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Color me unconvinced. Personally, I believe that if it weren't for the nativist crowd, I would think that a large percentage of immigrants might just go [R]. Culturally, a good deal of them are both devout and cultural Roman Catholics which would make them pro-life, anti-SSM, etc, meaning they could be just as easily scooped by the 'pro-family' crowd as they could be by the 'free g-cheese' dems.
We are talking about citizens here. Not illegal aliens. Congratulations to the first group wherever they might come to rest. They have made a commitment to stay.
And yes, they are more conservative than the average bear. The Coalition is hoping that they can leverage these citizens to work for an illegal cause. It remains to be seen whether they can see the true light.
Almost everyone who becomes a citizen these days has gamed the system in one way or another -- mostly because our immigration laws are screwed up. The anti-immigrant stance of the GOP affects (or affected) the lives of many these new citizens. I doubt they'll forget.
Leave it to conservatives to believe that new citizens will act to shut the door behind them. The GOP doesn't get altruism, it seems.
Many in the GOp are anti-illegal immigrant. If you use a broad brush, at least try to get it right.
It should be the job of Congress and the President to estimate that number, subject to the preservation of interclass mobility for those citizens presently here.
We have created the nexus of a permanent underclass already. We must bring them into the mainstream. All of us pay substantial penalties (called taxes) in welfare and health costs. The schools are not creating value and for now three generation we have people who do not believe that education is an economic and a social good.
We do what we can, raise the minimum wage, subsidize housing, but illegal aliens are an exogenous variable which unnecessarily complicates the solution to the problem facing our own people.
There is, and I have personally observed, a large Gray Market further inhibiting a solution.
Your Generality:
"Almost everyone who becomes a citizen these days has gamed the system in one way or another"
as well as the remainder of your opinion would be laughable, if you were not using it to bolster your later point.
IT would be a smart political party which would emphasize the reasons why the immigrants came.
I grant you that there is sympathy for the situations in the former homelands. It is being used by the organizations whose interests are not national but solely to the illegal aliens who give them power.
The GOP has missed the boat on many occasions, particularly in not being able to make inroads into the tightly controlled Democratic enclaves whose residents are used to receiving the small beneifits conferred with much folderol by their political masters.
That is their loss.
BTW, in connection with the no smoking laws on which you otherwise commented. The new immigrants -- Latin and Asian come from smoking cultures. I can not speak for all, but the small bars and restaurants I have seen in their neighborhoods are full of workers smoking, drinking, playing card games. They should be a source of dissatisfaction, but as the political structure realizes, most are green carded but not citizen voters. They don't matter.
"Run, Jim Oberweis, Run!
I see liberals claiming they are gullible closed minded minions, regardless of the obvious fact that gullible closed minded people don't risk everything they know to create for themselves an entirely new life. Liberals seem to want it both ways; show compassion with other people's money while looking down their noses at anyone who objects to their patronizing and pandering.
The only closed minded people I see are the ones that have stereotyped our new neighbors. While they claim they favor diversity, they don't like diverse ideas, only different looking people that agree with them.
Immigrants come from a world quite different from ours. But they believe in America, and each one should be seen as a compliment to this country. They didn't come here to be smothered by nannies and bureaucrats, they came here to be free. They didn't come here for a hand-out, they came here for opportunities. My immigrant neighbors are admirable people, strongly pro-family, hard working, hard saving and conservative. They buy their homes and fill them with their children.
They will use their freedom to vote for the political party that promises to conserve what attracted them to America. I don't care which party it is, but whoever promises to keep our markets open, unregulated and low taxed, will help keep America attractive to the rest of the world.
Nowhere in the world can you be an illegal immigrant and expect to stay in a country. Enforcing immigration laws is what the world does. Claiming that enforcing immigration laws is being cruel or unkind is like saying it is unfair when a parade gets rained on; naive and silly.
Grow up and be an adult.
Basically, the Asians go with the winners. In Chicago, thia would mean the Democrat Party. Find a Republican regime (hard to find these days) and they will go with the Republicans. There is nothing wrong with that and it has little to do with religion.
Fred Crespo hit new communities and he won.
I've seen liberals claims immigrants vote Democrat, but this one I've never seen.
I've talked to them, it's how I know they are trending Democrat and yes, a lot of it IS religion. They are Hindus, Moslems, and Jains. They are turned off by the rampant Christianism they see in the GOP. They're ticked at people trying to make it harder for them to get their grandparents and parents into this nation legally.
Show me a local GOP they would support and I'll show you one that is secular without a Christianist loon-base.
Vanilla man - enforcing immigration laws would make sense if the immigration laws themselves made sense. Our economic reality is that we need immigrants. Our laws are at variance with the reality. Therefore they are ignored by the majority of people, illegal immigrants and those who hire them. Once the laws make sense we can talk about enforcement. You can pass a law that water is not allowed to flow downhill. You can't stop water flowing downhill unless you do other things like build systems to divert it.
I'm just scratching the surface. This is an issue that goes beyond the tired "what part of illegal do you not undertsand" arguement. Agriculture and Big Business need illegal immigrants, and so does the rest of the country.
Let me start with saying I don't have a problem with migrants--whatever their status, it's usually none of my concern. However, the idea that agricultural workers must be paid an excessively low wage that no one else would put up with doesn't sit well either. I honestly believe that the laborer should not be defrauded of his wages and that no one should have to work 40 hours a week and still be in sub-poverty (except those who have chosen to do so like nuns, sisters, clerics, and volunteer laborers). You ask how long Americans would tolerate paying $5 for a head of lettuce, perhaps the appropriate question is at what price did that $2 head of lettuce come?
Yes, they are socially conservative, but when Oberweis and Roskam do T.V. ads with Mexicans, and attack them all as illegal, the many, many legal Mexicans and their U.S. born citizen children flock to the D's. When Cong. Kirk says he "has no problem with profiling Muslim males" and when the Christian Right takes over the Republican Party, that sends Muslims and Indians into the arms of the D's. Russian Jews? Same thing.
That leaves the R.'s with Poles and Vietnamese, and a portion of the Koreans and Chinese! Not a huge base to start from.
Look at the last election -- Parke, and 4 suburban Senate seats went D. Each Senate seat had at least 8,000 naturalized new citizens.
WAKE UP, SMELL THE COFFEE!