Desperate New York Times immigration editorial plays race card; afraid attrition might work?

Like clockwork, the New York Times offers yet another immigration editorial and, of course, they're still wrong ("AinaLike clockwork, the New York Times offers yet another immigration editorial and, of course, they're still wrong ("Ain’t That America", link). Per them, not enacting comprehensive immigration "reform" is yet another in the long line of "greatest historical shames" perpetrated by the U.S. The national mood is slipping into "hatred and fear" against those "documented or not, who speak Spanish and are working-class or poor":

The evidence can be seen in any state or town that has passed constitutionally dubious laws to deny undocumented immigrants the basics of living, like housing or the right to gather or to seek work. It's in hot lines for citizens to turn in neighbors. It's on talk radio and blogs. It's on the campaign trail, where candidates are pressed to disown moderate positions. And it can be heard nearly every night on CNN, in the nativist drumming of Lou Dobbs, for whom immigration is an obsessive cause.

As evidenced by their coverage, supporting illegal immigration and cheap labor is an "obsessive cause" for the NYT. As for those questions, the fact that the NYT's "reporters" aren't out there taking the candidates to task for the gaping holes in their policies shows that they're just a propaganda source and not a real newspaper.

Then, after promoting Eliot Spitzer's scheme to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens, they offer three choices to solve the problem. The first is mass deportations, something that no national leaders are calling for. The second could have been written by either the Democrats or the Bush administration:

Find out who they are. Distinguish between criminals and people who just want to work. Get them on the books. Make them pay what they owe - not just the income, Social Security, sales and property taxes they already pay, but all their taxes, and a fine. Get a smooth legal flow of immigrants going, and then concentrate on catching and deporting bad people.

They can't even get that right: all of the amnesties so far proposed would have allowed terrorists and criminals to sneak through the cracks, with the latest Senate bill allowing the DHS to admit known gang members. At least one version would have forgiven two years of taxes. And, that "smooth legal flow" sounds vaguely like an attempt to flood the U.S. with cheap foreign labor.

Their last choice is a mischaracterization of attrition, and they appear to have done that because they're afraid it might work:

Catch the few you can, and harass and frighten the rest. Treat the entire group as a de facto class of criminals, and disrupt or shout down anyone or any plan seen as abetting their evildoing.

Most people who support attrition are obviously not guilty of what the NYT claims; they're simply playing the victim. In fact, the ones trying to do the "shouting down" are those on the NYT's side who continually try to racialize the issue, use misleading "news" reports (such as from the NYT), smear people like Lou Dobbs, and so on.

The New York Times doesn't want a real debate on this issue: they want to try to kneecap their opponents by calling them bigots rather than, for instance, doing real reporting on this issue and disclosing all the downsides of the "reform" they support or asking the presidential front-runners to defend their flawed policies.

Comments

Let them just try to shut up LOU DOBBS and others (Like me )!! Their rants just make me madder and strengthen Americans resolve to STOP their traitorous insanity!!!

There will be 4-5 Republicans and 2-3 Democrats pro Open Borders who will be leaving the Senate next year. http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/071019_hagel.htm The NYT is getting all worked up because they know tide is turning against Open Borders. Once more towns see that Attrition through Enforcement can be made to work, their electorate will demand their local politicians and business begin enforcing the law. There are sure to be attempts by the Open Borders crowd to counter protest but I think they will largely fail to gain broad based support. In fact it will only make matters worse for the Open Borders lobby. Their only hope will be to attempt to appeal to the Washington pols to save them. Like I keep saying, I expect MEChA, La Raza, MALDEF and the ANSWER loons to make a big show at the 2008 Denver Democratic convention. Especially if Hillary gets the nomination and they think they can get her to go all out in support of their demands.

Your name says it all. Get on some meds and do some real research.

The NYT has become truly insane. See yesterday's hysterical and illogical attack on a new French law that asks for DNA tests to prove the alleged relatedness of prospective immigrants families: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/opinion/21sun2.html?em&ex=1193112000&en=5bc69f0e7827895a&ei=5087%0A PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC BIGOTRY IN FRANCE (...) _DNA testing can be a useful tool in establishing criminal guilt or innocence. But it has no rightful place in immigration law. Modern French families, like modern American families, are constituted on many bases besides bloodlines and genetics. This is something most French politicians and voters should be aware of._ _They should also be aware of the cautionary lessons of modern French history. Under the Nazi occupiers and their Vichy collaborators, pseudoscientific notions of pure descent were introduced into French law with tragic consequences. _ (...) I'm sure "family" to the NYT can denote almost any assemblage of hominids, but in the traditional societies from which the vast majority of immigrants to France come families are indeed based on "bloodlines and genetics".

Huckabee is 2008's neocon, open-borders candidate (ie, this election's GWB). Definitely not what this country needs!

Great commentary, Lone. 'economic realities'? Illegal labor due to open borders is a market distortion! Here's a more accurate 'editorial': And it can be read nearly every day in the national dailies, in the anti-immigration law enforcement drumming of the NYT, for which open borders are an obsessive cause. 'LetÂ’s concede an indisputable point: people should not be in the country illegally.' Isn't that like when Teddy Kennedy carves out one sentence in a multi-paragraph bleeding heart screed saying 'We must enforce our immigration laws BUT...' 'LetÂ’s concede an indisputable point: people should not be in the country illegally'...which is why the NYT endorses sanctioning them with a state ID? Completely contradictory to rational people but perfectly logical to those with a blindingly self-righteous open borders mindset. 'Treat the entire group as a de facto class of criminals' 'They do not discriminate between criminals and the much larger group of ambitious strivers.' Hate to break this to the NYT, but neither does the law. Crime has no bearing on a sovereign's right to remove an alien. From Am Jur 2d (oft-cited legal encyclopedia): The determination of the propriety of deportation is not a prosecution for, or a conviction of, crime; nor is the deportation a punishment, even though the facts underlying the decision may constitute a crime under local law. The proceeding is in effect simply a refusal by the government to harbor persons whom it does not want. The coincidence of local penal law with the policy of Congress is purely accidental, and, though supported by the same facts, a criminal prosecution and a proceeding for deportation are separate and independent. Oh, on the Times' ABC list, I didn't see D. Toughen employer penalties for illegal hiring and the rate of audits and site inspection which will deter the vast majority of illegal immigration. I guess they forgot that one.

the system wants us all dead and the system will do its job for the third world leaders, the one world people want us all dead and the system is working on that right now. buy guns.