See here for more on today's conference call in which House Democratic Leader Ward Armstong and House Caucus Chairman Brian Moran demanded that House Speaker Bill Howell apologize for his "bigotry-mongering" remarks on immigration.
According to the Dems, Howell needs to be scolded for suggesting that the state's newest residents may not embrace "the shared values we have in Virginia." Democrats appear to be using that statement to make a larger point about the expected flood of legislation aimed at curbing and punishing illegal immigration.Armstrong and Moran say the GOP has an "immigrant-bashing agenda for the legislative session that will begin in January."
[...]
"It's an ugly strategy and certainly not one unique to Virginia. It seeks to distract voters from core state issues such as transportation, fiscal prudence and good governance. But bigotry-mongering's day in Virginia is long past, and voters in the state have shown little disposition to reward candidates who extol intolerance."
You tell 'em, Delegates Moran and Armstrong!
P.S. So much for this being about "illegal"; Howell specifically talked about newcomers voting for Democrats, and last time I checked, illegal immigrants can't vote!
From: VirginiaDem.org
Immigration is a Federal/State issue.
Local immigration ordinances will lead to lawsuits to determine whether they're legal under the Dillon Rule.
Legal defenses cost money.
Ipso facto, Republicans want to raise taxes to defend Dillon Rule lawsuits.
(A few other arguments here.)
Immigration Myopia in Virginia
Sunday, September 9, 2007; B08
For Virginia's Democrats to cede the issue of illegal immigration to Republicans in this fall's legislative contests would be as socially irresponsible as it would be politically myopic ["Democratic Gains Are Predicted in Va. Assembly," front page, Sept. 2]. Communities as diverse as Culpeper and Herndon, and Loudoun and Prince William counties, are seeking to curb the influx of illegal aliens (calling them "undocumented workers" is akin to referring to bank robbers as "unofficial withdrawal specialists").
Although they are denigrated as "xenophobes," "racists" and "nativists" by special pleaders, local leaders are responding to concerns about school crowding, emergency-room access, neighborhoods blighted by old vehicles, trash-strewn yards, houses bulging with occupants, ubiquitous signs in Spanish and the proliferation of gangs. Several other factors should awaken Democrats, especially those from Northern Virginia, who blithely intone the mantra that "we are a nation of immigrants":
-Periodic wars and depressions interrupted the waves of new arrivals in the 19th and 20th centuries, giving them a chance to assimilate and, above all, learn English. No such "timeouts" have occurred since the 1965 immigration law, which fostered the continuous influx of millions of Hispanics, many of whom live in linguistic enclaves perpetuated by the English-as-a-second-language lobby.
-Democrats claim to embrace the principle of justice. Although the United States legally admits almost 1 million prospective citizens each year, illegal aliens have broken the line, thrusting themselves ahead of men and women who have filled out myriad forms and followed the rules and expected to receive fair play in return.
-The Democrats should align themselves with the working people whom the Bush administration has disdained. It's not a Fairfax County lawyer or a Richmond businessperson whose wages and job opportunities are threatened by the mushrooming number of unlawful aliens. Instead, it's housekeepers, construction workers, hospitality industry employees and child-care providers, who feel abandoned when the party of Truman, Kennedy and Roosevelt elevates the interests of lawbreakers over the well-being of these forgotten blue- and pink-collar citizens.
-Finally, in scorning rigorous law enforcement, Democrats are compromising opportunities for African Americans, who have been our party's most faithful backers in the Old Dominion. The Congressional Black Caucus, which rakes in donations from corporate giants that exploit illegal aliens, has urged African Americans to join forces with Hispanics and other minorities in a "rainbow coalition" that supposedly will uplift the nation's downtrodden. In fact, such vapid sloganeering means that "African Americans have been left devoid of a strong black voice in Congress on a topic [illegal immigration] that affects them deeply, given their high unemployment rates and historic struggle to get quality housing, health care, education and other goods and services," writes Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain, who happens to be black. Virginia's Democrats risk displaying equal callousness toward this constituency.
-- George W. Grayson
Williamsburg
The writer, who teaches at the College of William and Mary, served 27 years as a Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
I'm not sure that Thomas Jefferson would have found an intrusive government asking people who looked different for identification to be an appropriate exercise of power. On the contrary, I have a feeling he would kinda rebel against that.
Yes, there are laws being broken. But that is because it is the laws that are broken.
"Although as to other foreigners it is thought better to discourage their settling together in large masses, wherein, as in our German settlements, they preserve for a long time their own languages, habits, and principles of government, and that they should distribute themselves sparsely among the natives for quicker amalgamation, yet English emigrants are without this inconvenience. They differ from us little but in their principles of government, and most of those (merchants excepted) who come here, are sufficiently disposed to adopt ours." --Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson; 1787
?But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together.
Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies.
Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass. I may appeal to experience, during the present contest, for a verification of these conjectures.
But, if they be not certain in event, are they not possible, are they not probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience 27 years and three months longer, for the attainment of any degree of population desired, or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable?
Suppose 20 millions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here. If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship: but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements?.
However, during the Constitutional Convention, James Wilson, an immigrant from Scotland, played a role in expanding the availability of other federally elected offices to first generation Americans. Given Wilson's contributions to the revolution -- from someone came to the colonies at the age of 23 only 10 years before the revolution -- the other Framers made sure that the nation would be open to people like him. The office of president was closed to him, but that was the only limitation.
And yes, I completely deny that "Democrats as a group have embraced 'immigrant rights' without regard to legal status?" In fact, it's quite a mixed bag, just like on the Republican side. See here, for instance. Also, note that many Republican figures, like Rudy Giuliani and George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan have been very pro-immigrant. For more, see here.
Oh, by the way, tell me how many illegal immigrants vote in our elections. What are we talking about, a few dozen nationwide? I mean, seriously, where do you get this stuff from?!?
As I pointed out in my post to Spotter, many Republicans support loosened immigration enforcement to suppress service sector wages.
How many illegals vote in our elections? Well, it is estimated that there are 11 million of them here. I suspect that it is more than a few dozen. Seriously, where do YOU get this stuff from?
And Grayson is full of crap when he says the CBC is taking money from corporations who employ illegal labor, or that immigration is harming African American opportunity for employment.
Do you deny HisRoc that Lowell has documented (at length) that the GOP has taken gobs of money from an company that has been repeatedly busted for hiring undocumented workers?
Work is one thing; voting is another.
In the case of work there are incentives for employers to assist illegals in getting around the law. In the case of voting the incentives are not there, and the research on this issue (and there is quite a bit) suggests no evidence of systematic abuses along the lines you are describing.
My real problem with this whole Republican onslaught on illegal immigration is that they've controlled the federal government, and ICE, for the last several years. Why haven't these federalists expanded enforcement at the federal level?
Instead, they're trying to dump enforcement on already-stretched state and local governments and police and sheriffs, at an unknown and almost certainly unfunded cost.
And they are doing it solely as an election strategy, so that they can beat the drum of xenophobia, since homophobia just isn't working for them any more.
It's a cynical ploy that I would expect any fair-minded history professor to see right through.
Period, full stop.
"I write to condemn an article by George W. Grayson J.D. '76, 'Myths About Illegal Immigration' (Winter 2004/2005), and applaud your own not-so-subtle undercutting of his essay.
I am opposed to illegal immigration and am uncertain about adopting a policy of amnesty. I am certain, however, that Grayson's essay casts our alma mater in an inhumane light. Let us look at the first of his "eight half-truths" arid see how its very grammar and syntax taints his arguments. "Mexicans and other illegals perform menial work spurned by Americans?" First, note the construction of the phrase "Mexicans and other ifiegals?" The syntax connotes that all Mexicans are illegals.
For a parallel, if I were to write, "Mr. Grayson and other racists," I would by that very statement have labeled Grayson a racist. Second, note the dehumanization of the illegal immigrants accomplished by denying them the identity of a noun. They are reduced to a more collective adjective: "illegals?' Third, the use of the term "Americans" as synonymous with citizens of the United States is revelatory of a jingoistic mindset, and it casts the real issue of legality (citizens and legal aliens versus illegal aliens) as an issue of ethnicity.
Of course, Grayson can demur that such crude "half-truths" are straw men that do not reflect his own enlightened views. And yet throughout his essay, Grayson carelessly conflates "immigrants" with "legal aliens," "legal Mexican immigrants," "illegal immigrants," "illegal aliens" and "Mexican illegal aliens." These categories are not interchangeable, as anyone familiar with the field should know. Whatever Grayson's intentions, the systematic confusion of these terms makes his essay sound like a reprehensible bit of yellow journalism.
But bravo to the editor for including this essay in an issue whose cover story touts the integration of William and Mary through coeducation. This juxtaposition implicitly aligns Grayson's piece on the side of those privileged activists who lamented "the melancholy fact that we are the last class to graduate from this old college before it is defiled by coeducation."
GEORGE FREORIG FRANKO '87
Roanoke, Va.
I love those William and Mary people. I love the way they write. Like I said, not a New Democrat.