GOP Fences Itself In

Andrew that is just way off base . One of the main concerns of many people , and it is not just and should not just be the GOP , is the FACT that many illegal immigrints are not blending into our culture . To the detriment of them and those already here .

Many illegal immigrints also believe that California still belongs to Mexico . Its more then just a few , the flags meant something totally different to thousands of those marchers , maybe not all , but obviously you have no clue . , . United States took iCalifornia basically from Mexico . Howard Zinn and others love to point that out lousy country , funny how people always will want to come here though .

Many folks moving here illegally are not interested in becoming Americans in regards to what people in the past considered being an American was . ,many illegals just want a ta better life .

Some illegals feel they are OWED a free pass here because of past history . You are unaware of this it appears , its much more complicated then you think . Having illegals be at the mercy of slum lords and corporations and small buiisness owners who save millions in payroll taxes using them is just one aspect , the policy you support keeps that happening i Russert held any of the dems to account for that ? The fact when more and more people come into our social safety, welfare , social security , Human services , who have not contributed social security taxes and such , but now can get them is another burden to all of us , alll Americans . Especially to the children of those illegals . For one reason not adapting to American culkture and language makes it harder for their children to get good jobs here when they get older . In the past , people came for the better life and to become Americans . They would care about doing the right thing , united we stand , but we were United as Americans . Big difference to me , if you think we are a facist nation I guess you would not care or understand my point .

Americans should care abiout their nation . Want it be stong , and fair to alll. Before anything is done , the laws of the land need to be changed if the Congress has no will to stop the problem . Tear down the borders , why are we just allowing the fast ones to cross the border , why not the older and slow ones ?

Because this bill does nothing to stop illegal and desperate people from coming here , nor does it do anything to punish those who hire and house illegal immigrints . Just doing that would solve the problem , and people who came here would then want to make sure they were legal so they could work . And their kids would have a fighting chance at the American Dream . Facist or not to you .

Mick,

If you are going to make tenuous statements about what "many" or "most" of any group wants you need to offer some sort of proof for your statements. Things like polls, organizations, or some type of documented behavior that supports your statement. What I have seen from immigrant marches I have attended, accounts of other marches, were folks that waved American flags, carried signs that asserted that they were part of America too, and just by their presence at a march demanding that their voice be heard, were defending "American values."

Also your statement about undocumented workers being a burden on the social services of the US is just patently false, although it is a favored talking point among nativists. Aside from migrant farm labor, most undocumented workers get employed by providing false SS numbers, names and addresses. They have taxes withheld from their checks, but since they are paying into the system under bogus info, they have no investment in the system, and so they are subsidizing it without getting the benefit (especially true in Social Security). I will say that many border communities are under an incredible burden by the virtue of their location, illegal immigration is a serious problem for them and needs to be addressed.

In the end however, if you subscribe to the power of the marketplace in society, there is just no way that we are going to stem the tide of immigrants coming across the border. The economic forces are just too strong for many too resist (on both sides of the border). This whole problem stems from economic injustice, both global and local. Addressing it as anything else will NEVER solve the problem.

Like the polls you stated in your comments ? You watch the news . Ever helped illegals besides telling people how xenophoebic Republican are and marching in a parade ? You watch TV . CNN reported on the movement to take back the lands the United States stole .

Millions of illegals work under the books Andrew . That is one of the talking points for making illegals legal , to be identified and pay taxes . to make employers pay their share of thepayroll tax . Amazing you dispute taling points at that were used for the bill being passed .

Basically the United States did steal Mexico . I know legal immigrints who have that belief to get it back , and they are not doing anything wrong sneaking in to a country . . They believe we are the illegals . How is possible you are trying to help people and not know anything about a LARGE percentage of people your helping ? I say this because the information is out there , if you investigated it you would still have your opinion , but you would know more about it . Thats your problem in this issue , you don't admit to the complications of the issue , and you pass them off as prejudice . Now I find that sterotypical of the left , promoting racism or fear of religion to win the day . Prove me wrong , investigate it .

• Make an arguement based on why allowing people who we know nothing about to come here in a disorderly manner to continue helps us , helps the people from Mexico who do want to be good citizens , helps us become a country that can continue to take in people , instead of becoming like the nations that are turning them out .

Oh , your idea of justice is not my idea . Without laws , dont expect your idea of Justice to last very long . It won't be long till someone comes along with another view of Justice that is different then yours , .

I Even work with a gentleman who does . The flags were all over the place in the first demonstrtions , they were told by their organizers to stop them . Google it .

. Spokespeople for illegal immigration speak to it , when you suggest prejudice for a view I hold , like the smear you do on religion , I suggest using you your own advice . Poll my heart . Speak to the issues , what this bill solves ? You support illegal immigration is what you appear to say , since they will becoming ayway . So why do we stop those from other countries , because they don't havea border .

The injustice of the world does call this , I suggest your adding to it for the people who are trying to obey the laws of the land and change it in an orderly fashion where not only the few million get helped , but those who obey the laws also .

You pick the ones that are ok to break , if we all did that , well obviously you have to take a poll to see what would happen I guess.

Just a element in a very complicated issue . Ignore it , and your not dealing with the whole issue . Studying our History helps .

The ‘Reconquista’—Mexico’s Dream of ‘Retaking’ the Southwest

By John Tiffany

Some Mexicans and Mexican-Americans want to see California, New Mexico and other parts of the United States given to Mexico. They call it the “reconquista,” Spanish for “reconquest,” and they view the millions of Mexican illegal aliens entering this country as their army of invaders to achieve that takeover. To an extent, they also have actual armed soldiers of the Mexican army, along with mercenaries from North Korea, Russia and other communist or former communist lands, and have already fired upon American Border Patrol officers and terrorized American ranchers. Shockingly, certain politicians in America are willing to sell out to the Mexicans. Here we consider the background to this disturbing development.

Mexico, of course, was once a Spanish colony, the Aztecs and numerous other tribes in that region having been conquered by the Spaniards—or, in many cases, having willingly sworn allegiance to the Spanish king in order to free themselves from Aztec tyranny. (However, it may be noted that in the northern reaches—the so-called Interior Provinces—of what was once called “Mexico,” the natives had never been subdued by any outsiders, including the Aztecs.) When a number of Mexicans, inspired by Ameri ca’s example, revolted against Spain, they set up an independent government and assumed theoretical rulership of a vast area, in cluding what is now known as the South western United States.

America subsequently obtained the Southwest in various ways—mostly by conquest in the Mexican (or Mexican Amer i can) War, partly by purchase (the Gadsden Purchase) and partly by agreement (the annexation of Texas, at the time an independent republic. It should also be mentioned that the bear flag of the Re public of California was raised by American settlers at Sonoma on June 14, 1846.) This prompts the question as to how Spain and then Mexico came to “own” what is now the American Southwest, which, of course, was never under the control of the Aztec nation.

Mexico’s claim to the Southwest stems from Pope Alexander VI’s 15th-century Treaty of Tordesillas, which established a demarcation line to define the spheres of Spanish and Portuguese influence in the New World. The line ran due north and south through a point 300 miles west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. All newly discovered lands lying east of this line supposedly belonged to Portugal, while all lands discovered to the west belonged to Spain. The people—Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts—living in these lands were not consulted. This treaty was modified in 1506 by a new demarcation line 1,110 miles west of the Azores. The new line ran longitudinally through the eastern hump of South America, and is the reason Brazilians speak Portuguese. This treaty gave Spain the controversial legitimacy to rule Mexico, and most of North and South America, beginning with Her nándo Cortés’s rape of the Aztec nation in 1521. Tordesillas allowed the Spanish and Portuguese to loot and enslave indigenous populations, in return for their promises to save the hemisphere’s natives “for God.” It was not realized at the time that Portugal would get a much smaller slice of the American pie than did Spain, since the Americas were still largely unexplored. While Spain wound up with a claim to the Aztec and Inca empires, rich in gold and silver, Portugal got nothing more than some tropical rain forest with scattered primitive tribes.

Britain and various other countries, including Catholic France, were not hap py about the pope’s decision to divide the New World between Spain and Portugal and did not consider the treaty to have any legal value whatsoever. Even Portu gal seems to have been dissatisfied, since it proceeded to carve out a much larger Brazil than the eastern Brazil it would have been entitled to under the treaty. Since the United States inherited its claim to the western lands from Britain, the Treaty of Tordesillas is logically a nullity as far as the U.S. government is (or should be) concerned. It should perhaps be noted that U.S. claims to the west really go as far back as colonial days, since many of the British colonial charters purported to grant to the colonies lands in America stretching all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

In 1767, Russia had already taken over Alaska and was looking at lands to the south of it. King Carlos III of Spain became concerned about Russian intentions regarding California and decreed a program to build a series of forts or missions throughout California to ensure Spanish control of that land. The Spanish government forced the aboriginal Ameri can (so-called “Indian”) populations to build a series of 21 forts/missions for settler protection and agriculture. These missions were built between 1769 and 1823. Because of a series of revolutions that swept the Spanish empire in 1810, cash-starved Spain stopped salary payments to its civil servants throughout the Ameri cas, and these colonists were left to their own devices. It is noteworthy that in 1810, there were less than 1,000 Span iards through out the entire American South west, some 500,000 square miles of wil derness, controlled only by the native Indians.1

At one point the civilized Indian tribes of New Mexico, known as “Pueblo” Indi ans, who had been conquered by the Span ish, revolted and succeeded in driving the Spanish out of their lands. The Span ish government, however, mounted a “re conquista” to again subject this territory to their control, the first reconquista in Amer ican history. (An earlier reconquista found in the history books refers to the taking back of Spain itself from the Moors by the Christians, but of course that has little to do with our subject matter here.)

It took a combination of Criollos (ethnic Spaniards born in the New World), Indi ans associated with them and Mestizos (racially mixed people) to defeat Imperial Spain; but by 1821, after 38 years of struggle, they triumphed, and modern Mexico was born. However, the defeat of Spain changed little in what would someday be the Southwest United States. The vast wil derness, which was then northern Mex ico, continued to be virtually ignored by a slumbering and distracted Mexican central government. From the time of Spain’s defeat by Mexico in 1821, through 1848, the year the Mexican-American War ended, Mexico endured 50 military plots, 22 governments, five constitutional conventions, three constitutions and 10 of the 11 different terms of leadership under that megalomaniacal president and military leader (he was never actually a general), Antonio López de Santa Anna Pérez de Lebrón, of Alamo notoriety.

Beginning with Texas in 1845, which be came a sovereign country in 1836, and California, Nevada, Utah and parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Wyo ming (all of which Mexico ceded to the United States in 1848), American settlers outnumbered Mexicans by at least five to one in all eight states except in Texas, where Americans outnumbered Mexicans 10 to one. One thing these settlers wanted was stable, representative government, something Mexico had been unable to provide. They also wanted to have a government that spoke their own language and shared their culture. And so had begun the inevitable movement for independence from Mexico among American settlers. This led to the Battle of the Alamo and the Texan War for Independence, resulting in a sovereign nation of Texas. After nine years of this, Texas, by mutual consent, was annexed to the United States.

There can be little doubt that President Polk engineered the 1846-1848 war with Mexico in order to bring California and the other Southwestern states into the union. War was declared on May 13, 1846, based on the problems along the disputed Texas-Mexico border. Still, there is little question but that Mexico would have been unable to indefinitely hold on to her pre-1846 American territories even had the Mexican-U.S. War not taken place. Sooner or later, all seven of the other states would have followed Texas’s lead (as California was doing) and brought about similar results.

The Mexican War receives little attention in America’s classrooms, al though its effects were far-reaching. David Saville Muzzey’s popular 1911 text American His tory explained the war to schoolchildren of the early 20th century, told why the United States seized California in 1846 and how the U.S. government ended the Texas-Mexico border dispute. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidal go, which officially ended the war, was signed in February 1848. (“Guadalupe Hi dalgo” is the former name of a town in Mexico, 2 1/2 miles north of Mexico City. It was to this town that the government of Mexico had fled as American troops took the capital city. Guadalupe Hidalgo was named partly for Our Lady of Guadalupe and partly for Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the well known Mexican priest and revolutionary.)

According to Muzzey, the annexation of Texas was a perfectly fair transaction. For nine years, since the victory of San Ja cinto in 1836, Texas had been an independent republic, whose military reconquest Mexico had not the slightest chance of effecting. In fact, at the very moment of annexation, the Mexican government, at the suggestion of England, had agreed to recognize the independence of Texas, on condition that the republic should not join itself to the United States. The United States was not taking Mexican territory, then, in annexing Texas.

The new state had come into the union claiming the Rio Grande as her southern and western boundary. By the terms of annexation, all boundary disputes with Mexico were referred by Texas to the government of the United States. President Polk sent John Slidell of Louisiana to Mexico in the autumn of 1845 to adjust any differences over the Texan claims. But though Slidell labored for months to get a hearing, two successive presidents of revolution-torn Mexico refused to recognize him, and he was dismissed from the country in August 1846.

The massing of Mexican troops on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, coupled with the refusal of the Mexican government to receive Slidell, led President Polk to order Gen. Zachary Taylor to move to the borders. Taylor marched to the Rio Grande and fortified a position on the northern bank. The Mexican and the Ameri can troops were thus facing each other across the river. When Taylor re fused to retreat to the Nueces, the Mexi can commander crossed the Rio Grande and ambushed a scouting force of Ameri cans (April 1846). When the news of the attack reached Washington early in May, Polk sent a special message to Congress, concluding with these words:

We have tried every effort at reconciliation. . . . But now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States , has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon American soil. She has proclaimed that hostilities have commenced and that the two nations are at war. As war exists, and, notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself, we are called upon by every consideration of duty and patriotism to vindicate with decision the honor, the rights and the interests of our country.

The House and Senate, by very large majorities (174 to 14, and 40 to two), voted 50,000 men and $10 million for the prosecution of the war. Meanwhile, Gen. Taylor had driven the Mexicans back to the south bank of the Rio Grande in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. Six days after the vote of Congress sanctioning the war, he crossed the Rio Grande and occupied the Mexican frontier town of Matamoros, whence he proceeded during the summer and autumn of 1846 to capture the capitals of three Mexican provinces.

As soon as hostilities began, Commodore John Drake Sloat, in command of the U.S. squadron in the Pacific, was ordered to seize California, and Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny was sent to invade New Mexico. The occupation of California was practically undisputed. Mexico had only the faintest shadow of authority in the province, and the 6,000 white inhabitants made no objection to seeing the flag of the United States raised over their forts. Kearny started with 1,800 men from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in June, and on August 18 defeated the force of 4,000 Mexicans and Indians which disputed his occupation of Santa Fé. After garrisoning this important post he detached Col. Doliphan with 850 men to march through the northern provinces of Mexico and effect a juncture with Gen. Taylor at Monterey, while he himself with only 100 men continued his long journey of 1,500 miles to San Diego, California, where he joined Sloat’s successor, Stockton.

After these decided victories and uninterrupted marches of Taylor, Kearny, Sloat, Stockton and Doniphan, the Mexi can government was offered a fair chance to treat for peace, which it refused. Then President Polk decided, with the unanimous consent of his cabinet, to strike at the heart of Mexico. Gen. Winfield Scott, a hero of the War of 1812, was put in command of an army of about 12,000 men, to land at Vera Cruz and fight his way up the mountains to the capital city of Mexico. Santa Anna, who, by the rapid shift of revolutions, was again dictator in Mexico, heard of this plan to attack the capital and hastened north with 20,000 troops to surprise and destroy Taylor’s army before Scott should have time to take Vera Cruz. But Taylor, with an army one-fourth the size of Santa Anna’s, drove the Mexicans back in the hotly contested Battle of Buena Vista (Feb. 23, 1847), securing the Californian and New Mexican conquests. Santa Anna hastened southward to the defense of Mexico City.

Scott took Vera Cruz in March and worked his way slowly but surely, against forces always superior to his own, up to the very gates of Mexico City by August 1847. Here he paused, by the president’s orders, to allow the Mexicans another chance to accept the terms of peace the United States offered: the cession by Mexico of New Mexico and California in return for a large payment of money. The Mexican commissioners, however, insisted on having both banks of the Rio Grande and all of California up to the neighborhood of San Francisco, besides receiving damages for injuries inflicted by the American troops in their invasions. These claims were preposterous, coming from a conquered country, and there was nothing left for Scott to do but to resume military operations.

Santa Anna defended the capital with a force of 30,000 men, but the Mexicans proved no match for the American soldiers. Scott stormed the fortified hill of Chapultepec and advanced to the gates of the city. On September 13 his troops entered the Mexican capital and raised the Stars and Stripes over “the palace of the Montezumas.”

From the beginning of the war Polk had been negotiating for peace. He had kept Slidell in Mexico long after the opening of hostilities and had sent Nicholas Trist as special peace commissioner to join Scott’s army at Vera Cruz and to offer Mexico terms of peace at the earliest possible moment. He had allowed Santa Anna to return to Mexico from his exile in Cuba in the summer of 1846, because the wily and treacherous dictator held out false promises of effecting a reconciliation between Mexico and the United States. He had asked Congress for an appropriation of $2 million for peace negotiations when Gen. Taylor was still near the Rio Grande, 10 days before Gen. Kearny had taken Santa Fé and the province of New Mexico, and before Gen. Scott’s campaign had been thought of.

When the Mexican commissioners made advances for peace at the beginning of the year 1848, they were given terms almost as liberal as those offered them before Scott had stormed and occupied their capital. By the treaty concluded at Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico was required to cede its claim to California and New Mexico, as well as lands in between them and to the north, to the United States and to recognize the Rio Grande as the southern and western boundary of Texas. In return, the United States paid Mexico a gratuitous $15 million cash and assumed some $3,250,000 more in claims of American citizens on the Mexican government. Mexico was in debt to the Rothschild bankers at this time, and apparently most of the cash went to them. Considering the facts that California was scarcely under Mexican control at all and might have been taken at any moment by Great Britain, France or Russia; that New Mexico was still the almost undisturbed home of Indian tribes; that the land from the Nueces to the Rio Grande was almost a desert; that the American troops were in possession of the Mexican capital; and that the United States did not have to give a dollar to Mexico, the terms offered Mexico were extremely generous.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was ratified by the U.S. Senate on March 10, 1848. The last U.S. soldier had departed from Mexico by July 31. Polk was urged by many to annex the whole country of Mexico to the United States, but he wisely refused to consider such a proposal.

Mexicans were subsequently to note with pleasure that bad luck had followed upon imperialism, since the acquisitions of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by upsetting the balance between the “slave” states and the “free” states, precipitated, 13 years later, the American War Between the States or “Civil War.”

Mexico had ceded Texas, California and the vast expanse of territory in between them, amounting to more than half the land area of the republic, adding half a million square miles of territory to the United States. Mexico’s then-president, Manuel de la Peña y Peña, expressed, with the treaty, this hope:

I desire nothing more ardently than that our treaty may prove the immutable basis of that constant harmony and good understanding that should prevail sincerely be tween two republics.

But the United States was not quite done acquiring land from Mexico. The Gadsden Purchase, one of the most curious real estate deals in which Uncle Sam has ever taken part, remained.

James Gadsden (1788-1858), whose name the purchase bears, was a grandson of Christopher Gadsden (1724-1805), a South Carolina Revolutionary soldier and statesman. James Gadsden soldiered for several years under Gen. Andrew Jackson, and it was he who seized the papers that led to the trial and execution of two British subjects in Spanish Florida in 1818, an incident that strained British-American diplomatic relations almost to the breaking point.

Gadsden was appointed by President Monroe as the commissioner in charge of placing the Seminole Indians on reservations. While living as a painter in Florida, he championed nullification and lost the patronage of President Jackson. He had long been interested in promoting railroads and upon his return to South Carolina in 1839 was chosen president of the South Carolina Railroad Company. His pet dream was to knit all railroads in Dixie into one system and then to connect it with a southern transcontinental railroad to the Pacific, to make the west commercially dependent on the southeast instead of the northeast.

After engineers advised Gadsden that the most direct and practicable route for the southern transcontinental railroad would be partially south of the U.S. boundary, he made plans to have the federal government acquire title to the necessary territory from Mexico. Through his friend and fellow empire dreamer, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (later to be president of the Confederacy), Gadsden was appointed U.S. minister to Mexico by President Franklin Pierce with instructions to buy from Mexico enough territory to complete a railroad to California.

The territory desired by Gadsden and his group was then a sort of no-man’s-land, experiencing frequent Indian raids. The United States wanted to make certain boundary adjustments; Mexico needed money and wanted a settlement of her Indian claims against the United States; and Gadsden and his friends wanted a route for their railroad.

In 1852 Gadsden agreed to pay Mexico $10 million for a strip of territory south of the Gila River, incorporating the Mesilla Valley and lying in what is now southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona. (It is not known how the money was divided among the Mexican politicians.) The agreement was not ratified by the U.S. Senate until 1854.2

In return, the claims of Mexico for damages caused by marauding Indians from north of the border, amounting to several million dollars, were abrogated. The Gadsden Purchase territory was an area of 45,535 square miles, almost as large as Pennsylvania. Naturally, the “reconquistadors” want to gain, for free, title to the Gadsden Purchase along with the lands conquered from Mexico, as well as the territory of Texas. v

FOOTNOTES

1U.S. census of 1850.

2. Some sources (such as the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia) claim that Santa Anna played a major role in the negotiations for the Gadsden Purchase. One source even went so far as to assert that the purchase being highly unpopular in Mexico, Santa Anna’s role caused him to lose even more of his then-dwindling popularity and finally to be forced from office and into exile again. However, this appears to be impossible. Santa Anna, who was kicked out of Mexico several times, went into exile in 1848 after losing the Mexican War. Not until 1853 was he recalled again, and named “president for life,” with the title of “Serene Highness,” according to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Thus, since the purchase came about in 1852, it seems unlikely Santa Anna could have been one of the negotiators.

Bibliography

Chamberlain, Samuel E. (introduction and postscript by Roger Butterfield), My Confession: The Recollections of a Rogue, Harper & Bros., New York, 1956.

Miller, Robert R., Shamrock and Sword: The St. Patrick’s Battalion in the U.S.-Mexican War, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman and London, 1989.

Parkes, Henry B., A History of Mexico, 3rd ed., Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1966.

Peck, Lt. John J. (foreword and commentary by Richard F. Pourade), The Sign of the Eagle, Copley Press, San Diego, 1970.

Tennery, Thomas D. (edited and with an introduction by D.E. Livingston-Little), The Mexican War Diary of Thomas D. Tennery, University of Oklahoma Press, Littleton, 1970.

Traas, Adrian G., From the Golden Gate to Mexico City: The U.S. Army Topographical Engineers in the Mexican War, 1846-48, U.S. Army, Washington, 1993.

Andrew Notice the hostile way the author took facts and prsented it in a manner to promote his views . Just as you do from my perspective . . The fact of the matter people who believe they are owed legal status because of history or because of your sense of world justice are hurting the millions who are willing to come here legally . They are taking the place of people who want to do the right thing . And I suggest to you they have as much right to justice as anyone else . Unfortunately we do not live in a just world . The right thing in my opinion , and justice , is to get as many people here we as a country feel iit can handle and give those folks an OPPORTUNITY and the protections this great nation offers . We are a country of immigrints , it has been our strenght , its our strong point .

I don't know of any serious political movement to give California back to Mexico. There is a huge difference between a fringe political group that has little support, and widespread movement, which is what the immigrant rights movement was before the Federal crackdown on undocumented workers.

As for my involvement with "illegals" I participate in labor group that has taken a petition to local labor councils that calls for unions to support workers no matter their country of origin. I know a lot of Latino immigrants, and they do not espouse any of the things that you say that they do. They are proud of their culture, their heritage, and would like some recognition of it.

Mick I think that you are making a mistake in thinking that I advocate for illegal immigration. What I am saying is that there are much deeper issues concerning social justice that drive this issue, and until we solve those, there is no way the problem will get sovled.

As for how undocumented workers help our country. Next time you buy some produce that is cheap, remember that migrant labor is a major factor in that price. Remember that workers create a lion's share of the wealth in our society.

Well use the bigot tactic is not looking for a solution . Also I just read an article by a liberal , speaking to illegals getting false ss numbers . Against the law also by the way . How it hurts and increases identy fraud . He was using the reason of false SS as not putting money into the system as you stated , but actually causing more corruption and theft . His line of reasoning whcih was to make them legal and that would stop . At least I found that honest . And actually if the situation is resolved , will happen . What happens when illegal activitivity is allowed , it spreads . World Justice , your an American , you have little influence on Mexico's corrupt system , promtote people is what I do , I do it through my church that sends people , medicine , and educatiors over there . Thats what I do , The bigot I am . Oh you did not imply that was the main opposing view ?

Sorry , but I read what you originally posted , no credit for Bush , the threat in religion and other blo0gs you write about , here he is a leader from your view I would imagine . And you use the issue to discredit the GOP .

Yikes , thocracy is that not people promoting themselves over another rights , sort like illegal immigration . I am a Union Member too . I happen to support workers , But I do not share my Union's use of Bull and smear .tactics .

Mick,

I am totally against the immigration bill that the Bush administration supports. Bush represents the business lobby that would rather grant what you would refer to as amnesty, and what I call a program to legally keep an underclass of workers from organizing and seeking better wages.

Nowhere in this post (which by the way is over a year old), nor in any of my posts do I refer to you or the GOP as a whole as "bigots." Once again Mr. Sheldon, read what I write. What I say is that the GOP was appealing to xenophobes within their base. The more venomous anti-immigrant elements of the GOP were given a large soapbox on which to stand in the run-up to the '06 elections, and I have little doubt that this was because at the time the 109th Congress was imploding from a string of massive corruption scandals (and this was just in April of last year). The Republican leadership was looking to find any "hot button" issue to turn-out voters.

Now as to the illegal nature of using false SS numbers and such, it is obviously problem, and needs to be dealt with, but once again it is the result of large problems of social justice in the US and Mexico. And the Mexican government and its elites do not operate in a vacuum outside of US elite influence. Just look at NAFTA, that has had a horrible effect on both the US and Mexico Mexico's people do continue to struggle for social justice while being subject state and private repression. Make and enforce all the laws you want against undocumented workers, but absent a large authoritarian apparatus, it isn't going to do a damn bit of good.

Andy, I recall something that stood out very clearly when the first organized marches took place. I lived in LA at the time, and surprisingly enough a clip was aired that echoed some of the sentiments of those marching. A reporter asked a young latina girl marching, "Why are your marching today?" and she stated basically that California belonged to Mexico and that Mexico and Mexicans want it back. Granted, that doesn't reflect the sentiments of the Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and countless other's of Central and South American decent, but to deny that this sentiment doesn't exist is to be a bit naive. (Ask a Central American how scared they were to make their way through Mexico. I bet you will hear that they are VERY scared. More scared probably than crossing our border.)

My personal opinion is that if the laws we have on immigration were to be enforced, mainly policing employers of illegal immigrants, then there wouldn't be an illegal immigration problem in this country. Most Americans are about getting the most for the least amount of money: cheap labor = cheap goods = more money in the pocket. What is evidenced is completely the opposite: cheap labor does equal cheap goods, but at what price? What is the cost to our healthcare? What is the cost to our schools? Who foots the bill?

Enforce the laws on the books by penalizing employers for hiring illegal immigrants, and those jobs will then go to legal citizens, and probably at higher pay.

While I understand the point you make about illegals working with fake SSNs and having taxes taken out of their paychecks, what about those that work under the table for cash? Sure, they'll pay sales tax, and probably property tax if they are somehow able to purchase a home, but otherwise they pay no taxes.

To sum up, I truly believe that our consumerist society has created this problem and that no one wants to fix it. Republicans are the big business party (supposedly) so they want the cheap labor for their donors. Democrats on the other hand view this group of people as their new voting block, so they want to grant amnesty and be the savior. So they divide the spoils and leave 'the people' out of it.

Enforce the laws on the books, punish employers who hire people illegally, give those jobs back to those here legally, and the issue of illegal immigration goes away.

Lee,

While I stand by my position that there are much deeper problems going on here with base market forces and social justice, I agree with your assertions about enforcement on employers 100%. While many are vicitims of bogus SSN and such, many are not, and exploit the current system. If employers faced enforcement of immigration laws, I have to admit that would most likely remove a large share of the market force driving illegal immigration.

However that still leaves the social justice issue. To tackle that, just take a look at NAFTA. Noam Chomsky pointed out that US corporations can go to Mexico and demand national treatment for their businesses, but that citizens of Mexico do not have that right. NAFTA is supposed to be a treaty establishing a "free market" in between Mexico, the US, and Canada; but one of the pillars of a free market is the free movement of labor. That is a fact ignored by those of pushed NAFTA through to ratification. That is just fundamentally unfair, and until it is dealt with, social problems like illegal immigration are going to continue to pit the working class against itself.

I do understand that this issue is a lot more complex than I presented it in this post, mainly I was taking on Hayworth's position on the Sensenbrenner bill in '06 that would have established draconian, and unamerican, penalties for even helping undocumented workers. I think that Hayworth's position is pretty much a racist one, although I do know that there are some American Latinos who pretty much hold the same position. As far as putting my post in context, look at what Hayworth said on Meet the Press. He was clearly trying to back peddle away from the worst parts of the bill he supported so much.

As for the attitudes of the immigrants you encountered at the marches, I still think that they are in the minority, and that it represents a kind of raw emotional response to the '06 Sensenbrenner bill. Now I have no proof to back that up, but in my dealings with some of the Latinos I both work with, and participate in a labor solidarity group with, they have never said anything like it. One gentleman, who works for the metro bus system up here, has pointed out that San Diego's, Los Angles', and San Francisco's are named that way for a reason. But it wasn't out of any kind of feeling that Mexico should take back California.

I have no problem with someone pointing out the historical context of how California became part of the US.