Marc, as I assume you are naturally aware, saying that all speech against illegal immigration is really "hate-speech" against Latinos as a whole is just a strategy to quiet voices of opposition.  They cynically take advantage of the paranoia whites have of being labeled as "racists" (thanks to diligent training through schools and media), a label that seems second only to "pedophile" in the American psyche. I think that probably Ms. Murguia knows perfectly well that the majority of people who criticize illegal immigration have no problem with legal immigrants, but it suits her purposes to pretend otherwise. It makes people fearful of taking the anti-illegal immigration position, and can even go as far as to make people believe that such a position is racist by definition.

As to the protection of Free Speech, it is paramount. There are unfortunately a great many people who seem to not understand the meaning of that right, since to them it means "the right to free speech that doesn’t bother ME". We MUST make sure to not fall into traps such as the one Michael has described in the Netherlands, where you can be sued for insulting someone…unless you justify it by way of your religion. The upshot of that is that Islamists can say that homosexuality is an abomination and God hates homosexuals and women are inferior to men, but if I say that worldview is abhorrent, contrary to a free society and makes me sick to my stomach, I can be sued for it. This must never be allowed to happen in the US.

I applaud your comments about the boondoggles of massive government problems, abrisaham, but I find it impossible to reconcile that sentiment with your support of Hillary Clinton (or Democrats in general.) The GOP unfortunately hasn’t been much better of late, but it’s still more in line with your opposition to the federal government paying lip service to problems by expanding the federal bureaucracy.

I am libertarian and liberal with some conservative ideas thrown in.  25 years in the Military in charge of stuff tends to make your a firm believer is "Personal responsiblity".

Visit Claudia’s post on surrogate vs surrogate and you will find some of my philosophy about what your asking.

Our "Free speech" rights do not mean that anyone can say anything at anytime, especially within the public venues of TV and radio. There are limitations to "free speech."

Only strictly those that involve direct incitement to violence. Those are very strict guidelines, by the way, as they should be. There’s a reason the KKK is legal in America, it’s because we believe Free Speech covers despicable free speech. If it didn’t, the right would be utterly meaningless.

But we can ask for, plead for, shout for true and honest civil, respectful speech on our public airways. We are NOT getting that when it come to immigration.

Absolutely. Anyone is free to counter speech they dislike with speech of their own. This fact is completely central to a free and open society. Speech shouldn’t be forbidden by law, but countered by better ideas.

First, “La Raza” means The Race, and in the context that it is used it means “The Bronze Race”. The La Raza mantra  All of the laws should be enforced equally, regardless of race, religion, and/or national origin. That is with the exception of hispanics, and they should be above the law and exempt from the law. And the only purpose that a tonto gringo serves is to pay taxes to support the superior and noble hispanic.   Anyone who disagrees with this philosophy is Xenophobic and a Racist.  Pancho   All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.George Orwell, Animal Farm, ch.10, 1945

LaRaza’s full motto is……

"For the race, everything, for those outside the race. nothing"

And you’d expect something different from this racist, anti-American criminal organization?

Oh, & you may like to know that our illustrious "government" gives LaRaza millions of taxpayer dollars a year

"Ain’t" our government grand?

NCLR is the main source of funding for MEChA.

I remember when….

I could place an place an order in a fast food restraunt with an English speaking American citizen.

I could stand in line at a grocery store checkout and no one was speaking loudly in Spanish all around me.

Their were no anti-US subversive groups like NCLR, MECHA, MALDEF, & LULAC instructing their racial brethern that the Southwestern US was stolen by America and they were "going
to take it back."

I could watch TV  and read the newspaper and  and their were no  sob stories making "victims" out of invaders who broke US laws the instant they set foot on US soil withoout papers.
 

I believe Claudia had it right when she talks of the opportunistic way the "racist" charge is used against some people ore groups. In fact, I coined my own phrase for this technique of many liberals and other groups, in which certain words are used. I call it the use of Pavlovian trigger words. Just like Pavlov would get a dog to salivate by aassociating the ringing of a bell with food  to the point where the dog would salivate regardless of whether there was food or not, so do some groups  try to make people defend themselves (salivate)by using the Pavlovian trigger words like racist, hater, nativist, restrictiionist, inclusive, exclusive, etc.), when they disagree with their opponents who have done nothing wrong. Question? Who is ringing you bell?

   GA you have it all wrong. Ask any construction worker who is unable to work because he doesn’t speak Spanish or sees his -my-pay go from $30.00 per hour to $8.00 because illegal workers are used by contractors to boost their,the contractors bottom line. Also the official government unemployment rate for construction workers is 20% and the real figure is twice that:The illegals aren’t picking crops;only at most 4% or less of the illegal population.

Hate speech? That’s the pot calling the kettle black, eh?  NCLR is the epitome of racist hate speech.  

Good luck influencing Lou Dobbs’ show - he’s the 2nd highest rated cable show on CNN.  They’ll seriously laugh at Janet Murguia - ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK.  I love Lou and will tune in to watch the Janet Murguia smackdown tomorrow as will all of his 800K other viewers.  But, hey, keep coming on the show and talking your arrogant crap - the more you do it the more Americans will know.  Egads woman, how do you face herself in the morning?

Sage words from Amy Chua, an American of Asian descent who gets it right on illegal immigration…..

Sunday, February 3, 2008 - Page updated at 12:00 AM Permission to reprint or copy this article or photo, other than personal use, must be obtained from The Seattle Times. Call 206-464-3113 or e-mail resale@seattletimes.com with your request. Amy Chua
Immigrate assimilate By Amy Chua
Special to The Washington Post If you don’t speak Spanish, Miami really can feel like a foreign country. In any restaurant, the conversation at the next table is more likely to be in Spanish than English. And Miami’s population is only 65 percent Hispanic. El Paso is 76 percent Latino. Flushing, N.Y., is 60 percent immigrant, mainly Chinese. Chinatowns and Little Italys have long been part of America’s urban landscape, but would it be all right to have entire U.S. cities where most people spoke and did business in Chinese, Spanish or even Arabic? Are too many Third World, non-English-speaking immigrants destroying our national identity? For some Americans, even asking such questions is racist. At the other end of the spectrum, conservative talk-show host Bill O’Reilly fulminates against floods of immigrants who threaten to change America’s "complexion" and replace what he calls the "white Christian male power structure." But for the large majority in between, Democrats and Republicans alike, these questions are painful, and there are no easy answers. At some level, most of us cherish our legacy as a nation of immigrants. But are all immigrants really equally likely to make good Americans? Are we, as Samuel Huntington warns, in danger of losing our core values and devolving "into a loose confederation of ethnic, racial, cultural and political groups, with little or nothing in common apart from their location in the territory of what had been the United States of America"? My parents arrived in the United States in 1961, so poor that they couldn’t afford heat their first winter. I grew up speaking only Chinese at home (for every English word accidentally uttered, my sister and I got one whack of the chopsticks). Today, my father is a professor at Berkeley, and I’m a professor at Yale Law School. As the daughter of immigrants, a grateful beneficiary of America’s tolerance and opportunity, I could not be more pro-immigrant. Nevertheless, I think Huntington has a point. Around the world today, nations face violence and instability as a result of their increasing pluralism and diversity. Across Europe, immigration has resulted in unassimilated, largely Muslim enclaves that are hotbeds of unrest and even terrorism. The riots in France late last year were just the latest manifestation. With Muslims poised to become a majority in Amsterdam and elsewhere within a decade, major West European cities could undergo a profound transformation. Not surprisingly, virulent anti-immigration parties are on the rise. Not long ago, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union disintegrated when their national identities proved too weak to bind together diverse peoples. Iraq is the latest example of how crucial national identity is. So far, it has found no overarching identity strong enough to unite its Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. The United States is in no danger of imminent disintegration. But this is because it has been so successful, at least since the Civil War, in forging a national identity strong enough to hold together its widely divergent communities. We should not take this unifying identity for granted. The greatest empire in history, ancient Rome, collapsed when its cultural and political glue dissolved, and peoples who had long thought of themselves as Romans turned against the empire. In part, this fragmentation occurred because of a massive influx of immigrants from a very different culture. The "barbarians" who sacked Rome were Germanic immigrants who never fully assimilated. Does this mean that it’s time for the United States to shut its borders and reassert its "white, Christian" identity and what Huntington calls its Anglo-Saxon, Protestant "core values"? Anti-immigrant mistakes No. The anti-immigration camp makes at least two critical mistakes. First, it neglects the indispensable role that immigrants have played in building American wealth and power. In the 19th century, the United States would never have become an industrial and agricultural powerhouse without the millions of poor Irish, Polish, Italian and other newcomers who mined coal, laid rail and milled steel. European immigrants led to the United States’ winning the race for the atomic bomb. Today, American leadership in the Digital Revolution — so central to our military and economic preeminence — owes an enormous debt to immigrant contributions. Andrew Grove (co-founder of Intel), Vinod Khosla (Sun Microsystems) and Sergey Brin (Google) are immigrants. Between 1995 and 2005, 52.4 percent of Silicon Valley startups had one key immigrant founder. And Vikram S. Pundit’s recent appointment to the helm of Citigroup means that 14CEOs of Fortune 100 companies are foreign-born. The United States is in a fierce global competition to attract the world’s best high-tech scientists and engineers — most of whom are not white Christians. Just this past summer, Microsoft opened a large new software-development center in Canada, in part because of the difficulty of obtaining U.S. visas for foreign engineers. Second, anti-immigration talking heads forget that their own scapegoating vitriol will, if anything, drive immigrants further from the U.S. mainstream. One reason we don’t have Europe’s enclaves is our unique success in forging an ethnically and religiously neutral national identity, uniting individuals of all backgrounds. This is America’s glue, and people like Huntington and O’Reilly unwittingly imperil it. Nevertheless, immigration naysayers also have a point. America’s glue can be subverted by too much tolerance. Immigration advocates are too often guilty of an uncritical political correctness that avoids hard questions about national identity and imposes no obligations on immigrants. For these well-meaning idealists, there is no such thing as too much diversity. Maintaining our heritage The right thing for the United States to do — and the best way to keep Americans in favor of immigration — is to take national identity seriously while maintaining our heritage as a land of opportunity. U.S. immigration policy should be tolerant but also tough. Here are five suggestions: Overhaul admission priorities. Since 1965, the chief admission criterion has been family reunification. This was a welcome replacement for the ethnically discriminatory quota system that preceded it. But once the brothers and sisters of a current U.S. resident get in, they can sponsor their own extended families. In 2006, more than 800,000 immigrants were admitted on this basis. By contrast, only about 70,000 immigrants were admitted on the basis of employment skills, with an additional 65,000 temporary visas granted to highly skilled workers. This is backward. Apart from nuclear families (spouse, minor children, possibly parents), the special preference for family members should be drastically reduced. As soon as my father got citizenship, his relatives in the Philippines asked him to sponsor them. Soon, his mother, brother, sister and sister-in-law were also U.S. citizens or permanent residents. This was nice for my family, but frankly there is nothing especially fair about it. Instead, the immigration system should reward ability and be keyed to the country’s labor needs, skilled or unskilled, technological or agricultural. In particular, we should significantly increase the number of visas for highly skilled workers, putting them on a fast track for citizenship. Make English the official national language. A common language is critical to cohesion and national identity in an ethnically diverse society. Americans of all backgrounds should be encouraged to speak more languages — I’ve forced my own daughters to learn Mandarin (minus the threat of chopsticks) — but offering Spanish-language public education to Spanish-speaking children is the wrong kind of indulgence. Native-language education should be overhauled, and more stringent English proficiency requirements for citizenship should be set up. Immigrants must embrace the nation’s civic virtues. It took my parents years to see the importance of participating in the larger community. When I was in third grade, my mother signed me up for Girl Scouts. I think she liked the uniforms and merit badges, but when I told her that I was picking up trash and visiting soup kitchens, she was horrified. For many immigrants, only family matters. Even when immigrants get involved in politics, they often focus on protecting their own and protesting discrimination. That they can do so is one of the great virtues of U.S. democracy. But a mind-set based solely on taking care of your own factionalizes our society. Like all Americans, immigrants have a responsibility to contribute to the social fabric. It’s up to each immigrant community to fight off an "enclave" mentality and give back to their new country. It’s not healthy for Chinese to hire only Chinese, or Koreans only Koreans. By contrast, the free health clinic set up by Muslim Americans in Los Angeles — serving the entire poor community — is a model to emulate. Immigrants are integrated at the moment they realize that their success is intertwined with everyone else’s. Enforce the law. Illegal immigration, along with terrorism, is the chief cause of today’s anti-immigration backlash. It is also inconsistent with the rule of law, which, as any immigrant from a developing country will tell you, is a critical aspect of U.S. identity. But if we’re serious about this problem, we need to enforce the law against not only illegal aliens, but also against those who hire them. It’s the worst of all worlds to allow U.S. employers who hire illegal aliens — thus keeping the flow of illegal workers coming — to break the law while de-monizing the aliens as lawbreakers. An Arizona law that took effect Jan. 1 tightens the screws on employers who hire undocumented workers, but this issue can’t be left up to a single state. Make the United States an equal-opportunity immigration magnet. That the 11 million to 20 million illegal immigrants are 80 percent Mexican and Central American is itself a problem. This is emphatically not for the reason Huntington gives — that Hispanics supposedly don’t share America’s core values. But if the U.S. immigration system is to reflect and further our ethnically neutral identity, it must itself be ethnically neutral, offering equal opportunity to Sudanese, Estonians, Burmese and so on. The starkly disproportionate ratio of Latinos — reflecting geographical fortuity and a large measure of lawbreaking — is inconsistent with this principle. Immigrants who turn their backs on American values don’t deserve to be here. But those of us who turn our backs on immigrants misunderstand the secret of America’s success and what it means to be American. Amy Chua, a professor at Yale School of Law, is the author of "Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance — And Why They Fall." Author e-mail: amy.chua@yale.edu

Immigration is crucial to the survival and continued growth of America.  Just not in overwhelming numbers. 

The democratic party as allowed this to happen because of the fact that 90 percent of those immigrants become or vote democrat.  The perception then followed well if the GOP let it happen then they must have a reason.  Oh I know.  They are for Big business, therefore they want cheap labor.  Yet cheap labor is only found equally in non big businesses such as farms and ranches.  Democrats servants and house keepers etc.

The argument that the GOP seems to not comprehend is that immigrants are going to destroy the GOP.  Not because of the message but because the ranks of the Democrats continue to swell while the GOP has this false sense of security in low labor costs associated with immigrants.

The gop is making a huge blunder in not forcing this to stop and making it the center piece of its survival.  Because my friends while I am more a democrat then a republican I believe that we need both parties to be strong to maintain the national identity we have forged for ourselves in the last 150 years.

This is truly in danger of being replaced as this nation turns a blind eye to massive immigration which promises to benefit both parties in the short term but render inconsequential the GOP in the long run.

This is bad for America.  No matter what your political persuasion.

I read Prof. Chua’s book. It is quite a good argument about what causes global dominance (and its erosion). You should check it out, Tap. I seriously doubt anyone can gain an accurate understanding of her entire argument by reading the excerpt from a column that was posted.

Days of Empire, by Amy Chua

Actually, it’s become more and more frequent for people of the Asian race

OK silly ignorant comment. "Asians" are not one race, but many, sorry for the slip-up.

Well, it sounds as if just about everyone posting on this thread is a "racist" and you are all busily spouting "hate speech." 

What is this world coming too?

I could write a immigration bill in 5 minutes.

1.)Freeze immigration unitl we agree upon a quota system that accurately reflects the worldwide desires of all human beings of all race, creed and color to immigrate to America.
2.)Build a fence to be completed in 2 years.  Hire 5000 border guards per year for 5 years. 
3.)any failure to accomplish the above will result in a further freezing of immigration until such time as the politicans and those charged with implementation are proven to being carrying out policy laid out by congress.
4.)Immigration bill will not be longer then 3 pages in length and will be hand written by a high school senior chosen at random by a random drawing of all high school seniors who live in Ted Kennedys home state.

Given that steps 1 and 3 would punish all immigrants (legal and illegal alike) for the failures of politicians they had no part in electing, why is it that anyone would call supporters of such plans "anti-immigration"?

Gee, I wonder.

This sort of cheeky “plan” is exactly why I believe much (not all) anti-immigration sentiment is not, in fact, limited to just illegals. When the prerequisites are so ridiculous as to preclude any actual motion, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the obstructionism is intentional and that the “we just want the border secured first” bit is a rhetorical fig leaf.

If anti-immigration activists wanted to convince anyone that they were not, in fact, anti-immigration, they could start by putting forward a REASONABLE plan for securing the border first and assess that plan with a REASONABLE standard for success rather than putting forward standards that are transparently impossible matched to punitive measures towards all immigrants.

For once Id like to see this site Debate an issue not bandy about code words to squelch debate or polarize opinions.

Why not start here with immigration?

Jason once again an attack not debate.

The point I made is that we had a 500 plus page immgration bill so full of pork and inoperable crap that it could never find consensus. 

So why not freeze immigration for like 1 day or 1 week while the politicians hastily run around getting stuff in order?

Your point is well taken that it is a penalty in which politicians would not want to be seen penalizing these people therefor they would actually get something DONE.  Instead of endlessly debating the topic till we all grew old, and died.

My point.  A bill does not have to be 500 pages that takes months or years to write.  Executive orders are one or two pages that get stuff done.

abrisaham: I have no problem with a general quota (perhaps my comment didn’t make that clear.) What I’m saying is that a quota apportioned according to nationality or ethnicity is unworkable and it’s a lot like AA in hiring. Why not set the quota, and whoever presents themselves as an able bodied person capable of finding employment and wanting to embrace our ideals, can apply, regardless of country of origin? Who are we to decide that one countries’ ‘huddled masses’ ought to be favored over another’s?

Okay, that just made me laugh. This isn’t your main point or anything, but what exactly is an immigration freeze of illegals?

and that we should return to quotas based on national origin? But how in the world do you make that work?

I personally don’t favor this. I mention the matter only in the sense that the huge dominance of Mexican immigrants over other immigrants has nothing to do with them being more suited to this country, or more hard-working, or more in need of jobs, and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that they share a border with us.

I think that immigration policy (and all policies) should be country-blind. I don’t know what the right formula should be. I think a mix is probably necessary, taking into account chiefly the needs in workers (both skilled and unskilled) of the receiving country, and also possibly the need of the prospective immigrant, with special consideration for political refugees (like pro-democracy activists of China Iran et al, or all those Iraqis that will be left in the lurch if we leave them behind).

What I am sure of is that the preponderance of Mexican immigrants means that the country you come from DOES matter, and it shouldn’t. I somehow find it difficult to believe that it’s simply a matter of short distances. South Americans are the biggest immigrant group in Spain, and they have to take trans-Atlantic flights to get here.

Christine you are making a good point, but you do know that we have always had quota’s apportioned by nationality, don’t you? We still do. It used to favor western european countries. I’m going from memory (somewhat distant memory at that) here, but when Kennedy passed his bill, it merely changed the bias towards other countries..in a way that makes no more sense than the first bias did.  I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember that some countries such as Ukraine are hugely favored over other nearby countries, for no discernable reason.

What quotas actually mean.

1 million people immigrate from Mexico.
100 people immigrate from Bangledesh.

Quota for the year 2009.

500,000 From Mexico.
10 from Bangledesh.

Nothing earth shattering.  it simply caps immigration at a number while attempting to assure a more porportionate and FAIR balance in who is let into this country.

Its actually more fair then less fair when you analyze it.  Everyone has a an opportunity to come here.  Unfortunately for Mexicans they might have to wait 1 year or mabey two, while those From bangledesh do not.

And he would keep that freeze on all immigration until standards were met that would be, in fact, impossible to actually meet.

Jason you are now doing to me what you accused me of doing to you.  Being dishonest.  Im hoping we crossed posts.

see post 46

Secondly I am not even saying my plan is worth a darn.  But its a start of discussion.  Who has a better plan?  Different plan.  Lets discuss that

Tap: that’s actually why I mentioned Hart-Cellar (that’s the 1965 bill that made the biggest change in the nationality quota system.) I wondered from reading the comments whether some people were unaware of the history- that the US policy had consciously shifted AWAY from such favoritism.  Now it seems some are advocating a return to it, and I’m questioning whether they know the historical context, and what their reasons are for wanting a reversal (funny too that I’m the conservative arguing this against Claudia and abrisaham, who’d be much more natural allies of Kennedy on this issue!)

I don’t know all the details either, Tap, as to what quotas are still in place- but there’s no doubt that there’s been a purposeful renunciation of the policies that had always greatly favored immigration from Europe instead of Central/South America. Obviously the de facto situation of being on the same landmass has created a greater flow from the latter now, but I don’t see why that should be a problem (and I don’t think it would have become such a problem if the existing laws had been enforced, and if a sensible policy had allowed people a reasonable opportunity to get in line.)