Yesterday, Barack Obama was asked about immigration in Albuquerque, New Mexico and:

1. He referred to illegal aliens as "us"; he's given them citizenship in his own mind or he's confused about basic American concepts...
2. He seemed not to remember that millions of Americans are unemployed...
3. And, he generally promoted massive immigration. He did that with a series of canards and at one point sounded just like George W Bush.

Video of the appearance is at peekURL.com/v26f71b and for the first, here's what he said [1]:

Now, unfortunately, right now this is getting demagogued. A lot of folks think it’s an easy way to score political points is by trying to act as if there’s a “them” and an “us,” instead of just an “us.” And I’m always suspicious of politics that is dividing people instead of bringing them together. I think now is the time for us to come together.

Obviously, there is a "them" and an "us". The "us" are U.S. citizens, including those who voted for Obama. The "them" are foreign citizens. Obama has either naturalized all 12 million or so illegal aliens in his mind, or he's unclear on the very concept of U.S. citizenship. Considering his past comments it could be either one of those or a combination; he hasn't shown that he has a fundamental grasp of American concepts in past speeches (this, this are just two examples)

For the second, as if he hadn't paid attention to what's been going on with the economy for several years, he said:

[immigration] means our economy's more vital, and we've got more people in the workforce who are gonna be out there workin' and startin' businesses and supporting us when we're retired, makin' sure Social Security is solvent, all those things are important

He sounded just like George Bush both in content and in delivery. Did he forget about the millions of unemployed, the stimulus plan, and all of that? Pretending he's speaking about long-term gains isn't going to wash since those gains can be wiped out by protracted downturns such as the one we're currently experiencing, including where we have five workers for every job opening.

Other than those two, the rest was a regular Festival of Canards.

He used, as one might expect, the nation of immigrants canard. Of course, he also hastens to remind us - as they all do - that we're a nation of laws too. Then, he uses a variant of the safe legal orderly shibboleth ("we have to make sure our immigration system is orderly, and fair.")

He then admits that allowing illegal immigration isn't fair to those in other countries waiting to come here legally. However, that follows him blaming the system for that, a variant of system is broken.

He then states we need to "affirm our immigrant traditions"; see immigration tradition fallacy.

He then states, "yes, let's secure our borders"; see secure the border.

Making a false claim about policy, he thinks if we made legal immigration easier we'd reduce illegal immigration. He ignores the fact that there are about 6.5 billion people outside the U.S. (and about 5 billion of them are poorer than Mexicans). And, a large percentage of those people would come here if they could. So many would want to come here that we could raise legal immigration from now til doomsday and it would only make illegal immigration worse.

He wants to crack down on employers, but the only reasons he mentions are from the perspective of illegal aliens: he doesn't want them to be underpaid, etc. I don't want that either, but the more relevant reason to crack down on employers is to make sure they hire Americans or legal workers. See the somewhat related immigration wage floor, although he didn't mention the impact of illegal aliens being hired on Americans at all.

He then expresses support for comprehensive immigration reform; see the link for the downsides he didn't acknowledge.

He also says "economically, immigrants can also be a huge source of strength", mentioning that we have a younger workforce than Europe or Japan. Except, their population is much more educated than most of our immigrants.

[1] whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/28/
remarks-president-a-backyard-discussion-albuquerque-new-mexico