US/immigration

page type::article thing type::phenomenon thing type::activity country::US subject::immigration in the United States

About
🇺🇸 Immigration policy became a hot topic in the spring of 2006 (there's some specific history which I don't have time to research -- there was a bill introduced (by GOP?) which would have apparently made it very difficult for existing immigrant workers; this led to rallies nationwide in support of said workers and against said bill, etc...).

Although the anti-immigrant sentiment never entirely went away in the meantime, it surfaced again during and after the 2010 elections as conservative politicians (now politically dominant) demonized Mexican immigrants as scapegoats for the state of the economy in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown, focusing anger on destructive immigration "reform" proposals rather than on any measures likely to fix the problem.

In general, anti-immigration sentiment has become a recurring theme of red American politics, fueled largely by propaganda in the form of a number of about immigrants.

Pages

 * /myths

Conclusions
It seems likely that anti-immigration propaganda is due largely to the need to prevent workers from moving freely. Free trade agreements such as NAFTA are typically motivated by the desire for large businesses to be better able to take advantage of labor cost-differentials between countries. If laborers are given the same freedom to cross borders in search of higher wages, those cost-differentials tend to even out as labor becomes scarce in lower-paying countries.

Opinion
Will someone please explain to me (a) what business we have, as a nation composed almost entirely of immigrants, setting restrictions on which other countries we will allow to contribute to our population, and (b) in what way immigrants from any particular country or ethnic group have ever been a problem, once they arrived? --Woozle 15:31, 20 May 2006 (EDT)

to file

 * 2007-07-03 Arizona clamps down on illegals: "The governor of the US state of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, has signed into law legislation designed to deter illegal immigrant workers."
 * 2007-05-10 Churches to Provide Immigrants Sanctuary: "Churches in five big U.S. cities plan to protect illegal immigrants from deportation, offering their buildings as sanctuary if need be, as they pressure lawmakers to create a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants."
 * 2007-04-29 Utah Co. GOP kills resolution on Satan gets today's Wacky Award
 * 2007-04-18 Heroes & Zeros: "A record number of North Carolina's illegal immigrants joined hundreds of thousands of other undocumented workers nationwide and filed tax returns this season. Despite recent immigration raids around the country, the workers from Mexico and Central America piled into tax preparation offices to pay their share to everyone's favorite uncle. Since 1996, the Internal Revenue Service has issued taxpayer identification numbers to immigrants who don't have Social Security numbers. More illegal immigrants are matching their enormous contributions to the economy with contributions to the public treasury." (Unfortunately, the blurb doesn't give a source for the data.)
 * 2006-12-23 Illegal Alien Meat Packing Plant Raids Raise Wages: the so-far-largest raid of illegal alien employees in the US signals both a serious crackdown on employment of illegal aliens and raises questions about the oft-cited premise that illegals do jobs nobody else is willing to do: lines were out the door for those seeking to replace the deported workers, and most of the applicants were described as "caucasian". The blog entry's analysis of this information, however, seems a little reflexive and shallow.
 * 2006-06-22 A Busy School for Border Patrol in New Mexico
 * 2006-05-16
 * Chertoff: National Guard on the Border Would Be "Horribly Over-Expensive and Very Difficult" by Justin Rood
 * The right-wing goes haywire on immigration by Melissa McEwan at 1:10 PM
 * Bush speaks on immigration by Melissa McEwan at 3:15 PM

Data

 * US Census Bureau: Nativity of the Population and Place of Birth of the Native Population: 1850 to 1990

Positions

 * The Concord Party
 * Reason: "Immigration Now, Immigration Tomorrow, Immigration Forever"

Opinion

 * 2007-07-21 Nativism and the SAT: "in modern terms, nativism is simply another name for patriotism."
 * 2006-06-25 What Is This "Crime," Really?: Orson Scott Card criticizes one of the main conservative arguments against US immigration on the grounds that it displays excessive moral absolutism

Humor

 * Migraphobia by Mark Fiore