One of the news items on Orbusmax was this:

State GOP: No automatic citizenship for kids born in U.S. to illegal immigrants

The state Republican Party adopted a platform Saturday that includes a provision aimed at opposing automatic citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants.

This is not a new idea…

The state party approved a similar platform plank at its 2006 convention that proved controversial. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution recognizes citizenship for all persons born in the United States.

"Immigration is an issue that a lot of our party activists feel strongly about," state Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser said. "And it's certainly a very defensible position. It's not at all something that's based on race concerns. It's a matter of what is citizenship going to be based on."

The Latin American Press and some in Congress are calling Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's refusal to bring the negotiated trade agreement between Columbia and the US up for a speedy vote the "Hugo Chávez Rule". Although Speaker Pelosi's intention may be to kowtow to powerful US Trade Unions, the consequence of not ratifying the treaty after Columbia jumped through various hoops required by members of Congress in order for it to be considered may be severe.  Continue reading here. 

NW fruit producers are among those who would benefit from the free trade treaty.

I was reading up on Ken Schram's commentaries and I ran across two he did about Manuel Jesus Cordova.  In them, he detailed the story of this guys deportation and how the conservatives were essentially cold hearted bastards.

While his comments are grossly over generalized, he is essentially correct.  It is the anti illegal immigration people, which is not exclusively conservatives who are being a bit short sighted, but besides that, though it galls me, I agree with him.

The story starts in Mexico where Manual began his trek to enter the USA illegally.  After walking for two days he came across a 9 year old boy.  The boy, Christopher Buztheitner, had been in a car accident where his mother was killed.  Stranded, he was wandering looking for help when it found him, in the form of Manuel.

Manuel had a choice.  He was a relatively short walk to freedom, and he could have left the boy, who could have died.

Here is yet another reason to like Fred! Thompson:  His Immigration plan.

While I might differ on the odd point or two, overall his plan actually makes sense.  It treats the problem as a whole, and attacks it from all angles, not just from the Border fence as many others.

Border Security and Immigration Reform Plan

In the post-9/11 world, immigration is much more of a national security issue. A government that cannot secure its borders and determine who may enter and who may not, fails in a fundamental responsibility. As we take steps to secure our borders and enforce our laws, we must also ensure that our immigration laws and policies advance our national interests in a variety of areas, and that the immigration process itself is as fair, efficient, and effective as possible.

 

Securing the Border and Enforcing the Law

The Fred Thompson campaign has posted their Border Security and Immigration Reform Plan.

My favorite parts:

No Amnesty. Do not provide legal status to illegal aliens. Amnesty undermines U.S. law and policy, rewards bad behavior, and is unfair to the millions of immigrants who follow the law and are awaiting legal entry into the United States. In some cases, those law-abiding and aspiring immigrants have been waiting for several years.

Darn Skippy.  If you cheated to get here, you GOTTA leave.

Attrition through Enforcement. Reduce the number of illegal aliens through increased enforcement against unauthorized alien workers and their employers. Without illegal employment opportunities available, fewer illegal aliens will attempt to enter the country, and many of those illegally in the country now likely will return home. Self-deportation can also be maximized by stepping up the enforcement levels of other existing immigration laws. This course of action offers a reasonable alternative to the false choices currently proposed to deal with the 12 million or more aliens already in the U.S. illegally: either arrest and deport them all, or give them all amnesty. Attrition through enforcement is a more reasonable and achievable solution, but this approach requires additional resources for enforcement and border security:

One of the groups I belong to ejected a member who had posted radical posts that were out of the topic, immigration.  I don't like such ugliness.  I actually engaged in a lengthy debate as to why, in a group devoted to Immigration, he posted an anti semitic Gun Control article along with one of the foulest pieces of photoshop I have seen.

His response was essentially that guns are a core right and taking them away opens the door for more abuses, like amnesty.  Oh and it wasn't offensive according to him.

Opinions vary.

The point of my posts to the group was that allowing tangential debates like that distract from the core issues of illegal immigration.

Ken Schram also is upset about the distractions to the debate, but he in his paranoia sees the Snark in every shadow.

It should come as no surprise that conservatives and liberals are wired differently, have different priorities and think differently.

As public service, I am going to do a week long series detailing some of the fundamental differences in how they think.

As a quick disclaimer, as in all things any time you resort to generalities you risk finding and offending the exceptions.  It will be pointed out to me that not all Liberals think this way, or that way, and the same will go for the Conservatives.

I readily admit that.  This is not a scientific study, and I make not claim about anything beyond this:  These observations are my own, based on the people I see locally, in the media and on the national stage.  I humbly defer to any exception you may note.

Todays lesson is about Patriots and Traitors.  First, let's agree on the simple definitions:

The Dane links us to a great report by Robert E Rector of the Heritage Foundation, on the true costs of the Shamnesty Immigration Bill that failed in the Senate last week:

Heritage research has shown that low skill immigrants (those without a high school degree) receive, on average, three dollars in government benefits and services for each dollar of taxes they pay. This imbalance imposes a net cost of $89 billion per year on U.S. taxpayers. Over a lifetime, the typical low skill immigrant household will cost taxpayers $1.2 million.[4]

 Future taxpayer costs will be increased by policies which increase (1) the number of low skill immigrants entering the U.S., (2) the length of low skill immigrants’ stays in the U.S., or (3) low skill immigrants’ access to government benefits and services. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the Senate immigration bill does:

Had to make a quick pit stop, but kindly granted a press conference before his fundraiser.  Best part was when KING 5's Bernard Choi (I think) posed a good question starting at 2:39: "I lived in New York.  … If you just have one minute to convince all the liberal folks in this state, how would you do that?" (I'm sorry this isn't better.)

Fool.

Raid on plant uncovers hundreds of illegal workers

Federal agents on Tuesday raided the offices of a Portland food processing plant suspected of employing hundreds of illegal workers who used Social Security numbers that belonged to other people or were made up.

More than 165 workers were detained to be processed for possible deportation, officials said, and three people were indicted on immigration, illegal documents and identity theft charges.

Portland Mayor Tom Potter criticized the raids. The three arrests were understandable, he said, but "to go after local workers who are here to support their families while filling the demands of local businesses for their labor is bad policy."

Sure.  It's bad policy to go after people who are committing ID fraud.  All 165 of those people were working with false documents.  That they singled out 3 for harsher crimes is no excuse for the actions of the others.