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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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 Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Tens of millions of Mexicans have confirmed this by voting with their feet on the issue already...and millions more are almost certianly en route. |
I taught in Mexico for a year, down in the southeast near Veracruz. While this does not make me an expert, I did notice that few people I met there were seriously interested in moving to the US. Many joked that it would be nice to be rich, sure, but they had decent enough lives and family and friends, and this is home. Granted, I lived in a relatively affluent section of the country because of the oil companies. But I think the cliche we have that everyone there is desperate to leave and pick grapes is a false one.
If it is simply a fringe of people along the northern borders who have traditionally been very poor, even by Mexican standards, surely those numbers will exhaust themselves anyway at some point?
I was and am very fond of the people there. It seems to me somehow unfair that Mexicans are depicted as dishonest and lazy AND as noble and hard-working when it's convenient for our purposes. I don't have the experience of living in the southwest US and knowing the issue in the same way, but that's my 2c.
Ken:> |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Moldy Rutabaga wrote: |
| ...I did notice that few people I met there were seriously interested in moving to the US. |
Ken, congrats on whatever it is that brought you to UNLV. Good luck there.
Must take exception to your comment, however. I have spent much time in Latin America and am a doctoral candidate/Latin America and Caribbean area specialist. But neither one of those qualifications makes your comment sound strange.
Rather, your comment sounds strange because I have lived much of my life in Southern California and the Southwest. And I assure you that many more that "a few" Mexicans have long been pouring over the border, doing whatever it takes to get into and stay in the United States.
They number, in fact, in the tens of millions. Indeed, what to do with these tens of millions, and the millions who keep coming and demanding entitlements, dominates part of American politics today.
Time published a story on this in 2004. Wikipedia references it...
| Wikipedia wrote: |
| Investigative journalists Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele state in Time magazine in its September 12, 2004 issue, "It's fair to estimate, based on a Time magazine investigation, that the number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. this year will total 3 million/year - enough to fill 22,000 Boeing 737-700 airliners, or 60 flights every day for a year." |
Here is the original article...
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John Ladd Jr., a thoughtful, soft-spoken rancher just outside Bisbee, gives new meaning to the word stoic. He is forced to work the equivalent of several weeks a year to repair, as best he can, all the damage done to his property by never-ending swarms of illegal aliens. "Patience is my forte," he says, "but it's getting lower." The 14,000-acre Ladd ranch, in his mother's family since the 1800s, is right on the border. Ladd and his wife and three sons as well as his father and mother have their homes there. The largely flat, scrub-covered piece of real estate, with its occasional groves of cottonwoods, spiny mesquite and clumps of sacaton grass and desert broom, seems to offer few places to hide. But the land is laced with arroyos in which scores of people can disappear from view. Ditches provide trails from the border to Highway 92, a distance of about three miles. That is the route that Ladd says 200 to 300 illegals take every night as they enter the U.S. They punch holes in the barbed-wire border fence and then tear up the many fences intended to separate the breeding
cattle--Brahmin, Angus and Hereford--that divide the Ladd land... |
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,995145-5,00.html |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 5:38 am Post subject: |
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| Ken, congrats on whatever it is that brought you to UNLV. Good luck there. |
Thank you Gopher. I have not been to the southwest US in twenty years, and I have a lot to learn about how the different populations actually get along there. I lived in southeast Mexico, far closer to Cuba than to Texas.
Ken:> |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 10:31 pm Post subject: |
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| They number, in fact, in the tens of millions. Indeed, what to do with these tens of millions, and the millions who keep coming and demanding entitlements, dominates part of American politics today. |
Gopher, this is true. But have you really asked yourself WHY? I don't think so. Perhaps it isn't a "bad " thing but only made bad by governments enacting failed and really stupid policies. Further exasperated by those with beliefs such as....
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| So just because so many Mexicans, coming from such a disorganized and corrupt political economy, so uneducated and illiterate that they only know bracero work, are so desperate to get into the United States that they sell themselves as a slave-wage earning working class, this does not make them especially noble or hard-working -- it merely makes them a horde of desperate people, systematically searching for whatever argument and propaganda angle might work best for them... |
The truth of the matter is that the U.S. administration (and just like Spinoza's point about prohibition) is in total contradiction to basic principals of economics and their own alleged belief in the how goods/services move in a world economy. Further to this and leading this are the racist and ignorant views of Mexico/Mexicans that "spice" the aggressive antiimmigration policies that only play to political opportunity and the moment. Nothing substantial or long term, nothing fundamentally and sociologically sound.
I think this statement sums it up...
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| The fundamental problem with U.S. immigration policy is that it treats international migration as a pathological condition to be repressed through unilateral enforcement actions, rather than as the natural outgrowth of market expansion and economic integration. |
To find out why the U.S. govt has been so wrong for so long (but especially recently) in regards to Mexican illegals, please read about these 5 Myths below. 3 of which you certainly have swallowed.
Truth be told, if America made it easier for Mexicans to come to America, to go back home, to send money to and fro, to get benefits/entitlements, to be treated as "equal" members of society -- the problem would long be fixed and America much richer both financially and socially because of it. American policy is to blame here.
You can send them your address and get a free copy....
| Quote: |
Five Myths About Immigration: Common Misconceptions
Underlying U.S. Border-Enforcement Policy
Executive Summary
The current crisis of undocumented immigration to the United States has its roots in fundamental misunderstandings about the causes of immigration and the motivations of immigrants. A growing body of evidence indicates that current border enforcement policies are based on mistaken assumptions and have failed. Undocumented migrants continue to come to the United States, rates of apprehension are at all-time lows, and migrants are settling in the United States at higher rates than ever before. Developing effective and realistic immigration policies requires overcoming five basic myths about immigration:
MYTH 1. Migration is Caused by Lack of Economic Development in Migrants� Home Countries
International migrants do not originate in the world�s poorest nations, but in those that are developing and growing dynamically. The largest single source of U.S. immigrants, Mexico, is not a poor nation by global standards. Mexico has a one-trillion dollar economy, a per capita income of almost $9,000 (compared to $9,700 in Russia), a fully industrialized economy, a high level of urbanization, and an advanced life expectancy.
MYTH 2. Migration is Caused by Rapid Population Growth in Migrants� Home Countries
The fertility rate in Mexico is about 2.3 children per woman, which is only slightly above �replacement� level. The highest fertility levels are generally observed in the Arab world and Sub-Saharan Africa, but these regions contribute few migrants to global streams.
MYTH 3. Migrants Move Mainly in Response to Differences in Wages
Households use international migration as a tool to overcome failed or missing markets for insurance, capital, and credit at home. For example, because Mexico has virtually no mortgage banking industry, a large share of the money earned by Mexican immigrants in the United States is channeled into the construction or purchase of homes in Mexico.
MYTH 4. Migrants Are Attracted to the United States by Generous Public Benefits
Immigrants are less likely than natives to use public services. While 66 percent of Mexican immigrants report the withholding of Social Security taxes from their paychecks and 62 percent say that employers withhold income taxes, only 10 percent say they have ever sent a child to U.S. public schools, 7 percent indicate they have received Supplemental Security Income, and 5 percent or less report ever using food stamps, welfare, or unemployment compensation.
MYTH 5. Most Immigrants Intend to Settle Permanently in the United States
Mexico-U.S. migration has historically been circular: 80 percent of Mexican immigrants report that they made no more than three trips to the United States and three quarters stayed less than two years. Immigrants , the vast majority, resettle in Mexico and make many trips between the two countries.
Conclusion
The fundamental problem with U.S. immigration policy is that it treats international migration as a pathological condition to be repressed through unilateral enforcement actions, rather than as the natural outgrowth of market expansion and economic integration. Migration should be managed for the mutual advantage of trading partners. By migrating in response to economic changes at home, migrants do not intend to remain abroad for the rest of their lives. Some do, of course, but left to their own devices, most would rather return home because they are migrating not to maximize their income, but to overcome market failures at home. They use international migration instrumentally as a way of overcoming the missing and failed markets that are commonly experienced in the course of economic development. The money they earn abroad is repatriated home in the form of savings and remittances, which now approach $20 billion for Mexico alone.18 Repressive border-enforcement policies simply make it more difficult for such migrants to achieve their ambition of returning home. |
Please read in full at
http://www.ailf.org/ipc/policy_reports_2005_fivemyths.shtml
DD |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
| The truth of the matter is that the U.S. administration...is in total contradiction...racist and ignorant...the U.S. govt has been so wrong for so long (but especially recently)...American policy is to blame here. |
Standard Ddeubel U.S.-centric, anti-Americanist nonsense post: find any problem, anywhere in the world, indeed at any time in world history since the invention of Homo sapiens, and his answer is invariably and inevitably this: "American policy is to blame here."
Pay this no heed. He would have you believe that Mexican conditions and actors have nothing at all to do with the mess than Mexico has been in since before anyone even dreamed of Plymouth Colony.
Failing to cite Hispanic authoritarianism, unequal land distribution, and Mexico City's failure after failure, mired in so much corruption as one could literally wade in it, among dozens of other significant factors, Ddeubel shows contradictions and deep ignorance of his own.
In any case, yes, Ddeubel, U.S. policy is certainly partly to blame here: Washington could much better secure its borders and enforce its immigration laws. Nation-states do have a right to do that -- including the United States. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 11:23 pm Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
Truth be told, if America made it easier for Mexicans to come to America, to go back home, to send money to and fro, to get benefits/entitlements, to be treated as "equal" members of society -- the problem would long be fixed and America much richer both financially and socially because of it. American policy is to blame here.
You can send them your address and get a free copy....
| Quote: |
Five Myths About Immigration: Common Misconceptions
Underlying U.S. Border-Enforcement Policy
Executive Summary
The current crisis of undocumented immigration to the United States has its roots in fundamental misunderstandings about the causes of immigration and the motivations of immigrants. A growing body of evidence indicates that current border enforcement policies are based on mistaken assumptions and have failed. Undocumented migrants continue to come to the United States, rates of apprehension are at all-time lows, and migrants are settling in the United States at higher rates than ever before. Developing effective and realistic immigration policies requires overcoming five basic myths about immigration:
MYTH 1. Migration is Caused by Lack of Economic Development in Migrants� Home Countries
International migrants do not originate in the world�s poorest nations, but in those that are developing and growing dynamically. The largest single source of U.S. immigrants, Mexico, is not a poor nation by global standards. Mexico has a one-trillion dollar economy, a per capita income of almost $9,000 (compared to $9,700 in Russia), a fully industrialized economy, a high level of urbanization, and an advanced life expectancy.
MYTH 2. Migration is Caused by Rapid Population Growth in Migrants� Home Countries
The fertility rate in Mexico is about 2.3 children per woman, which is only slightly above �replacement� level. The highest fertility levels are generally observed in the Arab world and Sub-Saharan Africa, but these regions contribute few migrants to global streams.
MYTH 3. Migrants Move Mainly in Response to Differences in Wages
Households use international migration as a tool to overcome failed or missing markets for insurance, capital, and credit at home. For example, because Mexico has virtually no mortgage banking industry, a large share of the money earned by Mexican immigrants in the United States is channeled into the construction or purchase of homes in Mexico.
MYTH 4. Migrants Are Attracted to the United States by Generous Public Benefits
Immigrants are less likely than natives to use public services. While 66 percent of Mexican immigrants report the withholding of Social Security taxes from their paychecks and 62 percent say that employers withhold income taxes, only 10 percent say they have ever sent a child to U.S. public schools, 7 percent indicate they have received Supplemental Security Income, and 5 percent or less report ever using food stamps, welfare, or unemployment compensation.
MYTH 5. Most Immigrants Intend to Settle Permanently in the United States
Mexico-U.S. migration has historically been circular: 80 percent of Mexican immigrants report that they made no more than three trips to the United States and three quarters stayed less than two years. Immigrants , the vast majority, resettle in Mexico and make many trips between the two countries.
Conclusion
The fundamental problem with U.S. immigration policy is that it treats international migration as a pathological condition to be repressed through unilateral enforcement actions, rather than as the natural outgrowth of market expansion and economic integration. Migration should be managed for the mutual advantage of trading partners. By migrating in response to economic changes at home, migrants do not intend to remain abroad for the rest of their lives. Some do, of course, but left to their own devices, most would rather return home because they are migrating not to maximize their income, but to overcome market failures at home. They use international migration instrumentally as a way of overcoming the missing and failed markets that are commonly experienced in the course of economic development. The money they earn abroad is repatriated home in the form of savings and remittances, which now approach $20 billion for Mexico alone.18 Repressive border-enforcement policies simply make it more difficult for such migrants to achieve their ambition of returning home. |
Please read in full at
http://www.ailf.org/ipc/policy_reports_2005_fivemyths.shtml
DD |
I think in your rush to counter the 'ignorance and prejudice of people who see in black and white,' or however you choose to stylize your Crusades on these boards, you've gone a little over the mark. Some excellent points were made by your link, DD, but let's flesh out some contradictions.
| Quote: |
| MYTH 1. Migration is Caused by Lack of Economic Development in Migrants� Home Countries |
That's a myth, eh? Why, then, from the explanation from Myth #3...
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| Households use international migration as a tool to overcome failed or missing markets for insurance, capital, and credit at home. |
It seems that not having developed insurance, capital, and credit structures in Mexico counts as 'a Lack of Economic Development.' Albiet, a lack more related to financial infrastructure than pure, raw, per capita incomes.
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MYTH 5. Most Immigrants Intend to Settle Permanently in the United States
Mexico-U.S. migration has historically been circular: 80 percent of Mexican immigrants report that they made no more than three trips to the United States and three quarters stayed less than two years. Immigrants , the vast majority, resettle in Mexico and make many trips between the two countries. |
Wait a second. 80 percent of immigrants report that they made no more than three trips to the US?
Does that have any correlation with plans to make more trips in the future?
Or how about an obvious problem here. This NGO is getting its data from the immigrants themselves. This may even be the least unreliable source, although it is likely far from being properly reliable.
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| While 66 percent of Mexican immigrants report the withholding of Social Security taxes from their paychecks and 62 percent say that employers withhold income taxes, only 10 percent say they have ever sent a child to U.S. public schools, 7 percent indicate they have received Supplemental Security Income, and 5 percent or less report ever using food stamps, welfare, or unemployment compensation. |
Ah, this is based on immigrants' own reports as well. Hrmmmm. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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Kuros,
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Quote:
MYTH 1. Migration is Caused by Lack of Economic Development in Migrants� Home Countries
That's a myth, eh? Why, then, from the explanation from Myth #3...
Quote:
Households use international migration as a tool to overcome failed or missing markets for insurance, capital, and credit at home.
It seems that not having developed insurance, capital, and credit structures in Mexico counts as 'a Lack of Economic Development.' Albiet, a lack more related to financial infrastructure than pure, raw, per capita incomes. |
Please read the article in total. Each snipet does not fully explain the statement/myth. Once you have read their arguement in full, I think you will see the logic.
For example,
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| Wait a second. 80 percent of immigrants report that they made no more than three trips to the US? |
If you read the rebuttal in full, they state that
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| If, within any given year, the likelihood of returning to Mexico is one in three, then 70 percent of immigrants will have returned home within five years. Of all Mexicans who have ever migrated to the United States, therefore, the vast majority currently live in Mexico. In other words, Mexico-U.S. migration has historically been circular. |
This, also given how hard the U.S. govt makes it for migrants to return home....If the policy were reversed, you'd see even more migrants returning home.
As for your allegation that
| Quote: |
Or how about an obvious problem here. This NGO is getting its data from the immigrants themselves. This may even be the least unreliable source, although it is likely far from being properly reliable. |
Who should they get the data from? The U.S. govt? The Mexican govt? If I am an entymologist, I count the bugs, I don't go to those with vested interested in either bug control or propagation.... Further, as the bibliography at the end notes, there are many other sources besides the well respected Migration Project. Further, the article is written by a PHd and also uses the work of Douglas Massey of Princeton. His work and results about Govt incompetent immigration policy are noteworth. check him out.
Fact of the matter is that the U.S. govt is totally on the wrong tact when it comes to this issue. Gopher's statement,
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| Washington could much better secure its borders and enforce its immigration laws. Nation-states do have a right to do that -- including the United States. |
reflects the same tired and insular and failed U.S. policy. Same one that makes a mess out of their prison system also.
This policy is a failure and a reactionary approach to a complex issue.
DD |
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skindleshanks
Joined: 10 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:47 am Post subject: |
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[quote="Gopher"]
| khyber wrote: |
| . And I personally feel Mexican immigrants should be welcome into the United States -- provided they do so legally and once here, learn English and pay taxes, etc. And they are generally not doing that now. |
And what do you think the minimum KLPT score should be to be eligible to renew your E-2 visa?
Frankly, I think Western college grads should be welcome into the ROK -- provided they do so legally and once here, learn Korean and pay taxes, etc. They are not generally doing that now. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 9:48 am Post subject: |
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| skindleshanks wrote: |
And what do you think the minimum KLPT score should be to be eligible to renew your E-2 visa?
Frankly, I think Western college grads should be welcome into the ROK -- provided they do so legally and once here, learn Korean and pay taxes, etc. They are not generally doing that now. |
You are comparing apples and oranges and, moreover, projecting your own South Korean situation (and resentments) onto this debate.
That being said, I agree that when one immigrates to another country, whatever country, s/he ought to do so legally, learn that country's language(s), and pay taxes, etc. |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 11:02 am Post subject: |
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Manifest Destiny.
cbc |
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insamjunkie
Joined: 04 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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...
Last edited by insamjunkie on Fri Jan 05, 2007 2:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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scarneck
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 3:50 am Post subject: |
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Even though he's busy as a Doctoral Candidate......
GOPHER FOR PRESIDENT...
By the way, how many Phds are you going to get? |
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