[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Canada the Germaphobe (click to view)
Date: May 31, 2010
Prime Minister Harper hosted Mexican President Phillipe Calderon in Ottawa this week, a summit that was darkened by a recently-implemented policy of the Canadian government requiring all Mexicans entering Canada to possess valid traveler's visas.

Visas are complicated to get, and visitors from most other first world nations usually don't need them to enter Canada. But Mexicans are evidently a bit less trustworthy, and imposing this requirement represents a deliberate disincentive designed to curtail illegal Mexican immigration into the country.

We usually think of Mexican illegal immigration as being a purely American thing, but the problem has been gradually creeping into Canada as well. Over the last five years the number of Mexican migrants entering Canada has nearly tripled, with the vast majority of them being bogus refugee claimants who gain entry on made-up humanitarian pretenses.

The new visa rule will supposedly put an end to that, by imposing an onerous one-size-fits-all obligation on any Mexican wishing to enter Canada for any reason. The law is unpopular in Mexico, and with the Calderon administration, but that's kind of the idea.

In the best of times, Canada has the unique privilege of being able to learn directly from American mistakes, and formulate specific policies to prevent us from repeating them. It's thus hard to view the Harper government's push to preemptively curb illegal Mexican immigration as anything less than a desire to outperform America's less-than-stellar track record on this issue.

Here's a good editorial on the issue from the Globe and Mail.

[PostFactum]

looks like Mexica will conquer American world soon

[Voyager]

Don't worry, all you have to do is not enforce your existing laws, and you too can have an illegal immigration problem like the US. But don't think of it as a problem, think of it as an opportunity for cheap unskilled labour! They work for less than minimum wage, and are so afraid you might report them if they don't do what you tell them, they'll willing burn to death in your fields, just to get the crops in on time. What's more, the politicians will cover for your every indiscretion, because they don't want to risk angering that all important Latino voting block. Isn't illegal immigration grand?

I do find it funny how La Raza is completely mum on how badly illegals are being exploited. Perhaps they aren't quite the right raza?

[Psudo]

haha, yeah, PostFactum. Someday it'll be the True North States of Mexico, one huge, roughly triangular nation covering Alaska to Newfoundland to the Yucatan. Conveniently, it cuts the combined 5,000 miles of US land borders down to only about 700 at the south of Mexico. (Wait... does Canada have borders with Russia or Greenland?)

Dropping the humor a moment, the illegal immigration issue seems to focus around what possible immigration policy can be safe, fair, and pragmatically enforceable? The current US system dramatically fails at "enforceable" (except maybe in Arizona), and from the sounds of it the Canadian visa requirement fails at "fair" (since it targets a specific country rather than traits or criteria).

Also, the worry about increased immigration from Mexico to Canada is due to an increase of "from 2,550 in 2005 to 9,309" in 2009. 7,000 immigrants a year is a problem!? It's estimated that the United States has 10 to 12 million illegal immigrants, or about 1,400 years worth at Canada's rate.

It sure is a crazy world.

[CanadianJeff]

I think the point Psudo is that if the states were to crack down hard which is highly possible at a near point in the future all the immigrants would flock to Canada IF we didn't have a good policy in place.

I'm all for preparatory policy before we suffer from very preventable problems. It would be like if we didn't reevaluate our financial markets in light of the American economy. It would be highly unwise.

But hey that's just my view. Peace.

[Psudo]

CanadianJeff: You agree, then, that illegal immigration from Mexico is a "problem"?

Also, I'd like a clarification on how this Mexican immigration to Canada is "illegal." The refugee system is "clogged and backlogged; legitimate claimants must wait an average of 19 months to learn whether Canada will grant them permanent refuge, while those exploiting the system can typically count on 4 1/2 years before exhausting their last appeal." [1] But it's a change to the legal process, not change to the enforcement of illegal behavior (as in Arizona). The Mexican asylum-seekers are, after all, providing all deemed necessary by Canadian law in order to enter the country (at least until the stricter visa requirements are passed), while the illegal immigrants in the USA are not providing all deemed necessary by US law.

The USA could use a change to the legal process, too. The number of legal immigrants to the USA stays approximately steady at 400,000 per year [2, the big peak of status-changers in 1988-1991 is the result of the Reagan Amnesty], meaning it is a smaller proportion of the US population and of the world population every year. It should be higher and growing steadily, to help cut the clog and backlog of our system that and prove to those considering whether to circumvent US immigration law that we legitimately want legal immigrants. Letting it proportionally decrease every year sends the opposite message, contributing to the illegal migration rate and offending the American tradition of others' huddled masses coming here to breath free.

If you want to come to the United States, to live and work here and accept it as your new homeland, no other criteria should be necessary for your acceptance.

If the USA reformed the legal process in that mindset, the USA could crack down on the drug and gang war aspects of the US/Mexican border without sending any backlog of prospective migrants Canada's way. But the question of whether currently illegal immigrants qualify for any new open border policy remains a sticking point: Republicans cannot agree to validate their law-breaking, while Democrats cannot exclude them over it. There won't be a national crackdown nor will there be a opening of the border; not until one or the other side is willing to end the mindless competition of ideological willpower and think. If legal migration were better handled, illegal immigration would be reduced to a trickle and, as a total population, gradually recede into easily manageable numbers. In less than a generation, there would be no illegal immigration problem in the USA regardless of how illegals are handled in the new system.

An amusing side-note: Afghanistan has the 3rd highest net migration rate in the world [3]; either people are flocking to the newly freed country in search of a better life, or flocking to liberate it from it's American overlords. The USA is 31st; what a national shame that it's so low. Canada is tied for 20th.

[GreenTiger]

PostFactum wrote:

looks like Mexica will conquer American world soon

We are fighting back. Arizona has its laws an Massachusetts just passed a very similar law. Massachusetts is a very liberal state, if they are feeling that way more states will follow.

I can assure you the taco will not become the national symbol.

[Psudo]

Refugees to Canada stay in Canada while the validity of their claims are judged? And they're eligible for welfare during their stay? Despite 58% of refugee claims eventually being ruled invalid? [4]

If those editorial claims are true, it's no wonder Canada needs immigration reform.

[PostFactum]

GreenTiger wrote:

PostFactum wrote:

looks like Mexica will conquer American world soon

We are fighting back. Arizona has its laws an Massachusetts just passed a very similar law. Massachusetts is a very liberal state, if they are feeling that way more states will follow.

I can assure you the taco will not become the national symbol.

Do you really think that laws will stop them??

[Quantum_Wizard]

Psudo wrote:

The USA is 31st; what a national shame that it's so low. Canada is tied for 20th.

To me it's rather surprising that someone considers net migration important to national pride. How serious were you?

[Quantum_Wizard]

Psudo wrote:

An amusing side-note: Afghanistan has the 3rd highest net migration rate in the world [3]; either people are flocking to the newly freed country in search of a better life, or flocking to liberate it from it's American overlords.

It's also weird that Liberia is so high (6th) in this list.

[Pseudonym]

The idea of America as a melting pot for all races and creeds is a powerful image. I think that you will find a large number of Americans would support more 'liberal' immigration policies, provided that the border could be secured and the flagrant abuse of the law could be curtailed.

[Voyager]

Psudo wrote:

If the USA reformed the legal process in that mindset, the USA could crack down on the drug and gang war aspects of the US/Mexican border without sending any backlog of prospective migrants Canada's way. But the question of whether currently illegal immigrants qualify for any new open border policy remains a sticking point: Republicans cannot agree to validate their law-breaking, while Democrats cannot exclude them over it. There won't be a national crackdown nor will there be a opening of the border; not until one or the other side is willing to end the mindless competition of ideological willpower and think. If legal migration were better handled, illegal immigration would be reduced to a trickle and, as a total population, gradually recede into easily manageable numbers. In less than a generation, there would be no illegal immigration problem in the USA regardless of how illegals are handled in the new system.

Well, technically speaking, there isn't going to be one in a generation anyways, since the Mexican birthrate has dropped to sustainment, and shows no signs of slowing its decline.

That being said, while the US immigration laws need and overhaul, what is the point if nobody will follow them? If you've got a stop light that noone ever gets ticketed for running, changing the fine structure isn't going to change that. The pols don't enforce the laws because they're playing to the hispanic voting blocks. Why should they stop?

Harry Voyager

[Psudo]

Quantum_Wizard wrote:

To me it's rather surprising that someone considers net migration important to national pride. How serious were you?

Pseudonym wrote:

The idea of America as a melting pot for all races and creeds is a powerful image.

With no satire, hyperbole, or deceit, immigration is an intrinsic part of the spirit of America. Every white, black, Hispanic, and far eastern person on this continent is either an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants. The Statue of Liberty, that intrinsically American icon, calls for the tired, poor, huddled masses of the world to come to our shores. The United States is one of the most mixed-race nations in the world. These are all symbols of the principle of open immigration, cultural pluralism, and mutual tolerance that Americans should, by definition, pursue and support.

I would want an immigration rate many times greater than the US currently enjoys so long as every migrant was looking to be industrious, law-abiding, and to call America their homeland. My concern in limiting migration is not so much economic or demographic, but legal and institutional; I want border security to be a serious impediment to drug trafficking, human trafficking, contagious disease vectors, and terrorism, but not to the legal migration of good folks looking for the promise of self-determination, prosperity, and freedom that the USA should always represent. The tight population cap currently limiting immigration into the country is a national shame, an echo of immature isolationism that we didn't have nor need in our early history, that shamed us after the Irish Potato Famine and before we fought in WW2, and remains logically indefensible today.

Quantum_Wizard wrote:

It's also weird that Liberia is so high (6th) in this list.

Perhaps neighboring nations are full of people too oppressed to want to stay and too poor to travel any further away. Or maybe the list is somehow fundamentally flawed.

Voyager wrote:

That being said, while the US immigration laws need and overhaul, what is the point if nobody will follow them?

Arizona changed their enforcement policy in such a way that perhaps the laws will be enforced. If it works, let the rest of the country follow their example.

One of government's inherent traits is the authority to force people to follow laws, and when those laws are moral that exercise of power is, too. If the law is made reasonable and the people allowed to see that, the voting blocks will call for those just laws to be enforced and the pandering politicians will follow suit.

The problem with opposing illegal immigration now is that those who would make honorable citizens are the majority, with the criminal element using their well-meaning intent and vast numbers to hide themselves from the law. When legal immigration is open to the innocent, the guilty will have nowhere to hide. Exposed for what they are, separated from the well-meaning, why would they continue to receive the protection of law-abiding Hispanic community? By bringing drugs to their schools and violence to their streets, they're threatening their fellow Hispanics most of all.

[Edit:] It's quite identical to gun laws: if you stop the law-abiding, the outlaws are empowered. If we allow the law-abiding, the outlaws are diluted and exposed.

[JJ]

Psudo wrote:

Also, I'd like a clarification on how this Mexican immigration to Canada is "illegal."

If a Mexican simply lies, and claims to be a refugee escaping persecution when he is not (which evidently describes most of the cases) then he's knowingly attempting to deceive the federal immigration department, and the punishment is deportation. The problem is that the current refugee system takes way too long to address the validity of these claims. I've heard it argued, though, that no immigration is ever formally a criminal offense, and can only ever be raised in the context of a technical violation of some other law. That's why the Arizona bill criminalized the act explicitly.