Republican fear-mongering on immigration gets comical

March 12, 2008

One would like to think the right would stop shrieking about immigration, if for no other reason, because it’s an electoral loser. When it comes to immigrants, demagoguery just isn’t working. At this point, it seems like a non-starter at the presidential level, and it’s not working out for conservatives down ballot.

As the far-right Wall Street Journal editorial page noted after Democrats won Dennis Hastert’s reliably-Republican House district, “Republicans such as Mr. Oberweis remain convinced that illegal immigration is a winning issue. And if the electorate were comprised mostly of Internet screechers and cable news anchors, they might be right…. Saturday’s result showed once again that a hard line on illegal immigration doesn’t win elections. The longer Republicans pretend that it does the more elections they will lose.”

But the fear-mongering continues unabated. In one of my favorite new examples, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) spoke up at a House Homeland Security Committee markup of a bill designed to protect the country from chemical attack. Broun wanted to connect the issue, as best he could, to illegal immigration. Al Kamen has the story.

“This is a national security problem,” Broun told the lawmakers. “I’m told by people who are involved in helping just monitor the border that roughly 40 percent of the people that are intercepted crossing our border are not Mexicans.”

(Actually, the official stats for FY 2007 show slightly less than 7 percent are OTMs, or “Other than Mexicans.” The ASICs, or “Aliens from Special Interest Countries” — most anywhere in the Middle East and a chunk of South Asia — totaled 297. That’s three-hundredths of 1 percent. Still, it’s not zero, so let’s continue.)

“Some of these people that are coming across the border are from other Central and South American countries,” Broun said. “But there is quite a large number of people that are coming across the border that are of Middle Eastern origin as well as Asian origin. A lot of these are single; they have no families. I don’t think they’re coming here to cut our grass or work in our chicken plants. So I think it is an extremely important issue that we must solve.”

Let’s see, to Congressman Broun, 40% is roughly equivalent to 0.03%. And because Middle Eastern people are apparently scary, this is all very relevant to a discussion about chemical-weapon attacks.

Broun’s trouble with math may be the least of his problems.

Lest anyone think Broun is being taken out of context, TP has the video and this transcript:

“This is a national security problem. I’m told by people who are involved in helping just monitor the border that roughly 40 percent of the people that are intercepted crossing our border are not Mexicans.

“Some of these people that are coming across the border are from other Central and South American countries. But there is quite a large number of people that are coming across the border that are of Middle Eastern origin as well as Asian origin.

“A lot of these are single; they have no families. I don’t think they’re coming here to cut our grass or work in our chicken plants. So I think it is an extremely important issue that we must solve.”

And House Republicans wonder why no one takes them seriously on matters of public policy.

“There is quite a large number of people that are coming across the border that are of Middle Eastern origin as well as Asian origin. A lot of these are single; they have no families. I don’t think they’re coming here to cut our grass or work in our chicken plants.”

Our dear sheltered Rep. Broun is right. They are working at the 7-11 and driving cabs instead. Idiot.

  • And House Republicans wonder why no one takes them seriously on matters of public policy.

    Actually I have relatives that eat this up like leftover soup. As soon as I saw this article, I began the inbox countdown to see how long it will take before I get Broun’s comments emailed to me.

    Which is ultimately the problem: people DO take this kind of inanity seriously.

  • House Republicans wonder why no one takes them seriously on matters of public policy.

    Unfortunately, a lot of idiots do take them seriously.

  • And if the [Republican] electorate were comprised mostly of Internet screechers and cable news anchors, they might be right

    They aren’t?

    It’s too bad that demagoguery drives out reasonable discussion of the very real problems that illegal immigration does cause. Like the overheated Republican screeching about terrorism, it shuts up people with real ideas about real problems.

  • A lot of these are single; they have no families. I don’t think they’re coming here to cut our grass or work in our chicken plants.

    It’s true. Every time I try to get a job at the chicken plant, they tell me I can’t work there if I’m single. Not sure if they’re trying to protect the chickens or what.

  • BALANCE: Many American’s agree with CNN’s Lou Dobbs on immigration issues… Whereas Republican’s (for business) and Democrats (for voters) tolerate illegal immigration.

  • Ah, useful idiots. The WSJ isn’t “far-right”, they support corporate welfare in the form of allowing massive immigration of cheap labor. The WaPo explicitly supports illegal immigration for an unknown reason. While Broun’s figures are probably off by a good margin, the fact remains that tens of thousands of OTMs were released into the U.S. until just recently. And, terrorists have indeed crossed the border, only to be caught months later, and that’s just one case that we were told about.

    And, there’s a difference between the way that an issue is presented, and the issue itself. I don’t think anyone who supports anything other than strict enforcement would look too good should I ever be able to ask them a series of questions on their position.

  • It’s a two-fer: a signal to the faithful unquestioning authoritarian followers to step up the rhetoric and a secret code message that awakens some sleeper cell to attack in the USA and one of the perpetrators will have the name Hussein and will attack in time to be the October surprise!!! (the second half is snark)

  • TLB: “…the fact remains that tens of thousands of OTMs were released into the U.S. until just recently. And, terrorists have indeed crossed the border, only to be caught months later, and that’s just one case that we were told about.”

    Do you really believe that this administration wouldn’t be crowing about these terrorist captures if that were true? The ones they have announced already have been non-starters so it’s not like they are waiting for truth and evidence to be on their side.

  • Apparently there has been a large decrease in OTM illegal immigration. I read an article where a Democrat was praising operation ‘Steamline’ because of its effectiveness in lowering the number of OTM illegal immigrants entering the country.

    The numbers mentioned in the article were a 38% drop in 2005-2006, and as of 6/19 /2007 a 52% drop from 2006-2007.

    Now, I realize that it is politically fun to poke at the other side, but there are reasons to have a viable immigration policy and to actually enforce it. It isn’t a bad thing for a government to want to take care of its citizens. Really now, if they can’t control immigration and enforce those laws, why would I want them to have control of my health care?

  • #7: the fact remains that tens of thousands of OTMs were released into the U.S. until just recently

    Fact, eh? Care to back that up?

    #12: “Consider a Congressman, then consider an idiot; ah, but I repeat myself.”

    You repeat yourself indeed, in every thread I’ve looked at today so far. Christ al-fucking-mighty, we get it already.

  • I think your numbers are an order of magnitude off. The number of ASIC OTM’s caught is closer to 3000/yr. (0.3% of those caught). Of those, about a tenth are ordinary criminals – drug smugglers, people smugglers, gang members and the like. 10% is a very high percentage. Some of those 300 criminals meet the criteria to be called “terrorists” in the sense that they use non state-sponsored violence to achieve group ends.

    The worry (to date just a worry) is that the Mexican gangs – drugs and coyotes – will take money from actual terrorists to bring them and their weapons across. Personally I worry more about home grown terrorists of all flavors.

  • win @11: Who cares about control. Can they at least pay for it?

    Besides, ‘controlling’ immigration would be easy if we didn’t have such a scatterbrained idea of what immigration should be. We essentially allow random numbers of people based upon their country of origin, and then a set number of people that are called in for their expertise.

    We don’t rate immigrants based upon the skills they bring; if they have family here to take care of or be taken care of; if they already speak english; if they don’t plan to stay but plan to work or plan to stay but don’t plan to work…

    No, we rate them based upon where they come from, if they got any traffic tickets, and if a corporation asked them to come work here (but in that case they’re not allowed to stay!)

    It’s stupid. If less people from Belgium want to come and more from Mexico, what’s the big diff? If they already have a job here, do we care if they want to stay or not? If they have a job here, is it one that could’ve gone to someone seeking it here, or will the company pay them even if they can’t come? If they want in (but don’t have a job), shouldn’t we say yes to more doctors and nurses and no to more grass-cutters? If they have a child here, or a grandparent, or vice versa, why are we keeping those people out?

    Think about how crazy our immigration law is before conflating it with buying healthcare.

  • @13: It is indeed a fact that OTMs were released when found – they were written down, and then it was expected for them to check in or the INS would check up on them. The INS was more likely to never get back to them… The random policy of who the INS holds has led to thousands being locked up with essentially no way of knowing how long it’ll be, if they can go home, go to a hotel, or go to their consulate or even if the INS will ever process their papers. It’s a big mess.

    But when the insurance company fucks up your paperwork, they don’t arrest you. You just get a bill in the mail.

  • Egads! Single men coming to this country without a job? You’d think all the Repugs would be waiting along the border with a box of candies and some roses. And if that didn’t deter an immigrant I don’t know what would.

    Seriously, I guess Mr. Brounpants has never heard of the practice of the man going to find work and sending his earnings back home. “Guy seeks work to support family” doesn’t get the blood flowing like “Dusky brown dude here for some unknown purposes!!”

    It’s true. Every time I try to get a job at the chicken plant, they tell me I can’t work there if I’m single. Not sure if they’re trying to protect the chickens or what.

    Coffee, meet monitor. Monitor, coffee.

  • Even scarier: Broun was the *smarter* of the two Republicans who emerged from the special election here in the 10th.

    AND…he’s a medical doctor. (No wonder he decided to get into politics)

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