Freedom Folks: The Clueless Leading The Clueless

Source: ContraCostaTimes

Panel addresses bias in immigration laws
BERKELEY: Texas lawmaker likens decline in civil liberties to start of segregation, proposes alternative solutions

The national fear of terrorism and a scaling back of civil rights since 2001 is starting to resemble the early days of segregation for immigrants, a Texas congresswoman says.

The climate in the country has muddied the immigration debate, but Sheila Jackson Lee told a conference of UC Berkeley legal scholars, students and immigration activists that she still has hope.

"There should be answers that don't make immigrants the scapegoat," the Houston congresswoman said Friday.

Well, I don't think immigrants are the scapegoats here, it's ILLEGAL immigrants! I think most Americans, wherever they come down on this debate recognize that the system is broken and dangerously out of control.

Lee's proposals and the viewpoints of many participants in the Citizenship Without Borders conference at Berkeley's Boalt Hall are not winning the debate as Congress considers comprehensive immigration reform.

House Republicans overwhelmingly passed an immigration bill late last year that would criminalize many immigration violations and boost enforcement and security at the Mexico border. The Senate is now debating a guest worker program for immigrants - a plan that President Bush and many industry groups support.

Lee called such a proposal, "a flat-Earth concept" doomed to fail.

"You're just building a core group of internal antagonism and conflict" and creating second class citizens, Lee said.

We actually agree here, which is why I believe fervently in controlled orderly immigration. Reducing the role of immigration attorneys who seem to see their role as cramming every person on the planet into this country, for a fee of course, and getting back to the idea of assimilation, which flankly will require a lot less input from the multi-culturalist folks.

Her proposals - a path to citizenship for undocumented workers already in the U.S., an increase in the number of new visas available and increasing opportunities for people from more nations to come to the U.S. - are considered pro-immigrant and supported by most of the Berkeley thinkers and activists.

But Lee's simultaneous call for thousands of new border guards and 100,000 more beds in detention centers raised some hackles.

This just shows the schizophrenic nature of today's immigration debate. Let's militarize the border to stop illegals from crossing but, those already here, we love you baby! Please vote for me!

The next paragraph, to me, really frames this debate. This is the unbridgable divide, the one thing that is non-negotiable...

The two-day conference explored the idea that being a good citizen does not necessarily require citizenship.

Ummm, okey-dokie! This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read, in fact I must apologize to you gentle reader. I'm fairly certain you've just dropped several IQ points just from having read this drivel. Let's read that again and see if it makes any more sense this time...

The two-day conference explored the idea that being a good citizen does not necessarily require citizenship.

Being a good "citizen" doesn't require being a "citizen?" Really? This is huge, hey I know let's just tear down the border because that way all cultures will be the same, what could be more just than that?

This deconstruction of the value of citizenship drives me nuts. I'm an American, I'm proud to be an American, I make no bones about it. If that makes me an anachronism, I'm okay with that.

And ANY move to make this country into something other than America is not open to debate, not with me anyway.

"The way to get the argument going that immigrants need more rights is to look at the way they live at the local level," said T. Alexander Aleinikoff, dean of the Georgetown University Law Center and a former immigration attorney in the Clinton administration.

Aleinikoff pointed to the involvement of U.S. immigrants - whether legally or illegally -- in local schools, communities and even state politics.

I tremble for the future of this country if lying, raving asshats like this have held positions of power. Yes, ILLEGAL immigrants have become involved in all these things. They're not supposed to have and had our government done it's damn job they wouldn't have been. I want to talk to the person who approves of illegal aliens voting, or making school choices for children in this country. I don't see it, I really don't see it.

Immigrants need more rights? More rights than who? Citizens? Or is that an impolitic question? I'll run through this again briefly for the brain damaged who may be joining us late. Illegal aliens have no civil rights in this country. This isn't even complicated. None, nada, zero, zilch. Civil rights are only for citizens unless we're prepared to redefine citizenship in a way that will require me to run and fetch my shootin' iron.

I'll just leave you with this...