration and leave our borders open and dangerous. What are the answer to these charges?
A. To answer your underlying question, I’m afraid the the President is against your proposal to commit genocide against Hispanics.

Q. This isn’t about Hispanics! This is about our laws being respected and our national security!
A. Unfortunately, America has had a long history of closed-minded bigots like you who hate all immigrants and want to keep the nation white and pure. To answer what we can only assume will be your next question, no, jackboots aren’t tax deductible, but have fun in your neo-Nazi march anyway.IMAO: IMAO Exclusive: The White House’s and WSJ’s Immigration Bill FAQ

Frank J. is not only funnier than Linda Chavez, but he’s not trying to get people to take him seriously. However, we hear people who talk like that for real all time.

But there are a couple of points, one of which is that some of the people from “south of the border” are Muslim terrorists. The most recent terror plot uncovered included as one of the conspirators Russell Defreitas, described (by the Associated Press) as “a U.S. citizen native to Guyana,” or in plain English, an immigrant from south of the border.

Also, while Bill O’ Reilly sounds like he’s wimping out when he says “I think Linda Chavez is on to something. I don’t know how much. It’s so hard, but I think there is some basic racism on the right. We don’t like Latinos, you know, for all the reasons Linda listed. Am I wrong?” he had a very interesting counterpoint, just before he said that:

Now on the other side, the open border people want a huge influx of foreign nationals to become American citizens, because they don’t like the white Christian male power structure that’s in place now.

Right! America is too white, too Christian, too American for a lot of people, and we need to remember that while there may be some people who “don’t like Mexicans,” (not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s a free country) there are also a lot of people who don’t like Americans, and would prefer them to be replaced.

Laura Carlsen writes at Common Dreams and Foreign Policy in Focus:

Economic integration under NAFTA has led to job loss and the erosion of job security and quality in the United States, while also increasing unemployment in Mexico. Over thirteen years, the model has confirmed, rather than reversed, Mexico’s status as the less-developed partner. The rise in immigration to the United States attests to the failure of NAFTA as a development mechanism.

My own comment:

One basic difference between the EU and NAFTA was that when the EU integrated, they worked hard to have infrastructure and human right guarantees in place in the less developed partners before they lowered their movement barriers. Furthermore, the lowering of those movement barriers was always a two way street. The nationals of countries like the UK that got an influx of immigrants also got right to buy vacation and retirement homes in the less developed partners. The nationals of the UK at least got a chance to take jobs in France and Germany. There hasn’t really been much like that under NAFTA. US citizens have faced a reduction in workforce participation(percent of US citizens with jobs)-while there has been high levels of immigration to the US.

We need a fundamentally different policy–one that has broad support in both the US and Mexico. I suspect the appropriate formula here will be enforcement(and enhancement) of US immigration laws combined–and reduction of US concentration of wealth- with increased aid to Mexicans-and increased pressure on the Mexican government to eliminate corruption, contain concentration of wealth and respect human rights.

With this kind of package, Mexicans will get something real-and so will most Americans. I suspect the wealthy will like the status quo much more-but ultimately, the wealthy just don’t have that many votes.

Just the fact that Common Dreams, the leading progressive site, is publishing articles that aren’t entirely enthusiastic about immigration-and that admit jobs loss in the US is important. There are important Democrats that are ready to junk NAFTA and the WTO agreements. I think those Democrats need to be specifically targeted with research on immigration that focuses on their primary concerns–like job loss and which propose policies that may be in line with their sensibilities.

As I’ve reported before, several Mexicans have had the temerity to suggest that if the U.S. got control of its border, it could be a good thing for Mexico. (See here and here.)

The most recent such pronouncement came from Ernesto Anaya Silva, in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.

Anaya is the regional president of COPARMEX, the prominent Mexican managers’ organization.

Of course, Anaya thinks that building a wall to keep out illegal aliens will hurt the U.S. economy. However, he also said that the wall would help Mexico.

According to an article by Susana Nila:

“The border wall that U.S. authorities intend to construct could constitute an economic and social development opportunity for Mexico, if it takes advantage of the labor force that couldn’t cross to the U.S., according to Ernesto Anaya Silva.”

So what are we waiting for? Let’s get that wall built, and give Mexico that opportunity !

Rachel Konrad writes at Associated Press:

The New York senator and Democratic presidential hopeful said she’s trying to increase the number of so-called H1B visas aimed at highly educated workers. Silicon Valley companies use H1Bs to sponsor thousands of software engineers from Russia, India, China and other countries

I’ll have more faith in Mainstream Media, when they can at least spell H-1b correctly. What it sounds like is that Hillary is seeking to maintain her lead in the Democratic money primary.

Hillary is touting a plan to encourage interest in Science Technology Engineering and Math(STEM). The fundamental problem is that what she’s doing is going to seem like a joke if US wages in those occupations are falling more rapidly than other occupations.

She urged executives to “please think about some series that would give real sex appeal to stem” — “and let’s get it done.”

I would suggest that cash would help here. Frankly, it is real hard for kids to find inspiration in a career path that was taken by elders who are now scrambling to make ends meet.

The first priority has to be to make sure all American citizens that have the capability to work in those fields-or get an education in those fields can do so-on terms that are reasonable from their perspective. If you want to ramp up those fields faster and use immigrant labor, you must make sure that whatever grants of immigration rights you make are counterbalenced by equivalent grants to Americans working in those fields-or expect Americans to leave those fields.

Clinton’s plan has no such safeguards. The policies she is advocating have in fact been accompanied by Americans leaving those fields. Thus, there is every reason to expect that if Clinton is elected and doesn’t have a serious change of heart, American technological capabilities will be further degraded.

I keep track of which blogs link to VDARE.com. A heartening feature of the uproar over the Bush Amnesty/Immigration surge Bill is the large number of new blogs which have sprung up, seething with articulate rage and displaying an impeccable command of the subject.

A case in point is cheerful iconoclast, which raises a crucial question

I understand why rich people want more immigration — it means cheaper servants and cheaper meals at fancy restaurants. I even understand why Democratic politicians want it — they believe, probably correctly, that the Democrats will end up the political winners.

What I don’t understand is why ordinary liberals support this. Liberals claim to be worried about wealth distribution, about the gap between rich and poor. Well, surely adding tens of millions of poor people from Mexico and Latin America over the next decade or so will add to that gap. They claim to want to help the little guy, less skilled workers who have been left behind over the last couple of decades. My liberal friends, those less skilled workers whom you claim to be worried about are competing with illegal immigrants for entry-level and low-skill jobs. They want a generous welfare state, with lots of social services. Surely you know that a generous welfare state is less feasible when you have twenty million more relatively poor people in the United States. It’s crazy — this amnesty will won’t help the cause of genuine liberalism, or the constituencies liberals purport to want to help.

cheerful iconoclast understands that economic prosperity is a function of culture

it’s worth noting one raw fact: The United States has a per capita GDP of $43,500 per year. Mexico’s per capita GDP is $10,600 per year…It seems fairly clear that our culture is, in terms of creating the sort of society which produces material wealth, superior to theirs….it’s clear that, over the long run, American political culture has been more successful than Mexico’s, and that the Mexicans who come to the United States will bring much of that culture with them.

As an American, much as I enjoy Tex-Mex cuisine, I do not want the United States becoming socially or economically more like Latin America and Mexico. If we legalize ten or twelve million immigrants now, it seems likely that we will move further in that direction.

This of course is a point made by Peter Brimelow way back in 1992:

The free market necessarily exists within a social framework. And it can function only if the institutions in that framework are appropriate…Economists have a word for these preconditions: the “metamarket.” Some degree of ethnic and cultural coherence may be among them. Thus immigration may be a metamarket issue.

Some of the longer- established Republican-cheerleading blogs are waking up on Immigration, as cheerful iconoclast wryly notes

Even Hugh Hewitt is skeptical about the bill, and when Hewitt is skeptical of something George W. Bush is doing, well, it suggests that that Bush is in it deep.

The obvious reason is that their readership is furious. Equally important, though, may well be that they sense there are newcomers prepared to do the jobs that they won’t do.