Special Comment: Bad Marketing, Loaded Questions, and Immigration Reform.

[silveradept]

Mmmm. New right-wing fanaticism, this time courtesy of the organization Judicial Watch, who have apparently made it their mission in life to overturn local laws establishing "sanctuary" cities where immigration status is resolutely not going to be checked. They're also very interested in making sure everyone reports back to them that their city believes more in "Sanctuary" than in enforcing the law, at the cost of lots of taxpayer money spent caring for illegals, giving them benefits, tracking them down with law enforcement, et cetera, and that they oppose the "comprehensive immigration reform" that is secretly just a blanket amnesty.

They'd also like your money, but they're trying, like the "Obama Agenda Survey" did, to downplay the fact that they're more interested in your money than your opinion.

Let's Tour their "Background" questions and the actual "Question" questions that comprise their Impact Survey.

"Background" questions, which have answer options of "Yes", "No", and "Not Certain":

1. Some states have reported spending as much as $3.3 BILLION a year on higher education costs, higher law enforcement costs, and higher health care costs to provide direct services for illegal immigrants. Are you aware of similar taxpayer-funded expenditures in your state?
Similar how, exactly? That the state is paying "extra" money to educate, treat, and keep in line people who may be here without proper documentation, or that our state is spending around $3.3 billion dollars? The first question is meaningless, unless, of course, you intend somehow to round up all the illegals and deport them and claim the savings in your budget. The second should be an easy comparison to make, assuming that one can accurately quantify what part of those services is spent on educating, treating, and keeping illegal immigrants in line.


2. There is an estimated 1.5 MILLION school aged illegal immigrants residing in the United States. Taxpayer-paid education costs for this population have sky rocketed in recent years. Nationally the figure for 2004- 05 was $7.7 BILLION. Do you believe that you and other taxpayers in tour state should be forced to foot the tax bill for the costs of educating illegal immigrants?
If there's one thing that Americans hate, according to our history and conventional wisdom, it's taxes. Especially taxes that go to services that all people can use, regardless of documentation status. Americans believe in the value of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, in doing well in school, the best schools in the world so that...you know, you would think that a nation that boasts of its school prowess in spite of several studies saying otherwise would want everyone to have the benefits of that education. Unless they're miserly and want to hoard all that knowledge to themselves so as to lord it over everywhere else, that is. Still, it seems a bit weird to be talking up the education system and then yelling "MINE!" when someone else takes an interest in it who might not be paying in the taxes to it. Surely we can afford a few freeloaders in the name of Freedom and Democracy and American Education, ya? (And if not, does that mean you're going to start taking a ahrd look at how catastrophically underfunded our schools are, immigrants or no immigrants?)


3. Several "sanctuary" states allow illegal aliens to pay discounted in-state tuition at public universities. As universities across the country increasingly limit enrollment, giving special in-state benefits to illegal immigrants will mean fewer opportunities and less financial aid for US citizens. It will also mean higher costs for state taxpayers. Does your state provide lower, in-state university tuition for illegal immigrants?
Uh, not to burst any bubbles, but if you meet the residency requirements, you get in-state tuition, regardless of documentation status, as far as I know. Any "special" in-state benefits that deny higher education to citizens in favor of illegal immigrants are probably going to be in your mind. Now, if you wanted to criticize minority scholarships, you could at least make a better case that illegal immigrants would benefit from those at the expense of citizens. You would also likely be rightly accused of being racist. Do they really want to go on this path?


4. When illegal immigration increases the supply of workers in a skill category, the earnings of native-born workers in that same category fall. This effect is increased by the presence of illegal workers. Do you know if legal workers in your state are being displaced by illegal workers?
Wait, I thought this was economics - increased supply of workforce drops the wages of the whole group, because increased competition between workers will drive their wages down. Now you're saying this only applies when the extra workers are illegally there? I never knew that. The other side of the coin are those businesses and persons looking to make as much profit or avoid paying as much as they can for the services they require - they're going to depress wages, because they know they can set them artificially low and threaten deportation and reporting to anyone who actually wants a living wage. Those people also drive wages downward deliberately.


5. The cost of incarcerating illegal aliens in state prisons has also risen. In the last year this data was compiled, the US Department of Justice distributed $550 million to the states to help defray expenses, but this was estimated to cover only about one fifth of theer outlays, totaling $2.5 Billion. Do you believe that similar conditions exist in your town or local city, county, or state?
So we're locking up more people in general (about 1% of the population, last I heard), which costs more money. Once again, though, apparently illegal aliens are such a disproportionate amount of those people being locked up that they're single-handedly contributing to majorly increased prison costs. Black men are probably laughing right now, when they're not trying to avoid being put in prison for drug offenses that white people would walk on, traffic violations that mysteriously end up as drug busts or "resisting arrest". If the Papers Please law passes, I'll bet Arizona needs a lot more prison funding from all the people they're going to be locking up for having no papers on them.


6. Many cities and states are reporting rapidly increasing welfare costs for unemployed, indigent illegal aliens. Do you believe that similar conditions exist in your state, county, and/or local community?
Ummmm... did you notice the recession going on outside? A whole lot of people are unemployed, and any time you say that those collecting unemployment benefits are indigent or lazy, you clearly have no idea of all the hoops and hurdles people have to jump through to get that money. If it's things like TANF instead, well, same thing. Recession outside, and the legal and illegal are drowning in it all the same.


7. Overall, illegal immigration is costing you and every American taxpayer an estimated $53 billion a year in additional federal, state, and local taxes. Do you believe these numbers could be lowered with more effective border, state, and local illegal immigration enforcement?
Oh, finally, a question that doesn't spin anything or is lacking in crucial context! Answer: Well, it could. Or it could turn out that paying for all those extra agents and their shiny toys, the police needed to process additional suspected undocumented workers, and all the other bureaucracy involved actually costs more than the current tax load. We won't know unless we end up trying, of course, but something tells me the savings are mysteriously not going to be all that great.


8. Local property and state income taxes have increased rapidly in many parts of the country in large part due to rising school, heathcare and social welfare and public safety costs associated with illegal immigrants. Do you feel these conditions exist in your city, county, or state?
There is a Tucker/Chan moment here, namely: Do you not understand the words that are coming out of your own mouth? Or mine? Did you notice the recession going on? The giant budget holes that have appeared as the value of housing has dropped out from under your feet? The bigger population? Any one of a thousand other possibilities that Occam would take over your logical leap to illegal immigration? Yes, the whole point of the survey is to demonize illegal immigrants and make them seem like a bigger problem than they are, but sacrificing logical causes along the way does not endear you to me or anyone else unswayed by "They're takin ur jaaaaaaahbs!"


9. In some hospitals, as much as 2/3 of operationg costs are for uncompensated care of illegal immagrants. Those costs alone are estimated at more than $1 Billion a year. Do you feel that the problem of un-reimbursed medical expenses for illegal aliens is causing taxpayer-funded health care costs in your state to increase as well?
Yes, but not for the reasons you're thinking of! Un-reimbursed expenses for the poor and those that have to use emergency care because they're the only ones who won't send you back out the door if you don't have private health insurance are driving up those costs. If health insurance suddenly became affordable to the poor and everyone could sign up for a plan without fear of exclusion based on past health, I think you'd see a lot of those unreimbursed costs drop off - preventative care would be affordable, and that works wonders on stopping emergency room visits.


10. An estimated 3.5 million illegal immigrants receive their healthcare insurance through the taxpayer funded Medicaid program. Do you think that illegal aliens should be permitted to receive taxpayer-funded health care through Medicaid?
I think everyone should be permitted to receive taxpayer-funded health care, through Medicaid, Medicare, or a different government plan that everyone pays into as a part of their taxes. Those that employ the undocumented should be fined for at least the lost revenues for all their undocumented workers plus some amount as a penalty, all paid into the fund that takes care of government entitlement programs. I think, again, that once someone finds health care and insurance affordable, they'll buy it.


11. There are an untold number of "sanctuary" cities, counties and states throughout the country where misguided lawmakers either expressly or implicitly welcomed illegals by prohibiting enforcement of local, state and federal immigration laws. Do you believe your city, county, or state has adopted such a "sanctuary" policy?
Prohibiting the enforcement of immigration laws? Really? Prove it. Show me where making the good-faith assumption that the person arrested is here legally, unless they were arrested in connection to something regarding their immigration status, prevents the enforcement of immigration laws? Arizona, if allowed to implement Papers Please, is going to be a poster child for the additional headaches, lawyers, bureaucrats, and expense that it will take to inquire about immigration status for every single person stopped that looks like an illegal immigrant. I thought most of you were in favor of a more streamlined, less red-taped government and law enforcement.

So that's the "Background" section. We presume that this "background" stuff is there so as to get you in the right anti-immigrant (and give us your money, please) mood so that you're ready to join their cause (and give them your money, of course).

So here's the next offering.


12. Considering the many [selectively chosen] negative impacts of illegal immigration, are you willing to take a stand and support a national petition drive of millions demanding that your state and local lawmakers give immediate high priority to stepped up illegal immigration enforcement measures and policies?


And one more.


13. Do you support Judicial Watch's ongoing lawsuits against federal, state, and local government officials and policies that undermine our nation's immigration laws?


Having riled you up with how much illegals are sucking away your jobs, burning through tax money that you grudgingly gave to the government in social services and education they don't deserve, the grand finish is...to ask for your support on a petition? Bit of a letdown there. I was thinking they'd finish with something more like the "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day" that was on the University of Michigan campus or some grand declaration to elect tough border candidates that we like or to personally go join the Minutemen and become a paramilitary illegal alien monitor. A petition drive? Really?

At the very least, they should have been talking up the need to shout down one's elected representative with enough noise that they give you what you want because you're loud and not because it's sane. (Hail Dogbert, Ruler of the World.)

And the other part is...give us money so we can continue filing lawsuits against places we think are insufficiently fanatical about immigration, that have decided they don't want to play the profiling game, or know full well how much undocumented workers contribute to their economic success and thus have a vested interest in making sure their underclass isn't suddenly vanish'd in the night by federal immigration enforcement.

It's a pretty piddling finish to what's supposed to be a powerful riling up document. I'm actually kind of disappointed. Perhaps Judicial Watch needs to change their action personnel to people who understand how to direct a mob.

And on the matter of immigration itself, well, people immigrate illegally usually because there aren't enough legal methods for them and there's still something in the destination country that feels superior to that which is at home. So, if you want to "curb" the problem, one of two things needs to happen - either there needs to be a better understanding of why people migrate, so that more legal methods can be established to bring those people out of the shadows and fully into the economy, or the conditions at home need to improve to a point that people don't feel the need to migrate. Slamming the door shut and building fences encourages lockpicking, fence-jumping, and tunnelling. Suing people who are trying to encourage their illegal immigrants to come out into the light is a problem. Enforcement is treating the symptom - always needed, but not supposed to be the focus. Judicial Watch's anger is missing key components - they want the law enforced the way they deem it best, but they have no interesting in actually fixing the laws so they don't have to go suing people, because the law fixes the problem sufficiently that the "illegal immigrants" problem is no longer a big one. Why not put all those donation monies into research and policy suggestions? (Because it's easier to demonize them and make money off of THEM instead of trying to make THEM part of us.)

What the system needs is a way of channeling the people who arrive illegally into becoming fully legal citizens with the rights to demand safe conditions, reasonable hours and wages, and to unionize if they so choose, with the benefits of them paying full tax liabilities. It also needs to levy heavy penalties against those people and corporations that hire the undocumented so they can exploit them. Maybe what we need are union raids instead of immigration raids. And perhaps we can take a look and see if we can't help the home countries of the immigrants to become great places to live on their own.

Comments

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

What the system needs is a way of channeling the people who arrive illegally into becoming fully legal citizens with the rights to demand safe conditions, reasonable hours and wages, and to unionize if they so choose, with the benefits of them paying full tax liabilities.

In the UK, if you are here illegally (though I've only heard it mentioned if you overstayed your initial visitor visa) and you later apply for a spousal visa, you will still get approved and there won't be any negative repercussions for it. Which is REALLY annoying to those of us who forced ourselves to leave our loved ones when our visas were up to play things the legal way. OTOH, I don't think I'd want to be illegally in this country.

[silveradept]

I suspect the problems of being illegal in any country are significant. Admittedly, tearing yourself away from loved ones hurts lots, but being there illegally makes it fairly impossible to do a lot of things that will contribute to your good health and sanity while you are there.