Mexican Law identical to recent Arizona Immigration Law

[That NOS Guy]

Oh Chocula, I was waiting for you to chime in. Somehow it wouldn't be a right-wing circlejerk without you. To the point, you claim America doesn't need day laborers, maids, and strawberry pickers? Do tell me, where are the expected replacements coming from? I can imagine your response, but I'd just like it put into your own words before it's demolished.

You don't have to be a Berkeley student to realize this massive ongoing Tu Qu fallacy is stupid, racist, and above all else incompatible with reality. Of course, one reaps what one sows, I wish I could avoid your bitter harvest, but alas that is not the case as we share this land.

[Samuel]

Oh Chocula, I was waiting for you to chime in. Somehow it wouldn't be a right-wing circlejerk without you. To the point, you claim America doesn't need day laborers, maids, and strawberry pickers? Do tell me, where are the expected replacements coming from? I can imagine your response, but I'd just like it put into your own words before it's demolished.

Well, you have two options. The first is increase wages until people are willing to do the work. While Americans may want jobs, alot of people might be leery of backbreaking labor, the need to constantly be on the move to follow the harvest (fruit pickers), the chances of injury and the difficulty in getting paid and constant work (day labor).

The second is try and find a technological solution so that we need less people to do the required work. Both of these would raise the prices and might make it profitable to do the farming elsewhere. The others can't really be outsourced and would result in higher prices for consumers.

[That NOS Guy]

Well, you have two options. The first is increase wages until people are willing to do the work. While Americans may want jobs, alot of people might be leery of backbreaking labor, the need to constantly be on the move to follow the harvest (fruit pickers), the chances of injury and the difficulty in getting paid and constant work (day labor).

The second is try and find a technological solution so that we need less people to do the required work. Both of these would raise the prices and might make it profitable to do the farming elsewhere. The others can't really be outsourced and would result in higher prices for consumers.

This is a fairly decent breakdown of the choices involved, the point being however is that I really want to see just how far down the rabbit hole Chocula is. Let the mental gymnastics commence.

[Guardsman Bass]

The only problem is that nobody is claiming that the fact that Mexico has a law similar to that of Arizona on immigration is a justification of said law - they're only pointing out that the Mexican government is being hypocritical for criticizing it when they have a similar law on the books, and their enforcement of it is terrible.

I don't see why you've gotten so butt-hurt over this. The Mexicans I've spoken to on it generally hold Mexican treatment of illegal immigrants in contempt, along with American treatment of illegal immigrants.

I don't love Mexico. My problem is a newspaper insincerely pushing a political position when I'm sure the selfsame institution lacks such exacting standards when the target isn't politically convenient.

Pointing out that Calderon and his government are being hypocritical for heavily criticizing a law that they themselves have in highly similar form is not "insincerely pushing a political position." It's not pushing a political position at all - it's just reporting the facts. It is hypocritical, and as I pointed out, in my personal experience that's not limited to Americans either.

Give me ONE example of an illegal alien (who was not amestied) who has accomplished something noteworthy, like owning a business. Or holding public office. Or becoming a minor celebrity.

Nice try. It's rather hard to start a legal business, hold public office, or have a heavily public position without being legalized.

Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the United States?

If you're involved in the drug trade.

Hiding in the cuture's shadows, finding Spanish-only enclaves and employers, hanging out in Home Depot parking lots and pissing in the bushes for a $5 per hour cash job is not "the American Way of Life," which in itself is a statement void of any semantic content

So finding work with people who actually want to hire them, with people who can understand them (gee, I wonder why spanish-speaking only people might seek out spanish-speaking employers - a mystery is afoot!), is "Un-American" now?

America has benefitted TREMENDOUSLY from legal immigrants. People like Nikola Tesla. Albert Einstein. Even Werner von Braun.

You know, we have a couple of legal immigrants on the board. Why don't you ask them on how America's immigration system is both immensely back-logged and totally fucked up?

Your analogy of worldwide cherry-picking is accurate, but you missed one key point - the benefits accrue to the nation as a whole and to those immigrants when they become American citizens, not illegal aliens.

Wrong. Immigration - including illegal immigration - actually has a net positive impact on both wages in the US as well as the economy in general. And while many of them may not become US citizens, their children are largely fully assimilated American citizens, and their children usually don't even speak Spanish.

[irishmick79]

Samuel, I'm ignoring most of your emotional claptrap reply, but this one got my attention:

Come on man, where is your enthusiam for capitalism? Autocraky is for Albanians and North Koreans- real states get the best talent they can from other nations, pay them better and take care of their kids to get their loyalty and use the continual growth to make sure everyone has a stake in the system. You know, the American Way of Life.

Me bucko, chap, old bean: violating America's laws to come to America is not "the American Way of Life." Hiding in the cuture's shadows, finding Spanish-only enclaves and employers, hanging out in Home Depot parking lots and pissing in the bushes for a $5 per hour cash job is not "the American Way of Life," which in itself is a statement void of any semantic content. Much like the rest of your post. Protip: "the best talent...from other nations" does NOT include day laborers, strawberry pickers, maids, MS-13 members, or drug runners. Give me ONE example of an illegal alien (who was not amestied) who has accomplished something noteworthy, like owning a business. Or holding public office. Or becoming a minor celebrity. The most prominent one I can recall is President Obama's aunt, who defied 2 or 3 deportation orders and still managed to qualify for public housing in Boston. Of course - surprise, surprise! - now she's going to become a hurf-durf American. Yay nepotism!

Enforcing immigration laws does NOT make America, or Arizona, or California, an autokraky autocracy. False analogy. America has benefitted TREMENDOUSLY from legal immigrants. People like Nikola Tesla. Albert Einstein. Even Werner von Braun. Your analogy of worldwide cherry-picking is accurate, but you missed one key point - the benefits accrue to the nation as a whole and to those immigrants when they become American citizens, not illegal aliens. Surely you aren't that myopic...you aren't a Berkeley student, are you?

I suggest you take a gander at a Council of Foreign Relations report by Prof Gordon Hanson of the Univesity of San Diego, entitled The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration, published in April 2007.

According to him, America benefits from illegal immigrants just as much as it benefits from legal immigration. Food service, construction, and other industries with a fairly fluid economic model have survived on relatively cheap and uneducated labor, and the flow of illegal immigration rises and falls largely based on the economic dynamics of these industries. To highlight how important this labor pool is to the US economy, Hanson points out that between 1960-2000 the average share of working-age natural born US residents with 12 years of schooling or less fell from 50% to 12%. Consequently, roughly 74% of the working-age population in Mexico has 12 years of education or less.

The visa system for temporary workers introduces inflexibility and bureaucratic delays which hampers the responsiveness of the immigration system to the immediate economic needs of affected industries, since workers cannot change jobs once a visa is granted and the application process is full of delays. It's quite difficult for unskilled labor to obtain a visa due to restrictions established by the law, leaving illegal immigration the only viable means of entering the country in most cases. The long waits for green cards essentially renders the legal immigration system incapable of responding to the ebb and flow of economic conditions. Consequently, illegal immigration does what legal immigration does not: move large numbers of low-skilled workers from a low productivity area to a high-productivity area in response to economic conditions on the ground.

He estimates that, as of 2002, illegal immigration caused an annual income loss of 0.07% of US GDP. While low-skilled illegal immigration drove down the wages of low-skilled native workersby 9%, the flow of illegal immigration arguably increased productivity and efficiency in exploitation of resources. Overall, the economic impact of illegal immigration is in immediate terms fairly negligible, it is dramatic for immigrant workers, who could see their wage jump from $2.30/hr on average in Mexico to $8.50/hr in the US. With the (as of 2007) proposed Border patrol budget approaching .1% of GDP, we're approaching the point at which the cost of enforcement outweighs the cost of illegal immigration.

So, in short, the arguments supporting the halt of illegal immigration laregly aren't driven by economics. Illegal immigration into the US wouldn't be happening on such a large scale if there wasn't a solid economic rationale for it.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Wow, Chocula's reply is one of the most profoundly crypto-racist remarks on immigrants I've ever seen. I'll reply in greater detail but all the main points are evaded: USA Today would not apply the same standards to U.S. policy vis-a-vis its citizens' welfare abroad or other blatant and vicious hypocrisy, that the U.S. law is wrong and appeal to federal standards proves nothing -- it is making a desmene of federal law the responsibility of the state, shitting on reactionaries' fetishized federalism -- and it amounts to a de facto extra burden of proof on Hispanic Americans. The issue at hand is the mainstream media's role in organizing regular Two Minutes Hate for Americans against foriegn scum that we can impotently rage against while -- and thus -- avoiding responsibility for the activities and policies of our OWN house.

In principle, its functionally just like how people reply to criticism of our foriegn interventions by pointing out how mean the Afghans are to each other. I wonder how often such standards were held to justify Soviet meddling.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Wow, reading Chocula's post I can almost feel his angry froth and spittle bouncing off my computer monitor.

Anyway, regardless of accusations of hypocrisy (which I don't particularly care about), the main thing I got out of this article is that Arizona is such a backwards state that law enforcement there is on par with the notoriously corrupt and brutish Mexican federales.

[Phantasee]

AFAIK saying "it's a federal law," and pointing out California has a similar law, doesn't actually mean anything. Are these laws enforced? No? What would be the reason for that? If they were being enforced then the Arizona law wouldn't need to exist, right?