Fred on Face The Nation

The strangest endorsement saga of recent times, but Fred wins in the end (yup, that’s how the big story will end too):

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/12/17/520622.aspx

I would like to address one issue that was highlighted in this interview and that is immigration. It irks me that the media often portray the current situation as a generic immigration problem. I do not believe that is the case. The problem is a de facto “open door” policy toward Mexico. This in no way makes it easy for would-be immigrants in other countries of the world that do not have a land-bridge into the U.S. to get into our country.

The simplistic, stereotypical image presented in the MSM is that liberals or leftists are “kind” and “humane” because of their proposed lax policy toward the people, mostly Mexican, who are streaming across our Southern border and that conservatives are “mean” and “inhumane” because they are not sensitive to the economic needs of these people and want to gain control over this situation.

The larger picture is different. I would argue that the liberal position is “inhumane” if you consider the difficulty in obtaining a U.S. work visa for any of the other poorer countries of the world. The example I will use is the Philippines. I chose this country as an example because;

(1) I have lived there and have some knowledge of it;

(2) The U.S. and the Philippines have a long history together (The Philippines was a U.S. colony — we fought together in WWII – Filipinos are a significant and large immigrant group in the U.S. already) and;

(3) The Philippines, like Mexico, has a large population (91,077,287) and also has significant poverty. According to the CIA Factbook the GDP per capita for Mexico is $10,700 is while the GDP per capita for the Philippines is $5,000.

If you are a Filipino, it is extremely difficult to get a work visa to come to the U.S. In fact. unless you are solidly middle-class, it is not easy to get a tourist visa.

“Petitions for immigrant visas that date all the way back to 1984 are just now being granted in 2006. Many visa petitions by Filipino Americans for their relatives are on hold or backlogged and as many 1.4 million petitions are affected causing delay to the reunification of Filipino families.” (Wikipedia)

I understand that many persons besides Mexicans come across our southern border although I would assume that many of the non-Mexicans are Latinos from Central or South America. I also know that non-Latinos come in illegally often by overstaying tourist visas. Lastly, I am not suggesting that we begin to flood the country with Filipinos although maybe that is not a bad idea given that the Filipinos who come to our country are generally hardworking Christians, with good English-language skills on arrival and that in the 2004 presidential election Filipino-Americans supported GWB by a 56% to 30% margin over John Kerry.

Seriously, the point is that the portrayal of a continuation of the existing southern borders situation as a “humane” immigration position is bogus. It is, in fact, a very unfair and “inhumane” situation for millions of poor people around the world who would also like to come to this country to make better lives for themselves and their families but face stringent barriers to legally obtaining the proper visa necessary to make this a reality. I sometimes wonder if the stringent control over the granting of U.S. visas in poor countries is not greater than it needs to be as compensation for the fact that our immigration authorities are unable to stop the steady flow of illegal immigrants in the Southwest. It would be interesting to get an honest and informed answer to that question.