It's time to fix our broken immigration system.
November 19, 2014 10:48 AM Subscribe

Tomorrow night, President Obama will address the nation on steps he will be taking by executive action in an attempt to fix the immigration laws.

NYT: Mr. Obama is preparing to use his executive authority to provide work permits for up to five million people who are in the United States illegally, and to shield them from deportation.

Fox News Latino:
Opinion: Like it or not, Obama's immigration action stands on solid legal footing

Washington Post: Illegal immigrants are 3.5 percent of the population. But they are parents to 7 percent of K-12 students.

NYT: In Immigration Fight, Republicans Explore Alternatives to a Shutdown

Vox: Here's what we know the White House is considering, and what looks likely to make it into the final package.

posted by roomthreeseventeen (194 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite

Wow, it's basically taking getting the Democrats asses kicked for Obama to step up and be aggressive with his public policy initiatives. I like this new aggressive Obama because now he doesn't have to face any more elections and he can just focus on good actions that he can make at the executive level.

I think the Republicans were expecting him to cower and basically surrender the initiative to them on a whole host of issues but he's coming out with guns blazing and seems to have completely recaptured the narrative.

Good for him, it might be 6 years late for most progressives but it's still a good move.
posted by vuron at 10:53 AM on November 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

Wow, it's basically taking getting the Democrats asses kicked for Obama to step up and be aggressive with his public policy initiatives.

He was ready to do this before the election but, in a move that largely seems to have backfired, delayed it to try and protect some vulnerable Dems. At this point, just be glad something is being done at all. And worry about how the Republicans and their base are going to react.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:56 AM on November 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

If Obama does this, the Republicans will threaten to block judicial appointments and refuse to compromise an inch on fiscal legislation while their rightmost fringe howls at the moon about impeachment.

If Obama does not do this, the Republicans will threaten to block judicial appointments and refuse to compromise an inch on fiscal legislation while their rightmost fringe howls at the moon about impeachment.
posted by delfin at 11:02 AM on November 19, 2014 [130 favorites]

Worth remembering: the Senate, amazingly, passed an immigration reform bill just last year. Were it not for Republicans in the house, Obama wouldn't have had to do anything.
posted by booooooze at 11:04 AM on November 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

If Obama does not do this, the Republicans will threaten to block judicial appointments and refuse to compromise an inch on fiscal legislation while their rightmost fringe howls at the moon about impeachment.

In other words, it will have no effect whatsoever on what was going to happen anyway.
posted by localroger at 11:11 AM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

thatsthejoke.jpg
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:12 AM on November 19, 2014 [35 favorites]

The timing is great - I now know what my relatives will start arguing with me about next Thursday!
posted by glaucon at 11:14 AM on November 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

If you're screwed no matter what, you may as well do whatever you like. I don't know why it took this long.
posted by 1adam12 at 11:16 AM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Many, many Republicans are in favor of immigration reform too. Don't forget, these work permits will benefit the businesses community too. Other constituents of the Republican Party are not in favor. Many constituents of the Democratic Party are not in favor of it either. So the idea that Obama is finally getting a backbone and standing up to the Republicans is ... well, let's be charitable and call it wishful thinking. I'm a bit more cynical. I think the Republicans are happy to let the lame duck take the heat for this. They'll bluster and threaten to shut down the government in order to save face with their constituents. And nobody -- Democrat or Republican -- will have to go on record as having voted for this.
posted by Pararrayos at 11:18 AM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

If you're screwed no matter what, you may as well do whatever you like. I don't know why it took this long.
-by 1adam12

There are a lot of excuses but they're excuses at this point.

I do like how he's ratcheting up pressure on the GOP with climate change and immigration in the same week.

I hope his long term strategy here, whatever it is, works.
posted by glaucon at 11:24 AM on November 19, 2014

Must have found the crumpled "let Bartlet be Bartlet" note that had fallen down the back of the desk.
posted by garius at 11:29 AM on November 19, 2014 [17 favorites]

Many, many Republicans are in favor of immigration reform too.

I find that difficult to believe, given the response, so far.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:30 AM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

garius, I think this might be it.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:32 AM on November 19, 2014

~Many, many Republicans are in favor of immigration reform too.
~I find that difficult to believe, given the response, so far.

Well, remember, "reform" doesn't necessarily mean "improve". To the Republicans, "reform" means "deport 'em all".
posted by Thorzdad at 11:33 AM on November 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

They'll bluster and threaten to shut down the government in order to save face with their constituents. And nobody -- Democrat or Republican -- will have to go on record as having voted for this.

The whole fracas over the possible shutdown is because the Republicans will probably attempt to defund Obama's plans via a budget/appropriations bill. So, no, in all likelihood everybody will be going on the record either as having voted for it, or was willing to shut down the government over it.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:34 AM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Well, the Republican leadership definitely does not want another shutdown. I'm not sure they are gonna let the tail wag the dog on this again.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:47 AM on November 19, 2014

Many, many Republicans are in favor of immigration reform too.

Maybe a handful of old-school senate Republicans, but they're a quickly vanishing breed.

As Kansas representative Tim Huelskamp (R) said back in 2013 after George W. Bush urged Republican members of the House to move forward on immigration reform: "We care what people back home say, not what some former president says."
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:50 AM on November 19, 2014

So a president is free to act on his principles only in the last two years of an eight year term? Awesome system we have going here.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:56 AM on November 19, 2014 [17 favorites]

He was ready to do this before the election but, in a move that largely seems to have backfired, delayed it to try and protect some vulnerable Dems. At this point, just be glad something is being done at all. And worry about how the Republicans and their base are going to react.

I'd definitely say it backfired. The link about Obama's delay makes it clear that the vulnerable Senators from the South were pushing Obama to punt on immigration, but the Dems lost every single one of those races, anyway. And the dropoff in Latino turnout contributed to losing a lot more races outside the South. Regardless of the ethical or policy merits of acting more forcefully on immigration, Obama's inaction on immigration before the election was a political loser as well.
posted by jonp72 at 12:00 PM on November 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

There's a second, and IMO deeply underreported story as well.

Latino activists and their constituencies met the institutional Democratic party's ultimatum game, and they won.

The Dems for an exceptionally long time have been playing ultimatum games with anyone who doesn't like a centrist—and super white, btw—electoral strategy. Selling out immigration relief is one version of this, but you can see it in no health-care public option, pay freezes for civilian workers in 2010, the 2013 tax deal, etc. The argument has long been that non-centrist groups had to go along with whatever the DNC wanted, because the Republicans would be way worse for their aims.

The Democrats have had to come back a-courting. Having a Democratic president with veto power, and enough Senate votes for filibusters, meant that those sorts of tactics by centrist-leaning Dems were simply less scary. This November, the Democrats lost despite going back to the old strategy of being slightly less bad than the Republicans for a key non-white group—one that has been very public over the last year or so in saying that the Dems were selling them out. (And the Democratic Party was selling them out.)

But it should mean that the Democrats realize the flaw in thinking about politics as a short-term project about gathering statistical aggregations of votes. I doubt they will. One of the key moments in doing grounded activism—and in a small irony, something that Obama understood intuitively in his campaigns—is that they are all about not "mobilizing your base" but turning your 3s into 2s, and your 2s into 1s. It's transformative rather than issue organizing, and a whole generation of younger (< 40 y.o.) organizers believe in it, and are trained in it, but go unutilized. That's organzing not asking what you can *say* to turn 3s->2s and 2s->1s, but how you act, what asks you make, what community, social, and cultural forms you mobilize.

Point is this: that Latino constituency? It's organized by transformative organizers, and they won. They didn't win, contra the NY Times, because of "big money," but because they actually go out and do things.

The sooner the Democratic Party learns that you win by doing things, not by negotiating about who gets the stuff, the better.
posted by migrantology at 12:24 PM on November 19, 2014 [15 favorites]

Really? No discussion of the increase in executive power? Of the abuses of the system that Republicans will use this power for when they are in office?

I'm not sure that this is the place for a discussion of "increase in executive power" where the statute explicitly directs the president to use his discretion in allowing entire categories of immigrants to be protected from deportation. Obama is annoucing his intention to do some congress explictly told him that they want him to do, exactly as presidents from Kennedy to Reagan and Bush I did.

If congress wants to take away that authority, all they have to do is pass a law. Which Obama has repeatedly asked them to do and been met with a middle finger.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:42 PM on November 19, 2014 [15 favorites]

To the Republicans, "reform" means "deport 'em all".

And now anything else means "AMNESTY!!!11!!".
posted by Gelatin at 12:42 PM on November 19, 2014

I'm not sure that this is the place for a discussion of "increase in executive power" where the statute explicitly directs the president to use his discretion in allowing entire categories of immigrants to be protected from deportation.

And on top of that, Congress doesn't provide anywhere close to the resources to "deport 'em all" anyway. Nor is it likely Republicans will countenance a tax increase to provide the kind of resources to ~~deny American business a source of cheap labor~~ deport all the undocumented immigrants.
posted by Gelatin at 12:46 PM on November 19, 2014

Of the abuses of the system that Republicans will use this power for when they are in office?

There isn't really any precedent being set here.
posted by Etrigan at 12:49 PM on November 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

The OP assumes it is broken when in reality it is not broken it is just that existing laws are not being enforced. What is broken is the attitude that it is not illegal to be illegal. That giving out welfare to illegals can somehow qualify them as being no longer indigent, and therefore not subject to deportation, at least on that part of the law. That having come to America as an illegal youth and having been here x number of years should somehow qualify your entire family to jump the line. Meanwhile perfectly legal immigration has ground to a halt as the ICE is overwhelmed with all the rules designed to ignore current law, simply at the whim of the democratic leadership.
posted by Gungho at 12:50 PM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yet another example of why people who claim Democrats and Republicans are not meaningfully different are full of shit.
posted by Justinian at 12:51 PM on November 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

Really? No discussion of the increase in executive power? Of the abuses of the system that Republicans will use this power for when they are in office?

Having the executive branch say that it gets to pick which laws to enforce on this scale seems like a pretty bad idea structurally.

Forget about the legality of it, presumably what Obama is doing is at least defensibly legal. But that's not important. We hated it when GWB did it. Here's the problem though: let's say that the Democratic presidents refrain from executive action on controversial issues - the Republican response would be, "great, advantage for us, meanwhile when we are in power, we'll keep doing it anyway... suckers!". This is not theoretical, this is something the Repubs are great at - they're shamed by nothing, and the Democrats and Obama have often played according to some principle and "we're better than this" and all it bought them is the disadvantage and a punishment in the voting booth. The Republicans will be happy for you to drop your weapon and then stab you through the throat when you stand there defenceless. I guess you can die knowing you were a noble non-warrior. It's been tried, and it's failed. What then?

So you're left with this. Until there is bipartisan agreement to follow a given set of principles, there really is no choice at all. Which is why it looks the way it looks. The Democrats have been fools too long when listening to well-meaning folks who want unilateral disarmament. Sadly there are times when your only option is to fight to the bitter end. One note: the ACA passed with ZERO Republican votes - ZERO. NADA. NOT ONE. Not a single, solitary Republican vote. Now recall the history of that time, and Obamas back-bend-breaking overtures toward the Republicans and conservatives and 'negotiating with himself' and giving away the farm and compromising even before the first step and so on. What did all that buy him? Not. One. Vote. Ergo - you will absolutely gain nothing, no matter how far you bend. Fight, fight to the end. There are times when compromise is not just foolish, it is simply not possible. With tea-infused Republicans taking over both House and Senate come January, and already declaring war, it's time to fight. With every weapon and all means. Total War.
posted by VikingSword at 12:53 PM on November 19, 2014 [16 favorites]

Well, the Republican leadership definitely does not want another shutdown. I'm not sure they are gonna let the tail wag the dog on this again.

There's an opportunity here for a coup for Boehner/McConnell. The current CR runs through December 11, another CR or a long-term budget will have to be passed to avoid a shutdown during the lame duck session. If Republican Leadership were smart, and assuming they're telling the truth about wanting to avoid shutdown/showdown politics, they'd engineer a long-term appropriations bill for the rest of FY15, and get it passed with Democratic cover they can blame on the lame duck session. That would neuter the shutdown threat until next year, by which point it will be full blown 2016 season.

You know, IF they were serious about making some attempt at vaguely reasonable governance on their watch, a HUGE qualifier.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:58 PM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm not really sure why people think Boehner and McConnell are in control of their caucuses. The base will push for a shutdown and they will probably get it (they don't feel like there was much of a penalty for the party after the last time they forced a shutdown). They will push for impeachment and they will probably get it (but not a conviction, obviously, thanks to Dem votes in the Senate).
posted by longdaysjourney at 1:01 PM on November 19, 2014

That having come to America as an illegal youth and having been here x number of years should somehow qualify your entire family to jump the line. Meanwhile perfectly legal immigration has ground to a halt as the ICE is overwhelmed with all the rules designed to ignore current law, simply at the whim of the democratic leadership.

And the melody to this old song: Tra, la, la, la, Do, Re, Mi, etc.

Old, old song. This country has been founded by illegal immigrants. OK, never mind ancient history (whole couple of centuries!). Look at immigration just in the 20th century. Wave after wave of people who came here not just through official immigration process, but by pure border crossing and nothing else - from all over the world. And then with time they get established (or amnestied a la Reagan in the ancient mid 80's). I personally have dear friends whose grandparents (Jewish) came here totally 100% illegally (via Cuba in this case), and who then became legal and citizens and so on. Do you know how many of the anti-illegal-immigrant blowhards and loudmouths have such "illegal" history in their own freakin' family?

But as ever - pull up the ladder after you've climbed up. Nativists have been at it since the first guys landed here and started building forts.

Yes, the immigration system is broken. You want to stop illegal immigration, have a rational non-racist visa and work permit system, not the utter farce we have right now. Until then, there is no sense in victimizing the current crop of illegal immigrants who are no different from the illegal immigrants of yore.
posted by VikingSword at 1:03 PM on November 19, 2014 [14 favorites]

I'm not really sure why people think Boehner and McDonnell are in control of their caucuses.

Right, but that's why I said "with Democratic cover". If they want to avoid the shutdown, it'll have to be along with Democratic votes sooner or later, there's too many 'baggers in the House that will never vote for any kind of a workable budget that doesnt burn the entire government to the ground and piss on the ashes. Much better I'd think to take that hit now while you can place blame on the lame duck outgoing Congress than when there's no hope of avoiding another shutdown because of a revolt.
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:06 PM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Democrats have had to come back a-courting. Having a Democratic president with veto power, and enough Senate votes for filibusters, meant that those sorts of tactics by centrist-leaning Dems were simply less scary. This November, the Democrats lost despite going back to the old strategy of being slightly less bad than the Republicans for a key non-white group—one that has been very public over the last year or so in saying that the Dems were selling them out. (And the Democratic Party was selling them out.)

I'm not a big fan of the left focusing too much energy on punishing heretical Democrats instead of directing that firepower against Republicans where it belongs, but if you were going to have to take a strategic loss for the good of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party, then the 2014 midterm election was exactly the time to do it, on both moral and practical grounds. All in all, the midterm was a bloodbath for Southern Democrats and mealymouthed Democratic "centrists" of all varieties, which means the pragmatic case for accepting half-loaf compromises is significantly weakened, as the Democratic caucus becomes more reliably liberal across the board.
posted by jonp72 at 1:07 PM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Ah, but they won't get healthcare - because some people might have been angry about it, they'll be much calmer knowing that former illegals will still perish without medical help, they'll feel reassured.

Nice of Obama to bring those disparate strands together.
posted by sgt.serenity at 1:10 PM on November 19, 2014

The OP assumes it is broken when in reality it is not broken it is just that existing laws are not being enforced. What is broken is the attitude that it is not illegal to be illegal.

Excuse me, but violation of immigration laws in this country is still a violation of civil law, not criminal law, despite the treatment of otherwise law-abiding immigrants as criminals and smearing them as "illegals."
posted by jonp72 at 1:10 PM on November 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

Meanwhile perfectly legal immigration has ground to a halt as the ICE is overwhelmed with all the rules designed to ignore current law, simply at the whim of the democratic leadership.

There are two ways in which this is complete horseshit.

The first is simple. As it happens, you can actually look and find out the processing delays for different kinds of immigration and nonimmigrant entry paperwork. So we can look at the California Service Center and find that they're processing H1-Bs on a two month delay, K visas on five months, and I-130s for children under 21 on five months delay. These are boringly normal wait times, at least in comparison to the last time I really cared about wait times in the mid 2000s. Same at the other service centers and the NBC.

tl;dr: perfectly legal immigration is chugging along at the same pace it always does.

Second, even if it were the case that ICE were overwhelmed as you describe, ICE doesn't do immigration. That's dealt with by USCIS, which has been entirely separate from ICE since the dissolution of INS in 2003. ICE being really busy, or not being busy, or being run solely by hamsters, or being entirely imaginary wouldn't affect legal immigration any more than it would affect the EPA or military promotions.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:17 PM on November 19, 2014 [21 favorites]

GungHo, you are mistaken on facts.

What is broken is the attitude that it is not illegal to be illegal.

Sigh. Are you illegal because you sped on your way to work, or to pick up your kids? Have you bought anything from Amazon without paying state sales tax? On preview: see jonp72, above.

That giving out welfare to illegals can somehow qualify them as being no longer indigent, and therefore not subject to deportation, at least on that part of the law.

No undocumented person or person "under color of law" gets welfare. Full stop.

That having come to America as an illegal youth and having been here x number of years should somehow qualify your entire family to jump the line.

They are not "jumping the line." Further, Cesar Vargas, for one, has been here since he was 4. He is American in everything but law, for a situation he had no control over. Also, he was not an "illegal youth." You are literally expecting people to give up their families and everything they hold dear because you've decided that literally growing up in the US isn't sufficient to make them "American"?

Meanwhile perfectly legal immigration has ground to a halt as the ICE is overwhelmed with all the rules designed to ignore current law, simply at the whim of the democratic leadership.

Legal immigration has not ground to a halt. ICE is not "overwhelmed" by directives that are exactly of a piece with prior directives. It's actually their job, you know.

And the real question is why the line takes 20-50 years to grant green cards, not whether people are going to do what they can have real choices and opportunities in life. That scandal of a "line" has everything to do with domestic underfunding and little-to-nothing to do with individual immigrants.

On double-preview: ROU has it even better.

Remember: There but for the grace of God go I.
posted by migrantology at 1:20 PM on November 19, 2014 [13 favorites]

Excuse me, but violation of immigration laws in this country is still a violation of civil law, not criminal law

No, most often it is both.

If you enter the country legally but, say, overstay your visa that's a violation of civil rather than criminal law. But entering the country illegally, as most illegal immigrants do, is a criminal offense. It's not a particularly serious crime but it isn't accurate to say its not a crime at all.
posted by Justinian at 1:38 PM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I love how the same people who are supposedly anti-government, anti-regulation and anti-redtape get upset that immigrants aren't following government regulations to the letter. People who ignore gun laws or EPA rules are freedom fighters but people who forget to send in their visa update application forms in time are "illegals".
posted by octothorpe at 1:49 PM on November 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

But entering the country illegally, as most illegal immigrants do

Actually, the most recent data I've seen is that more immigrants enter with inspection than are EWI. I believe that that data is nestled in one of the Hoefer, Rytina, and Baker reports for DHS from the last several years, but they've started to get behind and I can't recall which publication year is for which fiscal year. (E.g., the 2014 report just came out, which gives demographic information for the 2012 fiscal.)

The Pew Hispanic study from 2006 is now outdated, which is what wikipedia et al refer to. From a social-scientific perspective, that information just should not be in there any longer.

In any case, the number of unauthorized admits who are EWI and who are visa overstayers has been pretty close to 50-50 for over a decade, which is a better way to think about it than to imagine everyone is crossing the desert or in shipping containers.

(Not that I'm meaning to imply that you're doing so, Justinian!)
posted by migrantology at 1:55 PM on November 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

i just had this student announce that she was going to write a research paper about how immigration should be restricted because immigrants bring diseases into the country like ebola. so i guess whatever machine she's plugged into is going crazy with this crap.

the rest of the class is various shades of non-white, so she got some serious side-eye
posted by angrycat at 2:09 PM on November 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

I am currently a permanent resident. I will be applying for citizenship shortly, and it will take around 6 months. If I apply for my sister to come live with me in the US, she will fall under a F4 visa. Currently, they are processing applications from February 1997. That's 17 years.
posted by cobain_angel at 2:21 PM on November 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

Much better I'd think to take that hit now while you can place blame on the lame duck outgoing Congress than when there's no hope of avoiding another shutdown because of a revolt.

Not sure why the Dems would give Boehner and McConnell that cover though? Let the full responsibility for reckless cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face actions rest with the party of those without noses.
posted by longdaysjourney at 2:24 PM on November 19, 2014

The Pew Hispanic study from 2006 is now outdated, which is what wikipedia et al refer to. From a social-scientific perspective, that information just should not be in there any longer.

I'd suggest you go in and remove it if its wrong but unfortunately I'm guessing it would just get you involved in some kind of BS Wikipedia drama rules lawyering.
posted by Justinian at 2:44 PM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

That scandal of a "line" has everything to do with domestic underfunding and little-to-nothing to do with individual immigrants.

Remember when Republicans used to compare just about every government program to waiting in line at the DMV? But now you suddenly have all this enthusiasm on that side for "waiting in line." Funny that.
posted by jonp72 at 2:45 PM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Remember: There but for the grace of God go I.
- How many liberals view peoples plights.-

If you'd get off your lazy ass and get a job you wouldn't need....
- How many conservatives view peoples plights.-
posted by notreally at 4:09 PM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

"With tea-infused Republicans taking over both House and Senate come January, and already declaring war, it's time to fight. With every weapon and all means. Total War."

And this is, ultimately, why progressivism is so dangerous. We're the good guys! They're the bad guys! So, it's OK when we do things that are crazy or evil, because -- we're doing it to fight evil! We're the GOOD guys!!
posted by Alaska Jack at 6:08 PM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Everyone here, other than 100% Native Americans, is an immigrant either directly or by ancestry. Right there is all the reason needed to pass immigration reform.
posted by aryma at 6:36 PM on November 19, 2014

Yet another example of why people who claim Democrats and Republicans are not meaningfully different are full of shit.

Righto! That must be why the White House is citing executive orders by Reagan and Bush as precedents.
posted by Pararrayos at 6:43 PM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

>> Yet another example of why people who claim Democrats and Republicans are not meaningfully different are full of shit.

> Righto! That must be why the White House is citing executive orders by Reagan and Bush as precedents.

Your sarcasm aside, what does this comment even mean? Judges all over the country have been citing Antonin Scalia's dissent in their rulings in favor of gay marriage because they agree with its logic, not because they agree with Scalia's ideology.
posted by RedOrGreen at 7:29 PM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

"And this is, ultimately, why progressivism is so dangerous. We're the good guys! They're the bad guys! So, it's OK when we do things that are crazy or evil, because -- we're doing it to fight evil! We're the GOOD guys!!"

That's why progressivism is so dangerous? You mean conservatives realize they're bad guys and still do what they're doing? Or was this more a zing in your head than on the page?
posted by klangklangston at 8:17 PM on November 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

"And this is, ultimately, why progressivism is so dangerous. We're the good guys! They're the bad guys! So, it's OK when we do things that are crazy or evil, because -- we're doing it to fight evil! We're the GOOD guys!!"

You must have missed the part of the comment where VikingSword was specifically reacting to the Republicans' explicitly stated unwillingness to compromise on anything. If one side is adamant that they aren't going to compromise no matter what, why shouldn't the other side just do their best to fully represent their values and implement what they can, instead of trying for a middle ground that's already off the table anyway?
posted by dialetheia at 8:35 PM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

If one side is adamant that they aren't going to compromise no matter what, why shouldn't the other side just do their best to fully represent their values and implement what they can, instead of trying for a middle ground that's already off the table anyway?

If there's ONE thing you'd think the Democrats would have learned over the past six years...yet they still brought up the Keystone pipeline vote JUST FUCKING YESTERDAY in some sort of misguided attempt to prove to Republicans just how much they reallyreallyreally love oil youguyspromise. Instead of, I don't know, confirming some nominees with the precious few seconds of floor time left under Dem control?

Oh and the vote failed, and Mary Landrieu is still down 32 points in the polls. Woocoodaknode?

Preemptive surrender is everything, as it always was, so shall it always be.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:54 PM on November 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

Immigration, shmimmigration; tomorrow is when he whips out his Kenyan birth certificate in front of a national audience.
posted by Renoroc at 9:01 PM on November 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

"Well, we have a civil religion in this country. And he ( Jefferson) provided a catechism. I mean, every religion ought to have a catechism: here is what we believe. Want to be an American? Here’s what you will believe. No one knows how you become French. No one knows where Germany comes from—it sort of emerges from the mists. We know when we started. We know the afternoon: July 4, 1776. And we know how to become an American: you come here and you assent. Then you’re an American, just as American as anybody whose family has been here for 10 generations. You’re in. You’re it! That’s what an American is. What Jefferson did was, he said, “Here’s your catechism. We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that all just governments derive their justice and their legitimacy from the consent of the governed. “ You go down the list and at the end of the day say, "I tick them off, put them on the refrigerator door, and....see, I’m an American."
-George F. Will

He has a nice Betsy Ross cadence but the essence is true.

Let the people stay.
posted by clavdivs at 9:02 PM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

And you are quoting George F Will. Weird.
posted by SPrintF at 9:22 PM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

And I did and do you know why
It is the bow tie.
Chatting Jeffersonian
Come here/ ascent

Getting here seems a nightmare
I watch PBS.
"Let the people stay"
Is shorter.

Because not to acknowledge people as citizens who live here and ascent is wrong.

So I agree with Thom and George.
Typing is weird yeah
bloody little thumb I have an the keyboard made for miniature steam- punk Jefferson.
posted by clavdivs at 9:42 PM on November 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

I've said this a bunch of times, but for the first hundred years of the USA's existence it didn't have any immigration laws. None at all! The first really general immigration law (as opposed to ones designed to keep Asians out) was the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. It imposed quotas that both reduced the overall numbers of migrants and, by imposing a classification system, changed the demographic balance of those admitted.

There are too many conflating factors to say that this pick-and-choose approach was less successful than the systems that preceded it, but the last adult immigrants who migrated before 1921 would have retired around 1970. I think it's fair to say that their working lives encompassed the greatest period of prosperity the USA has ever known.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:57 PM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Righto! That must be why the White House is citing executive orders by Reagan and Bush as precedents.

Reagan and Bush I were a long time ago. The republican party has morphed into something far worse (and weird) since those halcyon days of yore.
posted by octothorpe at 6:01 AM on November 20, 2014

Do tell.
posted by clavdivs at 7:21 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

I seriously kind of love Bush I at this point. I remember the whole broccoli thing, and how after his presidency he jumped into a truck filled with broccoli, picked some broccoli up, and proclaimed, "broccoli man."

Now if I start nostalgia-ing after Bush II, that future me will have to be in post-apocalyptic times, I think. Something like, 'Now Dick Cheney, even he would find this warlord activity unacceptable.'
posted by angrycat at 8:14 AM on November 20, 2014 [4 favorites]

And So The Immigration Uproar Begins

And this is before he does anything. This is pre-emptive high-sterics, the warm-up pitches, as it were. The really unmoored rhetoric is just now being uncrated and dusted off, as the Republicans once again try to conjure up a Watergate of their very own. (They've been mad for one for over 40 years.)

posted by tonycpsu at 8:39 AM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

I've said this a bunch of times, but for the first hundred years of the USA's existence it didn't have any immigration laws. None at all!

Indeed, the Declaration of Independence basically equates restrictions on immigration with tyranny.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:01 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Immigration, shmimmigration; tomorrow is when he whips out his Kenyan birth certificate in front of a national audience.

For a national audience to see this stunning turn of events, however, we will all need to tune into Univision and Telemundo.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:53 AM on November 20, 2014

No undocumented person or person "under color of law" gets welfare. Full stop.
posted by migrantology at 4:20 PM on November 19 [11 favorites +] [!]

Ahem, Illegals do get welfare, food stamps, housing, etc. There are restrictions, but they do get it. In Massachusetts they get even more.

Food stamps, if they have a child born in the USA, (Anchor baby) they get Federal assistance.
Federal Housing assistance, if they live with a legal resident. Massachusetts and certain cities have their own programs — and they do not ask applicants about their immigration status. That’s because of a class action lawsuit that ended with a federal consent decree prohibiting the state from denying housing to illegal immigrants. ( Obama's Aunt Zetuni lived in Boston Public housing on welfare.)
Federal healthcare, No, but Massachusetts has something that’s called the Health Care Safety Net. That includes coverage for people younger than 19, pregnant women and emergency treatments. Illegal immigrants can access this.
posted by Gungho at 11:16 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

For a national audience to see this stunning turn of events, however, we will all need to tune into Univision and Telemundo.

Wow, completely absurd. They aren't even pretending they use those airwaves to serve the public anymore.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:20 AM on November 20, 2014

Gungho, please stop referring to people as 'illegals.' It is an inherently dehumanizing term. 'Illegal immigrants,' okay, but 'illegals' reduces actual living and breathing people to objects.

'Anchor baby' is just as gross.

Obama's Aunt Zetuni lived in Boston Public housing on welfare.

What does that have to do with anything at all?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:23 AM on November 20, 2014 [10 favorites]

Enough of this racist "illegals" crap. Illegal is an adjective, not a noun.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:24 AM on November 20, 2014 [6 favorites]

Gungho: Ahem, Illegals do get welfare, food stamps, housing, etc. There are restrictions, but they do get it. In Massachusetts they get even more.

I hope you're not an accountant by day, because you're looking at the spending side of the books without looking at the revenue side:

Economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States

Most arguments against illegal immigration begin with the premise that the illegal don't pay income taxes, and that they therefore take more in services than they contribute. However, IRS estimates that about 6 million unauthorized immigrants file individual income tax returns each year.[21] Research reviewed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office indicates that between 30 percent and 50 percent of unauthorized immigrants pay federal, state, and local taxes.[21] Illegal immigrants are estimated to pay in about $7 billion per year into Social Security.[26] In addition, they spend millions of dollars per year, which supports the US economy and helps to create new jobs. The Texas State Comptroller reported in 2006 that the 1.4 million illegal immigrants in Texas alone added almost $18 billion to the state's budget, and paid $1.2 billion in state services they used.[27]

But maybe Texas is just too liberal to report the "real" numbers.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:24 AM on November 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

Wow, completely absurd. They aren't even pretending they use those airwaves to serve the public anymore.

I know there are people from the news media who read this site, including reporters from the NYTimes (which has remained quiet about this) so I just want to say to you folks that you have one job — just one job — which is to report on major news events that affect the public, and you're absolutely utter shit at that job. Congratulations.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:31 AM on November 20, 2014 [7 favorites]

Federal healthcare, No, but Massachusetts has something that’s called the Health Care Safety Net. That includes coverage for people younger than 19, pregnant women and emergency treatments. Illegal immigrants can access this.

I'm sorry, are we supposed to be appalled that children, pregnant women and people in crisis can access healthcare regardless of whether or not they happened to have been born on one patch of earth versus another patch?

Personally I'd rather not have pregnant women or little kids die despite their immigration status.
posted by winna at 11:51 AM on November 20, 2014 [10 favorites]

Also, HSN isn't exclusive to Massachusetts, nor is it insurance. It's their implementation of the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, signed into law by Ronaldus Magnus himself, which ensures that anyone within American borders has access to emergency services. Furthermore--and this is a very important distinction--it's a reimbursement model for health care providers, not patients. It's only "healthcare coverage" inasmuch as anyone has access to those services, regardless of income or immigration status or age.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:03 PM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

Obama's Aunt Zetuni lived in Boston Public housing on welfare.
What does that have to do with anything at all?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:23 PM on November 20 [2 favorites +] [!]

Because she was an illegal immigrant who received public assistance and is mentioned in refute to the earlier blanket statement that illegal immigrants do not receive public assistance "period".

'm sorry, are we supposed to be appalled that children,...can access healthcare regardless of whether or not they happened to have been born on one patch of earth versus another patch?
Personally I'd rather not have pregnant women or little kids die despite their immigration status.
posted by winna at 2:51 PM on November 20 [2 favorites +] [!]

Again, merely stating a fact in refute to an earlier pollyanna statement. If some people don't know the facts and are allowed to state myths as truth, well what kind of a hand basket will that weave? Illegal immigrants, and really, no matter what label you prefer, are here illegally, and do benefit from the largess of the state.
posted by Gungho at 12:05 PM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

The numbers cited above show that they pay far more into the state than they receive, so that argument holds no water.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:06 PM on November 20, 2014 [4 favorites]

if they have a child born in the USA, (Anchor baby) they get Federal assistance.

"They", "they". Anyone who uses that term - "Anchor baby" - instantly loses all credibility. May as well go for the n-word or any number of slurs. You're done. Your bigotry is showing.

A child born on U.S. soil is a full citizen, per the constitution, full stop. To disparage a child and politicise their birth is not merely gross in itself, but is used by racists to refer to children of color. Strangely, children were born in the U.S. to non-citizens for centuries now, and only when Latino undocumented immigrants have children, do they become an "anchor baby". Disgusting bigotry from people using this term is something that brands the users quite unmistakably.
posted by VikingSword at 12:11 PM on November 20, 2014 [20 favorites]

Jesus, the image that The Washington Times uses for this article about the president's initiative.
posted by octothorpe at 12:15 PM on November 20, 2014

Haha, I was about to remind you that the Times is one of those outlets like WND that you should always just expect will be posting something dumb and insane but that one was unexpectedly over the top even for them.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:23 PM on November 20, 2014

Anchor baby

""Anchor baby" is a pejorative term for a child born in the United States to immigrant parents, who, as an American citizen, supposedly can later facilitate immigration for relatives.[1][2][3][4] The term is generally used as a derogatory reference to the supposed role of the child, who automatically qualifies as an American citizen and can later act as a sponsor for other family members.[2][5]"

"n. Offensive Used as a disparaging term for a child born to a noncitizen mother in a country that grants automatic citizenship to children born on its soil, especially when the child's birthplace is thought to have been chosen in order to improve the mother's or other relatives' chances of securing eventual citizenship."

This is an offensive disparaging slur, by commonly accepted community standards. I'd rather not see it used on Metafilter, same as I'd like not to see other slurs used.
posted by VikingSword at 12:23 PM on November 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

If some people don't know the facts and are allowed to state myths as truth...

It takes some big fuckin' stones to say that after your whoppers earlier in the thread.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:25 PM on November 20, 2014 [4 favorites]

If some people don't know the facts and are allowed to state myths as truth...

It takes some big fuckin' stones to say that after your whoppers earlier in the thread.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:25 PM on November 20 [2 favorites +] [!]

Please explain. Whoppers? What exactly is incorrect? That Illegal immigrants, or would you prefer undocumented alians, do in fact collect federal and (some) state benefits? (Quoted from NPR, not Fox by the way...)
posted by Gungho at 1:51 PM on November 20, 2014

do benefit from the largess of the state.

If the state get back 15 times what it pays out in benefits, then it's not the "illegals" benefiting, it's us "legals" who are benefiting.
posted by tonycpsu at 1:56 PM on November 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

Gungho, if you want to discuss moderation, you're welcome to use the contact form or make a post in MetaTalk. Please don't do it in the thread, as it will get deleted.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 1:58 PM on November 20, 2014

Dude, I quoted for you definitions, including from wikipedia, that clearly labels the term you used as derogatory, pejorative and disparaging. Whether it's a "common colloquialism" in your usage is irrelevant - the n-word was a common colloquialism among certain people too, but we don't use slurs around here, and I can tell you, that I have never heard that term used by people around me, as it is recognized as a slur (as is common knowledge - see the references).

I can assure you that it is possible to discuss race relations without referring to black people using the n-word, even if it's a "common colloquialism" to some, and I assure you that it is possible to discuss immigration without using the slur that you used and are now doubling down on.

Do you think you are capable of rational discussion without insisting on using bigoted slurs, or do you not have access to any other vocabulary, colloquial or not?
posted by VikingSword at 1:59 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Whoppers? What exactly is incorrect?

"Meanwhile perfectly legal immigration has ground to a halt as the ICE is overwhelmed with all the rules designed to ignore current law, simply at the whim of the democratic leadership."

Not even within shouting distance of fact.

Please stop calling them illegals. Seriously. You yourself may not be racist but the word is. It is not okay, and the only effect of using that word is to dehumanize an entire group of people. 'Anchor baby' is exactly the same.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:00 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Not even within shouting distance of fact.

Not even possible to ever be true, more to the point.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:04 PM on November 20, 2014

Can I call them "unlawful"? would that make the reality a little easier to swallow? You can wrap it up in a bow for all I care the fact is a net negative. I live in a city where it costs over 10,300 per student per year in K-12 education. This year alone our schools welcomed 260 new unlawful immigrant students. In order to fund their special needs, clearly 1/2 are illiterate at their level, the city has had to cut funds from other basic services, and increased the school budget 9.3 percent this year and had to decrease all the other departments 2 to 5 percent to make it up. In 2010, the average unlawful immigrant household received around $24,721 in government benefits and services while paying some $10,334 in taxes. This generated an average annual fiscal deficit (benefits received minus taxes paid) of around $14,387 per household.

And when immigration workers are working on applications from 1997, I'd say that is a fact that the system is ground to a halt.
posted by Gungho at 2:09 PM on November 20, 2014

And when immigration workers are working on applications from 1997, I'd say that is a fact that the system is ground to a halt.

I guess you missed the part upthread where it was explained that illegal immigration has no effect--none, zero, zip, zilch--on legal immigration queues. None at all.

Can I call them "unlawful"? would that make the reality a little easier to swallow?

You're being deliberately obtuse at this point. 'Unlawful' and 'illegal' are synonymous adjectives. They are fine to use. 'Illegals' is a noun which obliterates the humanity of the people in question.

Regarding your numbers: you will have to provide actual citations for those if you want anyone to take you seriously. This, already quoted above, contradicts what you say. In Texas alone, illegal immigrants contribute over ten times to the economy what they take out.

Plus you're ignoring how much of the US economy is predicated on illegal immigrants taking the shittiest jobs. Who do you think picks your fruit and vegetables, cleans your houses and offices and hotels, etc?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:19 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Gungho: In 2010, the average unlawful immigrant household received around $24,721 in government benefits and services while paying some $10,334 in taxes. This generated an average annual fiscal deficit (benefits received minus taxes paid) of around $14,387 per household.

So it's your uncited figures against the figures of a state official whose job it is to worry about these things in a state that borders Mexico. Can you at least provide a link?
posted by tonycpsu at 2:25 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Gungho's source for some of those numbers is a Heritage Foundation study released in 2013. So consider the source of those paragons of objective research. What's amusing is how every single immigration wave is greeted the same way by the nativists, who themselves are often not more than a generation removed from their families having immigrated here legally or not. But you always hear the same complaints about the impact on the job market, being a drain on the economy, inclined to crime, illiterate, diseased and bent on destroying civilization. Funny, the same people often have similar complaints about black people, even though they didn't come to these shores voluntarily at all - whelp, you could I guess say they came here illegally (and btw. these people also have choice slurs for black babies). Nothing new here, same old nativist bigotry all over again.
posted by VikingSword at 2:27 PM on November 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

In 2010, the average unlawful immigrant household received around $24,721 in government benefits and services while paying some $10,334 in taxes. This generated an average annual fiscal deficit (benefits received minus taxes paid) of around $14,387 per household.

So it looks like you're using the Heritage study (poo-pooed by noted liberals such as Paul Ryan and Jeff Flake), which, oy vey there's a ton of problems there. It's been noted for taking the absolute highest numbers that one could come up with, essentially pulling them from thin air. And of course, by your assessment, you should be angrier at the citizens of Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Alabama, Kentucky, North Dakota, Virginia, Arizona, Tennessee, and Louisiana. Each of them are larger drains on the US economy than the entirety of the undocumented immigrant population in the worst-case scenarios offered by Heritage. And also, interestingly enough, there's much more of a correlation between the states with the highest populations and shares of the population of undocumented immigrants and those with the highest fiscal surplus, which corroborates the state-level numbers provided in this thread.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:51 PM on November 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

And when immigration workers are working on applications from 1997, I'd say that is a fact that the system is ground to a halt.

You're kinda doing it again. As I noted earlier, the processing times for the various service centers and the National Benefits Center are available online. It's always possible that I missed something, but the longest delay I noticed was in the California Service Center for citizens sponsoring their married adult children or siblings, where they were processing petitions from 2010. You could look this up for yourself. It requires no special access, no special knowledge to interpret, no obscure analytical techniques. It's all right there. All it requires is a modicum of commitment to checking facts.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:46 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Sorry, misread the statistics on the deficit in total vs per capita. Even taking that into account though, the picture doesn't change much, with the states where taxpayers contribute to the deficit in comparable or higher numbers including Mississippi, New Mexico, Alabama, Louisiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida, Hawaii, and Indiana. And even with the totals, Florida alone contributes almost as much to the deficit as the entire undocumented immigrant population. Nor does it change the immigrant population vis-a-vis states' fiscal surplus.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:47 PM on November 20, 2014

Here's the text of the address for anyone who likes spoilers. Speech will be on in about an hour from now.
posted by Drinky Die at 4:01 PM on November 20, 2014

(Oops, not text of speech, just a press release leak on what the proposal is.)
posted by Drinky Die at 4:02 PM on November 20, 2014

This the study he's referencing, I'm pretty sure.

By noted white supremacist academic Jason Richwine. Consider the source indeed.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:50 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Can I call them "unlawful"?

Maybe you could call them human beings.
posted by octothorpe at 4:55 PM on November 20, 2014 [4 favorites]

Nailed it.
posted by The White Hat at 5:17 PM on November 20, 2014

(Oops, not text of speech, just a press release leak on what the proposal is.)

So basically, as predicted, it's expanding DACA to cover parents of citizens and LPRs. Cool.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:26 PM on November 20, 2014

Senator: Obama’s Immigration Action Could Make Ferguson Violence ‘Worse’
posted by homunculus at 5:26 PM on November 20, 2014

Mayor of Nogales is not nailing it.
posted by The White Hat at 5:31 PM on November 20, 2014

Senator: Obama’s Immigration Action Could Make Ferguson Violence ‘Worse’

At what point did we become a nation lead by spammy twitterbots?
posted by Sreiny at 5:32 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Neil Munro from the Daily Caller was heckling President Obama during his speech. In the Rose Garden. That's absurd and I don't understand why he keeps getting credentialed.
posted by Justinian at 6:09 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

By noted white supremacist academic Jason Richwine. Consider the source indeed.

To be fair (hah!) there's only evidence that he's a racist, not a white supremacist. Plenty of racists are not white supremacists which is more of a political ideology.
posted by Justinian at 6:11 PM on November 20, 2014

No, Your Ancestors Didn't Come Here Legally
posted by octothorpe at 7:04 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

"To be fair (hah!) there's only evidence that he's a racist, not a white supremacist. Plenty of racists are not white supremacists which is more of a political ideology."

Depends on your use of the term. bell hooks wouldn't require that white supremacism be a political ideology rather than a description.
posted by klangklangston at 7:11 PM on November 20, 2014

No, Your Ancestors Didn't Come Here Legally

The author of this article starts out from the laughably incorrect premise that if there's no law about a particular set of actions, then those actions cannot be legal or illegal. In reality, if something's not forbidden, it is generally permitted.

If one's ancestors' immigration was not proscribed by the laws at the time, then said ancestors did, in fact, immigrate legally.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 7:42 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

If one's ancestors' immigration was not proscribed by the laws at the time, then said ancestors did, in fact, immigrate legally.

Doesn't apply for any European immigrants, even from the very beginning. If the immigration (back in the beginning) involved displacement and genocide of the people who already occupied the territory, it's rather pointless to describe such immigration as "legal". There was no law specifically giving them the right to commit genocide. Talking about the law in this context is beside the point... unless it's about a moral law, which they would be in severe breach of, if their morality was based in, as they proclaimed, Christianity. For that matter even if there was a law that specifically allowed those 'immigrants' to come and commit genocide, it would be a law we'd abhor anyone for obeying - that's what we do today to those who legally - fully legally - owned human beings. Obeying such laws would not be a point of pride, nor such 'legal' immigration. But as it stands, there was no law specifically allowing it, therefore no, one cannot talk about "legally immigrating" back then.
posted by VikingSword at 8:23 PM on November 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

If one's ancestors' immigration was not proscribed by the laws at the time, then said ancestors did, in fact, immigrate legally.

Yeah, the author's point was more that they didn't make any conscious choice to obey the law. They just came, and probably would have anyway if it was technically illegal but still occurring by the millions. Honestly, it's not impossible some would be deterred just out of a desire not to break the law. I imagine everyone who says their ancestors came legally to condemn current illegal immigrants likely imagines their ancestors would certainly have been the type to be deterred.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:31 PM on November 20, 2014

there was no law specifically allowing it

And no law specifically disallowing it. That makes it legal by default.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 8:33 PM on November 20, 2014

Two points I'd like to make to GungHo:

1. This country has plenty of white women, natural citizens, who live on "welfare" for 25 years by giving birth to a child every 5 years or so. That often continues with the older daughters having babies and remaining at home, which keeps the cycle going even when the original Mom is too old to keep having more children. Would you call those babies "anchor babies?" They certainly anchor the families in the "welfare" system.

Note that MOST of our single parents on "welfare" are not that way; most are in school or in training to get a decent job and using food assistance and subsidized housing only as long as they must, but I bring this up, obviously, because you use the nasty term "anchor babies" as specific to illegal immigrants but you completely ignore the white families who also take advantage of the system.

2. I put the word "welfare" in quotes because it's a very broad term and means different things depending on who's doing the speech. For instance, our "welfare" system gives food stamps to thousands of military families - which, in your opinion, means they're on "welfare," right? There's a big outcry right now about WalMart employees who are eligible for food stamps because their hourly rate is so low; these also are mostly white American citizens, but they're holding down jobs, yet you'd call them "welfare" recipients, right? WalMart's on top, but Target and Kroger employees are also on SNAP, as are part-time employees of all sorts and, of course, fast food workers - not at all limited to McDonald's. Do you consider unemployment benefits "welfare?" Loads of white Americans are on unemployment. As for HUD-subsidized housing, here in my city there's a three-year waiting list for anyone and everyone, legal or illegal citizens - not even a doctor's request will get you moved up on that list. I don't know, but I'd seriously doubt that white American citizens are in a minority on that list - in the building I live in, 50% of us are on subsidized housing and we're almost all white. Not slackers, either - we all worked for at least 30 years, some much longer.

Oh, make it three points:

3. Just so you know - if you're visiting in Mexico and you get sick or need immediate medical attention, just go to any hospital - you're in. And the quality of care is good enough that Americans travel TO Mexico and Costa Rica and similar areas for excellent cancer treatment at half the cost - top notch medical care using the latest AMA-approved methods and some others that are approved in Europe but not yet here in the States. My friend, who lives in Louisiana, was 44 when she got lymphoma. She had just started a new job and her insurance hadn't yet been approved; it was, of course, denied as soon as the lymphoma showed up (this was about 10 years ago). She had surgery, which she paid for, then some chemotherapy, but soon her money ran out and she went to the State for help. They'd help her, but she had a mortgage payment - she was buying her own home - so the home's value was considered an asset and she was ineligible for financial help with her medical bills as long as she had an asset worth that much money. So - her options came down to one: Sell the house, use the money to pay for some chemo treatments and when that money ran out, go to the State for help. She'd only been paying on her home for about five years and didn't want to give it up since her children were happy there. She put it on the market, but it didn't sell; she lowered the price - it still didn't sell; she needed chemo NOW - still the house wouldn't sell. She went to Costa Rica and received 18 chemo treatments in a modern, snazzy hospital setting at a price which they worked with her to manage, and she kept her house. It wasn't easy and the kids were uprooted for awhile and the house rented out and it was tough, but cancer IS tough. She came out just fine - and she was, and is, an American citizen.

You can get medical treatment if you need it in Mexico - and they don't call it "welfare."

For you to think it's okay to use disparaging terms for other people means you consider yourself superior to those people and you know what? You're wrong, and you should be ashamed.
posted by aryma at 8:36 PM on November 20, 2014 [10 favorites]

Hey aryma... glad to hear your friend is okay. I hope she stays that way :)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:41 PM on November 20, 2014

And no law specifically disallowing it. That makes it legal by default.

No. Legal means allowed by law. There was no law, so the entire concept of legality ceases to pertain to the situation.
posted by dialetheia at 8:56 PM on November 20, 2014

dialetheia, unless I'm totally mistaken, the general principle in western (common law, at least, which isn't everywhere) jurisprudence is that anything not forbidden by law is therefore legal; the law operates as a negative force. We don't write laws that state it is legal to hand your neighbour an apple; we write laws saying it's illegal to hurl an apple at your neighbour's face.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:02 PM on November 20, 2014

That's right. There is no law specifically allowing me to post on Metafilter. That doesn't mean it isn't legal for me to do so.
posted by Justinian at 9:20 PM on November 20, 2014

Technically one could point to the first amendment, I suppose, but the main point remains. Anything not illegal is legal by default.
posted by Justinian at 9:21 PM on November 20, 2014

the general principle in western (common law, at least, which isn't everywhere) jurisprudence

Yup, which did not pertain to the Americas when Europeans started to move here. That was the original point of argument, right? Whether the Europeans who came to the Americas were legal or illegal immigrants? There was no law of the land in the sense that we're talking about, so it makes no sense to frame it in terms of "legal" or "illegal" at all. It might make sense if people were arguing that tribal laws were the existing laws of the land in their respective territories, and that those laws didn't expressly forbid immigration, but I don't think American settlers really recognized those laws anyway so that seems like a poor argument too.
posted by dialetheia at 9:39 PM on November 20, 2014

I took it to be more about people who came to the United States after the establishment of the American government.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:11 PM on November 20, 2014

Oh you're right, apologies, I must have missed the specific referent to that article - I thought it was to the more general common rejoinder that many of our ancestors didn't come here legally because we stole the land to begin with.
posted by dialetheia at 10:20 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well, we (as in Europeans) did do that.

I guess what I'm saying is, from the POV of British common law it was legal, but from the POV of both moral law and First Nations law it was... suspect, at least.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:27 PM on November 20, 2014

I don't believe it was all legal, even under English law. The colonisation of America was notoriously full of deliberate treaty breaches and actual invasions. Even stipulating that English colonial migration to Virginia was legal under English law, that did not give the colonists the right to invade Native American lands outside the colony. Every colonist doing so was, in effect, an illegal immigrant to Native American lands.

The same pattern of private invasion followed by colonial acquisition was repeated as the colonised frontier expanded, and continued right up until the Mexican-American War, if not later. These conquests were frequently justified by the fact that US citizens were occupying the disputed territory - the illegal immigration was used to justify an illegal (by our standards) war. I should add that if you hold these wars to be illegal you might consider the USA, as an entity, to be illegally residing on those lands. If so, it's a crime that is similar to illegal immigration in itself.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:58 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm thrilled by this. The people who won't be deported are my students and their parents. Yay, Obama!
posted by persona au gratin at 11:22 PM on November 20, 2014 [6 favorites]

Thanks, Obama.
posted by benito.strauss at 11:55 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

I should add that if you hold these wars to be illegal you might consider the USA, as an entity, to be illegally residing on those lands.

You could say the same thing about half of Europe.

Anyway, back on topic, I think Obama did about the best thing he could. As far as I can tell, the order is tailored so that it helps those who were brought to the U.S. before they could make the choice to do so, and those U.S. citizens and permanent residents who might otherwise have a family member deported. That's basically the complete set of people to whom the U.S. government would have a moral obligation to provide this kind of relief.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 5:32 AM on November 21, 2014

The First Peoples were actually quite diverse and while some of the First Nations had structures that look like laws (to the point where a lot of people credit the Iroquois with a lot of features of the U.S. Constitution) a lot of them didn't, and they shared a nearly universal attitude that land could not be owned by humans.

When Indian nations came into conflict over resource usage, they didn't make laws about it; if neither side was willing to budge they did just what the Europeans would have done and made war until one side was either dead or decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Particularly in the early days before anyone realized what a bunch of lying murderous kleptomaniacs the Europeans were prone to be, I think it would have been quite uncharacteristic of them to say something like "this is our land, go away" to the newcomers. So the idea of the European invaders being "illegal immigrants" is kind of nonsensical, because the whole idea of having a law about such a thing was alien to the way Native Americans viewed the land.

Even when the Native Americans made war with the European invaders, they don't seem to have taken it as being about land ownership so much as land usage and more practical matters like survival. The whole idea of land grants and treaties was a European game, which they played mainly because their other means of dealing with European encroachment on their communities were so unsuccessful.

As for European law, it is generally regarded that anything not explicitly forbidden is permitted, and the First Amendment is no exception; it forbids the government to make new laws which might in their turn forbid certain things which the Founders wanted to guarantee would remain legal.

So no, there really is no practical sense in which the Europeans were "illegal immigrants" in those days. Now you can call bullshit on a lot of the stuff those guys did once they were here, but nobody regarded simply coming here and making communities as wrong.
posted by localroger at 6:49 AM on November 21, 2014

localroger, as mentioned above, first the English and then the US government did have laws whose aim was to keep white people off of Indian land. They were widely disobeyed, so it is in fact a perfectly fair characterization of the situation to describe those who settled on Indian land illegal immigrants. Well, more accurately illegal emigrants, but settling in a place in contravention of the law regardless.
posted by wierdo at 7:01 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

"When Indian nations came into conflict over resource usage, they didn't make laws about it; if neither side was willing to budge they did just what the Europeans would have done and made war until one side was either dead..."

I want to see a cite for that generalization.
posted by clavdivs at 7:40 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

They were widely disobeyed, so it is in fact a perfectly fair characterization of the situation to describe those who settled on Indian land illegal immigrants.

This is very different from the original characterization of every European settler being an illegal immigrant simply because of sailing from Europe to Turtle Island to set up household. Those laws didn't exist until Europeans had been here long enough for enough conflicts to arise that the Europeans themselves recognized a need for such laws.

I want to see a cite for that generalization.

cite

Despite myths to the contrary, not all Native Americans were peaceful. Like Europe, the American continent faced tribal warfare that sometimes led to human and cultural destruction.
...
Lifestyles varied greatly. Most tribes were domestic, but the Lakota followed the buffalo as nomads. Most engaged in war, but the Apache were particularly feared, while the Hopis were pacifistic.
...
The greatest misunderstanding was that of land ownership. In the minds of the Algonkians selling land was like selling air. Eventually this confusion would lead to armed conflict.
...
Although the [Iroquois] tribes began to work together, they surely did not renounce war. They fought and captured other native tribes as well as wave after wave of European immigrants who presented themselves. They fought the early French and British settlers. During the French and Indian War they remained officially neutral, but would join either side to exploit an advantage. Both sides courted Iroquois support during the Revolution. As a result, there was a split in the Confederacy for the first time in over 200 years. Iroquois fought Iroquois once more.

posted by localroger at 7:55 AM on November 21, 2014

No roger, a cite that they had no laws ( which is obvious) and then just waged war ( because the absence of the word 'law') when someone would not 'budge'which does not jive as it implies no system of mediation.
Burial grounds- how does that fit into your notion of real estate. What about supersition?
posted by clavdivs at 8:19 AM on November 21, 2014

I apologize for the 'grrr' localroger.
You do not deserve that bull hanky.
posted by clavdivs at 8:27 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

For you to think it's okay to use disparaging terms for other people means you consider yourself superior to those people and you know what? You're wrong, and you should be ashamed.
posted by aryma at 11:36 PM on November 20 [8 favorites +] [!]

I'd like to reply but the mods feel it is not relevant.

Many of the points above re Whites on welfare and Mexican hospitals are also irrelevant. Many states are working on improving welfare to allow people to work and earn enough to get themselves out. However as you mentioned some people live within the system quite easily for decades. If you don't see a problem with that then there will be no convincing you how abusive that is. As mentioned above anyone, ANYONE, who needs to go to the emergency room will not be denied service. So your point about Mexican hospitals is moot.
posted by Gungho at 11:50 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

For those about to rock, We use Google!

Perhaps you could ease back on the snark, considering (a) it's pretty poor form to cite specific numbers without a link, which forces everyone else reading your argument to go digging for details, (b) Heritage's ideological bias is obvious, and (c) the fact that zombieflanders launched your argument deep into the cheap seats with a thorough debunking of those numbers, including two staunch Tea Party friendly conservatives distancing themselves from them.

You've repeatedly refuse to acknowledge the fact that the illegal immigrant population is a net positive to the rest of us, both because they often work at below-market rates and because they often pay into programs they can never draw benefits from. If all you have to back you up is a single widely-discredited Heritage study, then we probably ought to just move on.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:55 AM on November 21, 2014 [4 favorites]

Numbers driven by ideology are useless, Gungho.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:05 PM on November 21, 2014

For those about to rock, We use Google!

Yes, we already went over how those are numbers from a right-wing think tank, numbers that even other right-wingers find fishy, and don't seem to be well-supported by other data from official sources.

Many of the points above re Whites on welfare and Mexican hospitals are also irrelevant.

Not only are they highly relevant (since you seem to think that being a fiscal drain is A Bad Thing worthy of more government intervention), but the point aryma was discussing was racist terminology. If you can't get your point about highly racialized political issues across without being racist, and furthermore keep on whining about how important being racist is to the conversation, the chances that your argument holds much (if any) water is pretty slim.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:17 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Search For John Boehner's Balls Goes On
posted by homunculus at 1:31 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]

"That's basically the complete set of people to whom the U.S. government would have a moral obligation to provide this kind of relief."

There are also a significant number of LGBT immigrants who came here to escape persecution, and even more broadly quite a few people from Central America who have come to escape murderous gangs.

"a lot of them didn't, and they shared a nearly universal attitude that land could not be owned by humans. "

Actually, that's not really true at all. There's a huge variety in Native American concepts of land ownership and control, and there's a lot of contemporary writing about the Narragansett and Roger Williams that deals specifically with these questions. The Narragansett, and many other nations who first dealt with the New England colonists, had a collective land use view that saw land access and production rights as something that could be owned by a sachem (and disposed of thereby) without recognizing internal divisions of land ownership. Because of this, they understood granting exclusive land access to a bounded area as a power of a sachem that could be applied to property given to English settlers, and that once given would preclude (absent authorization) their use of said land. Functionally, it's very similar to the open field land use schemes that were just dying out in Europe during the time the colonists were arriving in America; in other places (Virginia and Pennsylvania) there was open conflict between colonial groups over the different entitlements of open field, closed field and squatter schemes of property management.

The primary spectrum of conception of property rights among Native Americans is based on how nomadic that nation was. Many of the New England nations were semi-nomadic and migrated through a territory; they tended not to accumulate surplus land, but did do things like bury agricultural stores and return to them. They also practiced aggressive forestry management with burning large swaths of forest in order to clear underbrush and improve hunting. Those nations that had a more sedentary agricultural culture tended to have clearer conceptions of humans owning land, though again that ownership was primarily vested in the sovereign of the nation, not individual members.

The other big indication we have of attitudes toward property rights comes from the New England experience of purchasing land from Native Americans. For the majority of early New England colonization (pre-French and Indian wars), land was both purchased from and by Native Americans in and around colonies. The big shift in attitudes toward purchase came immediately after the American Revolution, in which most Native American nations had taken the side of England, since England had often protected Native American land claims from expropriation by colonists. But since England lost, the Board of Indian Commissioners told Native American nations that had sided with England that purchase of their land was no longer necessary for legitimate appropriation, and instead that they could be treated as a conquered enemy at the convenience of the U.S.

Sorry, this is a really pernicious myth that I think reduces the complex relationships between geography, environment and property within various Native American nations into a flat, noble savage stereotype that doesn't represent the understandings of a great many nations and was historically used to bolster the claims of land appropriation — you can see a direct example of that in Bacon's Rebellion, where the idea that the Pamunkey's hunting culture justified expropriation of their lands (the Pamunkey are another example of differing conceptions of land ownership that don't support that thesis — they were Algonquin, but believed that land could only be owned by people while it was being actively farmed, thus fallow fields were public land).
posted by klangklangston at 1:33 PM on November 21, 2014 [7 favorites]

You've repeatedly refuse to acknowledge the fact that the illegal immigrant population is a net positive to the rest of us, both because they often work at below-market rates and because they often pay into programs they can never draw benefits from. If all you have to back you up is a single widely-discredited Heritage study, then we probably ought to just move on.
posted by tonycpsu An hour ago [3 favorites +]

Just because you believe lower wages is a net positive does not mean I have to. Just because you do not agree with a source does not make it any less valid. Would you rather I cite a Forbes article about the CBO report that shows a net benefit of 1.7 billion a year? Sounds nice, except it assumes legaized immigrants will no longer require federal welfare... We know what happens when one assumes.
posted by Gungho at 2:12 PM on November 21, 2014

… so, no you don't have a better source than the debunked Heritage nonsense, and citing an opinion piece from Forbes online that makes a dog's breakfast of a CBO report doesn't help.

Seriously, did you watch Gangs of New York and think Bill the Butcher was the tragic hero or something?
posted by klangklangston at 2:23 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]

As mentioned above anyone, ANYONE, who needs to go to the emergency room will not be denied service.

Service is not treatment. You will be stabilized if your vital signs are failing but you will not get diagnostic tests, you will not get surgery to repair your hernia, you will not get followup care, you will not get physical therapy for your broken bone or surgery or chemotherapy if you have cancer or a replacement joint for your shot knee or hip. In all but the rarest cases it's very, very unlikely that you will get an angiogram even if you are showing all the signs of advanced coronary artery disease. You will get an outrageous bill which you won't be able to pay, which will haunt you if you try to pull yourself out of the poverty trap though.

In countries like Mexico you do get all those things, and in many cases for less than the bill you'll get for your non-treatment in a US emergency room.
posted by localroger at 2:28 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]

klangklangston I'm not going to argue your wall of text but I will say the actual source of my statement is an old friend who went back to college in her 50's and recently finished her Ph.D. in Native American Studies. While there were some minor exceptions, just as you can find occasional Americans who openly favor the ideals of Communism and run their communities on different principles than the Capitalist plurality, it is an accurate statement that the vast majority of Native Americans did not have any concept of what we think of as ownership of the land before the European invaders introduced that idea.

They did, as your examples indicate, have a sense of stewardship and some of those wars resulted from conflicting ideas about that sort of land use, but the idea of land as a commodity that can be bought and owned like a cup or handbag and reserved for the use of an individual purely on the basis of the ability to make such a payment, would have seemed unnatural and obscene to nearly all of the First Peoples.
posted by localroger at 2:36 PM on November 21, 2014

Just because you believe lower wages is a net positive does not mean I have to.

Illegal immigrants working at below-market rates are why you have clean hotel rooms and cheap food. Look at the bottom rungs of food production--planting, picking, mass butchery, even line cooks--and you will find an enormous number of people who are out the back door when ICE shows up. If you had to pay what things actually cost, because the producers have to actually pay legal wages, you'd be horrified at your grocery bills.

The US economy is predicated on illegal immigrants doing the shitty work that American citizens don't want to do, at a lower cost.

Just because you do not agree with a source does not make it any less valid.

Yes, actually. The source you are using is a right-wing think tank whose numbers are a) driven by ideology, and b) made up more or less out of whole cloth. I'm still trying to understand why you think those numbers are more valid than an actual government official (nonpartisan, unless I'm mistaken!) whose entire job is tracking dollars in and dollars out.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:40 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you had to pay what things actually cost, because the producers have to actually pay legal wages, you'd be horrified at your grocery bills.

Americans spend relatively little on food, and relatively little of what they spend represents the cost of farm workers.

Triple the farm workers' wages, and that 33¢ apple becomes 40¢. Totally worth it if it ensures that the person picking that apple for you makes the legally required wage.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 3:28 PM on November 21, 2014 [6 favorites]

"They did, as your examples indicate, have a sense of stewardship and some of those wars resulted from conflicting ideas about that sort of land use, but the idea of land as a commodity that can be bought and owned like a cup or handbag and reserved for the use of an individual purely on the basis of the ability to make such a payment, would have seemed unnatural and obscene to nearly all of the First Peoples."

Hey, sorry, either your friend is wrong or you interpreted her wrong. New York/Conneticut Native Americans understood territorial boundaries and selling land claims perfectly well. They didn't understand absentee ownership, but at that time the English didn't recognize the Native American absentee ownership. Native Americans would reappropriate "unused" land; the English used migratory patterns of Native Americans to appropriate "unused" land.

Claiming that payment for land would be seen as unnatural or obscene by all Native American nations is just not supported by the historical record; it's a reductive stereotype of Native Americans that diminishes their agency and romanticizes away the historical basis of many current land claims by Native Americans.
posted by klangklangston at 12:13 AM on November 22, 2014 [3 favorites]

Localroger wrote: The First Peoples were actually quite diverse and while some of the First Nations had structures that look like laws (to the point where a lot of people credit the Iroquois with a lot of features of the U.S. Constitution) a lot of them didn't, and they shared a nearly universal attitude that land could not be owned by humans.

I don't understand why you think private land ownership is relevant here. The English colonies were set up with distinct borders. Colonists who settled outside those borders were breaking (at least) English law. England and its successors in North America made treaties with the Native Americans, restricting European colonisation. It is notorious that those treaties were widely broken. Surely you don't think that the Native Americans (at least) meant these treaties to be fictions?

This is very different from the original characterization of every European settler being an illegal immigrant simply because of sailing from Europe to Turtle Island to set up household.

I don't believe anyone here said that.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:22 AM on November 22, 2014

it's a reductive stereotype of Native Americans that diminishes their agency and romanticizes away the historical basis of many current land claims by Native Americans.

What? This is stupid. In the 1990's the Iroquois Confederation -- which is about the most un-nomadic of un-nomadic stay at home NA nation-groups ever -- instituted a "not one more inch" policy with regard to land transfers, for precisely the reason that it dishonors the land to transfer it to non-NA ownership. Sure they understand land ownership because it's a hard lesson to ignore in the presence of Europeans, but that doesn't mean they like it.

The Iroquois, incidentally, are probably the very best case for this because they take the whole "sovereign nation" thing quite seriously, issuing and traveling under their own passports, and claiming that they have never lost a war with the US or been forcibly evicted from what remain their ancestral lands.

Anyway as a result of this land policy several road projects had to be scuttled, as the Iroquois would not even let the state have a little land for features like highway cloverleaves. I believe that qualifies as exercising one's agency, does it not?
posted by localroger at 6:22 AM on November 22, 2014

A few things removed. Commenting obliquely about how you're not commenting but expect someone else to comment is not gonna help a thread go better.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:00 AM on November 22, 2014

Just because you do not agree with a source does not make it any less valid.

Yes, actually. The source you are using is a right-wing think tank whose numbers are...
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering More than 18 hours ago [1 favorite +]

Apparently my followup by the CBO confirming that there will be a net negative, and my mayor's accounting of my town's school budget will have no impact on whatever it is you believe.

And whoever said that low wages is good, and keeps repeating it ought to go and try and find a job at a farm. Because of the migrant workers it is near impossible for anyone ( including migrant workers) to demand a living wage. Justifying a whole people's existence because they will accept being underpaid and mistreated just baffles me.
posted by Gungho at 11:09 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Because of the migrant workers it is near impossible for anyone ( including migrant workers) to demand a living wage.

Wait. Hold on a second. You're saying -- literally, it's right there in your text -- that migrant workers can't demand a living wage because of migrant workers. How is it, then, that you imagine that anyone else would get a living wage if the migrant workers magically disappeared?
posted by Etrigan at 11:11 AM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]

Justifying a whole people's existence because they will accept being underpaid and mistreated just baffles me.

You do have a point here, without legal status workers can easily be abused. But isn't the solution to that...giving them legal status?
posted by Drinky Die at 11:12 AM on November 22, 2014 [4 favorites]

Justifying a whole people's existence because they will accept being underpaid and mistreated just baffles me.

Ummmmmmmmmm... we aren't doing that. Nobody here is doing that.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:26 AM on November 22, 2014

Quite right drinkydie, for example.

"Child labor advocates say that it is common to find children even younger than 12 working in the fields. A recent investigation in Michigan found children as young as 5 years old harvesting blueberries in the fields of Adkin Blue Ruibbon Packing Company, a former supplier of Walmart"
."http://www.foodispower.org/produce-workers/

Even migrant status offers little protection. Though Michigan has had an uptick in the number of migrant/ seasonal workers.
Perhaps it was the real reason behind the "I'm concerned about the blueberries" bill boards of late.
posted by clavdivs at 11:38 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Perhaps it was the real reason behind the "I'm concerned about the blueberries" bill boards of late.

Nope. Just some dude with more money than sense.
posted by Etrigan at 12:13 PM on November 22, 2014

The same source you gave periodcally runs a column called blueberry moments or some such.
Check it out, it is quite interesting how non sense inspires so many people writing in with stories of good will.
That aside when first seeing the billboards, that story of the children crossed my mind first.
posted by clavdivs at 12:27 PM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Colorlines: Who Will Lose Under Obama’s Executive Action?
posted by Drinky Die at 3:14 PM on November 22, 2014

Well it's a bit late now and some comments deleted but it happens that I copied the text of one of the comments still standing which I didn't really know how to reply to to someone who I thought might have a reply. And yeah she did.

Well Roger the thing that sticks out to me in this letter is the word agency, that's a word that as you suggest doesn't really mean anything but should be highlighted in flashing red whenever people talk about indians because your people don't really think indians should have any agency, and when they say they think we should it should be a big warning that we're about to get screwed again.

The way I've usually seen words like agency used is in the common scam of relieving tribes of their land by dividing the rez up into little estates granted to the individual members as common law real estate instead of treating the nation's land as a common holding. This leaves the individuals open to be conveniently picked off as they fall on hard times or decide the windfall is worth more than their heritage, until none of the land is ours any more. And yeah that's a kind of agency just like it's your agency to get drunk and wrap your pickup around a tree but only the assholes who are co-opting tribal governments for the benefit of BIA types think it's a good thing.

posted by localroger at 4:15 PM on November 22, 2014

Agency, by it's definition includes business establishment. For example the 2% revenue sharing the Chippewas' give to local schools per law.

Is this akin to what this letter refers?
posted by clavdivs at 6:29 PM on November 22, 2014

A lovely bit of race baiting from the cartoonist of the Indianapolis Star.
posted by octothorpe at 8:04 PM on November 22, 2014

I believe the part of J's letter which I excerpted is perfectly clear as to what it refers. I didn't feel the need to copy the parts where she basically affirms that I did not misunderstand her and that the basic idea that land is sacred and really shouldn't be treated as an ownable commodity is a common driver among the activists and tribal leaders she's worked with.
posted by localroger at 6:30 AM on November 23, 2014

Well, Im insure of the drunk/ truck thing, is it relevant?

The letter does not inform me of anything. It seems common sense mixed with basic common knowledge
For instance, it is up to the individual to decide if "the windfall is worth more than their heritage, until none of the land is ours any more."

So, when a tribe decides to share its wealth, is that selling out or do they just hand it out because of a law.
posted by clavdivs at 8:53 AM on November 23, 2014

You are being very deliberately obtuse, clavdivs.

Tribes are governments. As a citizen of the United States I have the freedom to sell my house, but I don't have the freedom to sell it out from being part of the USA. Nobody in their right mind thinks I should have that "agency."

Yet the terms which the US has imposed on many tribes split the land up and allow the individual members to do exactly that -- just as if I sold my house to the government of China and it became part of China and they could strip-mine it regardless of my neighbors' wishes or US environmental law.

This is universally regarded as a scam and the terms were in many cases accepted by puppet governments installed against the wishes of the majority of tribe members and acknowledged elders and leaders.

If the only reason you have "agency" is so that the person who scams you can feel comfortable saying "too bad, sucker!" then agency is a negative phenomenon.
posted by localroger at 12:21 PM on November 23, 2014

I see what you mean. The problem you describe is stemmed from laws of the U.S. government and tribal leaders who may take advantage of members circumstance for what ever purpose usually not good.
My thesis is in spite of this situation is revenue sharing from the tribe to local goverent a result of this inequity decribed in the letter.
posted by clavdivs at 2:57 PM on November 23, 2014

"What? This is stupid. In the 1990's the Iroquois Confederation -- which is about the most un-nomadic of un-nomadic stay at home NA nation-groups ever -- instituted a "not one more inch" policy with regard to land transfers, for precisely the reason that it dishonors the land to transfer it to non-NA ownership. Sure they understand land ownership because it's a hard lesson to ignore in the presence of Europeans, but that doesn't mean they like it."

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that it's stupid. Claims that Native Americans didn't own the land because they didn't believe anyone could own the land were used to dispossess Native Americans from their land, and historic deeds and land right claims have been used in U.S. courts to demonstrate underlying property claims. This is actually a pretty huge area of jurisprudence on many sides, due to multiple different categories of deeds and contracts, both between Native Americans about legitimate authority to dispossess, between Native Americans and the U.S. or prior colonies over inheritance and geography (since almost all of the early deeds were based on landmark reckoning rather than surveys), and between colonists and the King of England (especially after the revocation of charter under Charles II, where dominion claims from Native American sachems were treated as equal to those of Charles II and since the same land could be purchased from two different "sovereigns," there was notable conflict between colonists who had bought the land from Native Americans versus those who bought it from the English king). Later efforts of some Native American nations, like the Narragansett, to re-establish property claims rest on the idea that they did, in fact, own that land and that legitimate leases, loans and sales both did occur and were violated by colonists.

From "Retelling Allotment: Indian Property Rights and the Myth of Common Ownership," p. 1572 (Bobroff, Kenneth H.; 54 Vand. L. Rev. 1557 (2001)):

A. Indians’ Historical Property Systems

Despite the precarious status of Indian property under the United States system, tribes’ own legal systems have recognized property rights since before European contact. All known tribes’ property systems recognized individual rights in personal goods. Agricultural tribes recognized exclusive rights in land. Some hunting and gathering cultures found property rights less necessary, while others developed complex ownership systems governing particular land areas and resources. Societies whose members ranged over vast territories were the least likely to recognize property rights in land, although even these tribes recognized property rights in cultivated lands. As one writer described it, the Indian had property rights adequate to meet his needs. Moreover, Indian property institutions, like property rules under English commonlaw, were able to change and adapt to meet new social and economic
challenges and conditions.

The paper then goes on to discuss both the major divisions of property right conceptions of Native American nations by region and linguistic family.

From p. 1600, ibid:

D. The Nature of Indian Property Systems Nineteenth century

Eastern reformers falsely told a story that Indians recognized no private property in land. In fact, an analogy for almost every significant element of Anglo-American property law is present somewhere in the preceding survey of Indian property systems. Rights to use a specific parcel of land, to exclude others from it, and to allow others access to it were common.

Interests similar to easements, licenses, profits-a-pendre, life estates, leases, timeshares, condominiums, corporate titles, cotenancies, and defeasible fees can all be found. Mechanisms appear for inheritance and transfer of rights to other Indians. A more accurate, more true, story would have been that Indian property systems differed from Anglo-American law in how they recognized and ordered a wide range of property rights in land.

This is a well-cited, peer reviewed article in a top-tier law journal that is the most comprehensive article I've found; I ran into this topic years ago while writing a story on the environmental implications of Native American property divisions in the Chesapeake (tl;dr: A lot of the thinking about how to divide environmental jurisdictions came from European closed-field property divisions that conflicted with both Native American landmark-based property conception and European open field property divisions; reordering environmental jurisdictions based on the Native American property divisions as described through pre-fenced documents ends up with more effective environmental outcomes). The other place that it comes up, interestingly, is in discussions of how little we actually know about pre-Roman European society, specifically druids. European writing on druids from about 1500 through 1900 directly uses Native Americans as their model for how they conceive of druids and Celts/Gauls. John Locke does this explicitly in discussions of property rights and concepts.

Saying, as you did, "but the idea of land as a commodity that can be bought and owned like a cup or handbag and reserved for the use of an individual purely on the basis of the ability to make such a payment, would have seemed unnatural and obscene to nearly all of the First Peoples," is bullshit. You've insisted on a false generalization that has actually had negative effects on the people you are purporting to defend, and insisting that because you have some friend that did her Ph. D. on some Native American topic that you can make sweeping dismissals is stubborn ignorance, not a noble defense of Native Americans from the screwing they do undoubtably still suffer from.
posted by klangklangston at 3:40 PM on November 23, 2014 [6 favorites]

Wel klangklang your entire comment is invalidated by starting with the premise "Claims that Native Americans didn't own the land because they didn't believe anyone could own the land." Yes, those arguments were used, and those arguments were also evil, self-serving for the US, and fundamentally stupid.

Your cites all come down to the fact that the US would not accept Indian land claims if they were not based on US notions of land ownership, not that such notions of land ownership are in any way meaningful to Native Americans outside of a desire to keep their land against US grabs. My source isn't just some lady who got her Ph.D. she has been active in Native American land issues since her adolescence, and she is older than me. Unless you are a Native American yourself as she is I rather suspect she has more of a grasp on the situation, or perhaps one less grounded in outside interests, than yours.

P.S. Please explain how your theory doesn't give me the right to sell my house to China as explained above. You do seem to be arguing that I should have that right.
posted by localroger at 6:15 PM on November 23, 2014

My thesis is in spite of this situation is revenue sharing from the tribe to local goverent a result of this inequity decribed in the letter.

As Yoda would say, this sentence parse does not.

It is not inconsistent to say that Native Americans do not believe in land ownership and to say that tribes feel they should keep control of their own lands. Conflating those two statements is the essence of the evil J describes in her letter and which, as far as I can tell, the legal letters klangklang found seem to be justifying.

The real problem is that tribes did recognize shades of land obligation which US law increasingly does not. You can have land privileges and land obligation without having land ownership, but with narrow exceptions like easements outright ownership is pretty much the only form of land privilege or obligation we recognize. So first the tribes were exploited by saying their belief land couldn't be owned meant they didn't own their land, so it could be readily taken; then that if they owned their land it was owned by their individual members, not the tribe, so it could be bought piecemeal as individual members became vulnerable. If anyone claimed such crap against the US we'd consider it grounds for war. Oh yeah, they did that too, but they lost and history gets written by the winners. I guess that's us.
posted by localroger at 6:23 PM on November 23, 2014

Hmm quite. And quite...fragments, misspelling of words and I will not blame this 5" keyboard but yoda did parse.

I assume no, revenue sharing with local communities is wrong based on a system of private enterprise with-in the reservation as it corresponds with US law.
What puzzles me is how do you if any Chippewas' were cheated because of the 2% revenue sharing program?

You can paraphrase all you want about generalities but what of specfic information that refutes your assertion. And your second paragraph sounds like your still arguing the Treaty of Greenville.

In essence, we are cognizant of the horrors of the past. What only interests me is how has this being rectified.

To keep things lite, what about that drunken truck statement because that is some serious Graham Greene funnynonotreally.
posted by clavdivs at 7:36 PM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

clavdivs I don't even know why you think the 2% thing has anything to do with anything I've said. What, the nation sold land and distributed the revenue? OK nations can do that, but was it a puppet government or one of real elders and representatives? There has been a problem with that. The Iroquois flatly put a stop to that shit 20 years ago. But there were, what, 140 nations before we got really rolling in the exterminating biz?

As for cognizant of the horrors past but, well. Please take that up in one of the threads about the Civil War sometime.

As for the drunken truck statement, that was about giving individuals the right to do things which should be reserved for the nation, and calling that "agency", which is like giving someone the right to drive without asking much about their qualifications and calling it "agency" when they make a fatal mistake. It's not really that fucking complicated.
posted by localroger at 7:43 PM on November 23, 2014

"What, the nation sold land and distributed the revenue? OK nations can do that, but was it a puppet government or one of real elders and representatives?"

Wow. So nations can do that. Defacto a corrupt government. Hmm.
No it's those evil casino profits. Self generating revenue which is what it is.
posted by clavdivs at 7:58 PM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

And how much more good can it get, using the drunken truck analogy, then the poetic agency of casino revenue.
posted by clavdivs at 8:09 PM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I do not like the word "extermination" it shows your ignorance thus your thesis is invalid.
posted by clavdivs at 10:15 AM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well it looks like it took you 14 hours and 6 minutes to realize you didn't like the word "extermination." That's real convincing.
posted by localroger at 7:05 PM on November 24, 2014

No roger, I gleaned over that and thought it was "entertainment biz". Re-read it and decided your ignorant. Spatial and temporal relations have nothing to do with it just trying to digest your cock n bull which I find no longer amusing as it was never educational...I will say this, you dismiss information at a whim, a mere hint won't wake you up so do so roger. Your arguments have failed here like the civil war thread as you mentioned.
The word is GENOCIDE.
posted by clavdivs at 8:56 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

oh and my power was out. Google it. Why would I waste power on your ignorance when I can do it now toasty and watching 'scorpion'.
I extend my policy to not wasting Meg's nor the mods further patience.

Thanks for the fish.
posted by clavdivs at 9:02 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Sure, you probably meant to say "blah people" and the dog ate your homework too.
posted by localroger at 11:05 AM on November 25, 2014

Strong winds lead to damage and power outages in mid-Michigan.

But like every link that entirely refutes a comment of yours, I'm sure you won't bother reading it or updating your views.
posted by klangklangston at 1:04 PM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]

clavdivs managed to read my comment at 7:43 and leave replies at 7:58 and 8:09. I'm sure there was enough battery power to leave another nearly incomprehensible comment about extermination outrage too if it hadn't been found on the staircase.
posted by localroger at 1:15 PM on November 25, 2014

Jesus, localroger, give it a rest. Do you really want to go down the road of assuming how much battery power another commenter had? What exactly are you trying to prove, and what good would it do if you had video footage of clavdivs watching a big screen while doing laundry and cooking a pot roast?
posted by tonycpsu at 1:20 PM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]

Because, Tony, I find the deranged enthusiasm behind the response to this comment weird and mysterious. Business arrangements have kept me close to several Native American friends for the last 30 years or so, including two who have been very active in movements like AIM and specifically land issues, and I proferred and verified a pretty simple, frequently voiced, and not very controversial statement of the difference between how Native Americans and colonists approach land use. And for this I get a series of deliberately obtuse refusals to understand the relatively simple meaning of direct statements, barely coherent poutrage, and a mutual favoriting society that seems very intensely intent on propping up what I know from my friends is a weird and incorrect view of NA thought, and one which J said more or less directly has been repeatedly used as a pretext to steal tribal land.

Now I know I trust J and my other NA friends more than a bunch of obvious non-NA people on the internet, but I am mystified as to why you lot believe this idiocy and why you are so het up about it, to the point of clavdivs in particular banging out a series of barely coherent insults and attacks.

So the mystery to me is not how NA people think -- quite a few of them have told me that directly -- but why the hell it's so important to you.
posted by localroger at 3:47 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Poutrage is a good word and I am favoring this comment for that reason.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:09 PM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]

"and I proferred and verified a pretty simple, frequently voiced, and not very controversial statement of the difference between how Native Americans and colonists approach land use. "

It also happens to be wrong, as demonstrated by a mountain of peer-reviewed papers.

Seriously, your quote was: "But the idea of land as a commodity that can be bought and owned like a cup or handbag and reserved for the use of an individual purely on the basis of the ability to make such a payment, would have seemed unnatural and obscene to nearly all of the First Peoples."

That's wrong. If your Native American friend would like to reply to that research, they're welcome to. Appealing to their authority doesn't make you less wrong, and trying to hector people about "poutage" doesn't make you less wrong. You can either be wrong gracefully and learn some new stuff, or you can be wrong clumsily, which involves things like making a buffoon of yourself over putative battery levels in an effort to not be wrong about anything ever.

And with that, I'm done.
posted by klangklangston at 5:56 PM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]

localroger: So the mystery to me is not how NA people think -- quite a few of them have told me that directly -- but why the hell it's so important to you.

Me specifically, or the group of folks that you've lumped me in with despite not participating in this particular tangent at all? My only reason for getting involved now is because it seemed like a low blow to be beating someone up over the timestamps on their comments and your impression about the state of their power grid during that time.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:07 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

klang, who were the peers who reviewed that peer-reviewed research? How many of them were actual Native Americans? Because if our basic difference is that my NA friends say NA people believe one thing, and your non-NA peer-reviewed sources say NA people say otherwise, I think one of us is blowing smoke.

And my problem with clavdivs wasn't battery levels, it was abusiveness, incoherence, and obviously wanting to get something in from the staircase. Again, if you don't see that you're deliberately ignoring the obvious, which seems to be a consistent theme in this corner of this thread.

tony -- this is not about battery levels. Read back a few comments and explain to me exactly why clavdivs is so worked up. It's really hard to figure out why. It's a very strange thing and I wonder what motivates these people SO STRONGLY to assert things about Native American beliefs when they are so obviously not Native American and have no idea what they are talking about.
posted by localroger at 6:47 PM on November 25, 2014

And with that, I'm done.

Well I guess you're welcome for the fish then. Oh wait that was the other one.
posted by localroger at 7:07 PM on November 25, 2014

Oh, got another short note from J: "They are probably invested in fracking somehow."

Which might be wrong, but at least would be an explanation for what's gone down here.
posted by localroger at 7:09 PM on November 25, 2014

Wired has an article that's somewhat relevant to this: How Railroads Advertised for Homesteaders to Settle in Indian Territory
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:27 PM on November 25, 2014

what motivates these people SO STRONGLY to assert things about Native American beliefs when they are so obviously not Native American and have no idea what they are talking about.

As I said, I'm not really taking a strong position on the merits of this debate, but klang is correct that your entire argument seems to rest on the authority of the individuals you know, based solely on the fact that they're Native American. Obviously, being a member of an ethnic group does give one you a unique, personal perspective that no non-member of that group can get, but simply pointing to their ethnicity and saying "QED" doesn't actually constitute a valid argument.

In particular, the idea that you can discredit peer-reviewed literature by asking how many of the paper's reviewers were Native American is downright absurd. The question of what attitudes toward land ownership among various Native American populations have been throughout the last several centuries is a matter of historical record, and therefore something that doesn't require any particular ethnicity to understand. Your friends certainly have their views, and their views are likely more informed than the average non-Native simply because it's more relevant to them, but they do not, by virtue of coming from a Native American, carry any more weight in this discussion.

And, seriously, don't say it's not about battery levels when you specifically cited battery levels as relevant to the discussion. Have the decency to own your arguments.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:34 AM on November 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

Tony, who were the peers doing the review? It's not hard at all to collect a pile of peer-reviewed references claiming that global warming isn't happening and if it is isn't caused by humans, and for the same reason: Big money wants that result.

I don't just know a couple of Native Americans. I know a couple of Native Americans who are very active in this very issue. I have known one of them for almost thirty years. I have never, not once, heard anything from this circle of acquaintances contradicting my statement about NA attitudes toward land.

I have also read quite a bit about this, and again, peer review notwithstanding I've never seen anything contradicting my statement.

On the other hand there is the sheer vehemence of the response here by Klang, clavdivs, and whoever. Go back and re-read the first comments protesting mine. There is a level of insistence there which makes no sense whatsoever. It's not enough to assert that I might be over-stating the case, no, it's overstated to such a ridiculous degree that I am just left with my jaw on the floor wondering where this came from.

See, even if I am wrong, how is it such a "pernicous myth" worth such a wall of words debunking in a thread where it is if anything a bit of a derail? The real story is not what the Indians really thought. Maybe I'm right and maybe I'm wrong, believe what you want, but it's very interesting that a bunch of NON Native Americans are so heavily invested in making a particular case for what Native Americans believe.

P.S. The only reason I mentioned battery levels was the in clavdivs' mad scramble to preserve some dignity that came up, and I was dismissing it as the worthless and stupid irrelevance it was.
posted by localroger at 6:41 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

.
posted by clavdivs at 3:42 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well. I appear to have earned a dot. A signal honor here. Since i am not dead, I am at a bit of a loss as to do with it, so I'm thinking I will flip it. Will my dot come up heads or tails? Who among us knows which is which on a dot? I would normally ask J but I already know she'd tell me I'm in coyote's lair. Coyote can make the dot look like anything. Even a political party, or land, or a post on Metafilter.
posted by localroger at 6:35 PM on November 29, 2014

did you roger that there are only two Chippewas who can completely speak and comprehend there own language?

Now why is that?
posted by clavdivs at 6:37 PM on December 1, 2014

The word "roger" when used as a verb does not mean what you appear to think it means. Hint: Unlike the vast majority of proper names, there is no female equivalent for Roger. In some cultures you see usages such as "He had the biggest roger I've ever seen" or "He rogered her right there on the football field." There's a reason the pirate's Roger is Jolly.

As for the reason there are only two remaining native-speaking Chippewas, I'd say it has to do with that period my ancestors were really rolling in the exterminating biz. But you had an objection to that for some reason.

Also, s/there/their.
posted by localroger at 7:11 PM on December 1, 2014

Guys, if it's just the two of you poking each other every couple days this needs to be private correspondence.
posted by cortex at 7:15 PM on December 1, 2014

District court declares Obama immigration action unconstitutional

Seems like one of those partisan likely to be overturned things though.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:18 PM on December 16, 2014

Yeah, it does seem to be some hackwork, given that neither party raised the issue and the judge didn't even follow through with their decision — if Schwab really felt it was unconstitutional, he wouldn't have told the defendant to go ahead and file a DACA claim.
posted by klangklangston at 3:28 PM on December 16, 2014

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