Your Moment of Zen
columnist: Kishi

Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Huckabee's Platform: Part 1

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First in a series dealing with the platforms of each candidate, this entry examines the stand on illegal immigration. An attempt at self-education in addition to commentary.

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by Kishi
(centrist)
Sunday, January 20, 2008

Being the humbly un-educated curmudgeon that I am, it falls to me to educate myself if I don't want to sound like a dolt in front of all the other brilliant people on this site. Therefore, I've decided that I will use this blog to investigate a candidate's platforms, one plank at a time, as objectively as I can. At which point, I will shamelessly spin my own bias on it.

But have no fear. Since I'm a centrist, it'll basically amount to a whole lot of nothing, so no need to fear for me saying something controversial.

So, let's begin with Mike Huckabee.

The first plank that he presents on his list of Issues is the Secure America Plan. This is his take on dealing with illegal immigration. And the first step? Build The Fence. Cameras and chain link, all around the border by July 1, 2010.

His next step is to increase the border patrol and giving them full support' which means money and guns. And authority. Though, when you have money and guns, authority is just kind of natural.

As for the IIs already here, there will be no amnesty. They broke the rules, so why reward them for it? They're going going gone. They will get three months to apply for citizenship, and if they don't, then they're out of here.

Naturally, of course, he intends to end their employment opportunities. Fines and penalties, whole nine yards. He also wants a universal, mandatory citizenship verification system,' which is a nice way to say citizen's ID. So I guess he supports that.

He believes that the Fair Tax will act as a buffer for illegal immigrants. I don't understand why. The point of the Fair Tax is to make things fair,' easier for the poor. IIs are pretty poor. Most of em, for the most part, tend to straddle the poverty line or stay down low. They stand to benefit from this tax, because there will be no tax on the necessities, and no tax on their income because they can't hardly get over the line. In thinking about it, it really seems that the idea of Fair Tax is really an incentive. And, since it abolishes the IRS, that's just one less obstacle to living here, since Huckabee was originally planning on using the IRS to monitor Social Security Numbers.

So much for that idea.

Point the Sixth involves systematizing the border patrol between the state and national levels. That means law training, money, and guns. See above for how money + guns = authority.

He intends to end the US-VISIT exemptions given to Mexicans and Canadians. They account for 85% of the visitors here, so naturally the illegals are hiding in their midst. He also wants to reject the matricula consular' card which identifies Mexican illegal immigrants. Given how easy it is to forge these things, anybody could use this as an official form of ID that makes them look legit. I think it's pretty telling to note that no Mexican bank will actually accept this as a valid form of identification. I'd like to think they know these things better than we do.

Huckabee also wants to do away with dual citizenship. On the America boat, or off. He wants to impose criminal penalties on citizens who use their dual status in the wrong way, such as voting in both the US and another country.

There is hope for the II though. If you're a highly skilled or educated migrant, or have served in our armed services, you get to be a citizen. And in fairness, he does want to make the process easier for everyone.

So. Is this a good idea or a bad idea?

Personally, I'm leaning toward the bad.' Given current spending trends, I don't really see where he's going to get the money to do this. He's talked about cutting spending, but he hasn't said where he'll do it. He does talk about increasing the spending for this border thing and the defense budget.

Kiss our education good-bye, I guess.

So. The Fence. He wants to build the Great Chain Link Fence of America. For Heaven's sake. The Chinese tried this experiment thousands of years ago. They had a huge wall, something a lot more substantial than chain link, and a monitoring/communication system that was proven competitive with our own modern methods. It still didn't work.

That might be an unfair comparison, but I don't think so. The armies that the Wall was designed to stop, were the hungry, angry barbarians of the north who wanted to migrate south to feed their herds and their families. The situations are not that dissimilar. The only difference is that they aren't coming for us with guns and pitchforks. I just don't think the fence is a realistic response.

The idea of giving the border patrols more power scares me too. You give one group of police more power and authority, and then sooner or later more groups are going to lobby for the same thing. Why shouldn't they get it if one group already did? Aren't the crimes within our borders every bit as important as the crimes upon our borders? I love the cops as much as the next man, but is a more policed state really the answer?

Rejecting the amnesty of illegal migrants seems really cruel to me. Anecdotal evidence points to pregnant women from south of the border immigrating north just so they can have their children in American hospitals on American soil. If Huckabee wins and we reject their amnesty, that leaves us with a lot of kids and not a lot of people to take care of them. We can't very well just shoot American citizens back down south. Besides, these mothers in their desperation can and have decided before that the kids just have a better future here than in Mexico, and they leave them here. We can't just turn them over to orphanages. The foster care system in this country is already tragically overworked. This is something that can break up families. Are we willing to take responsibility for that?

As regards employers, it's important to keep in mind that, really, the worst job here in the States is better than a lot of the jobs that these poor and uneducated can get back home. If you put fines on the big companies that employ illegals, like Wal-Mart or Tyson, they'll simply find smaller companies to work for. Fine those companies, and they'll go smaller still. They'll reduce themselves to day-by-day employment if they have to, and there are contractors that will take them on this basis. This policy underestimates the resolve of these immigrants. They will find work, because there's work here to be found. We just aren't doing it. We're letting them turn sheets in hotels and take trash and clean and cook and build and mow lawns because we just can't bear to get our hands dirty.

The Fair Tax will not stop these people.

I do however believe that he's got a good idea with this document security thing. It is a little too easy for people to fake Mexican IDs, from the sound of it, and given how easy they are to obtain and the low price, accepting them as valid could lead to havoc. I understand that drug pushers are able to pose as being on legit business using these IDs, which has led to problems.

And he does want to modernize the process, make citizenship easier.

Those two last parts are steps in the right direction, and the two most realistically easy things to do, to say nothing of his other points.

So, my solution?

I'm not going to give you one. Not yet, anyway. I mean, who knows? Maybe in my research I'll find a view being preached already that will identify with me.

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©2008 Kishi, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Sunday, January 20, 2008
Last modified: Sunday, January 20, 2008

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