Scalia Hears Footsteps

Professor/polemicist Paul Campos (what kind of name is Campos, anyway?) thinks immigrant-child Antonin Scalia has turned into a ranting old man--"an increasingly intolerant and intolerable blowhard: a pompous celebrant of his own virtue and rectitude, a purveyor of intemperate jeremiads against the degeneracy of the age, and now an author of hysterical diatribes against foreign invaders, who threaten all that is holy."  Campos says Scalia in his "immense arrogance and creeping decrepitude" brings to mind  nobody so much as William O. Douglas.   One thing they share, I suppose: they grow older and face the horror of their growing irrelevance.  They hear footsteps.

Well, comparisons like this are never perfect and this one is okay (although Douglas' vices did not include so much visible bluster).  But I offer  better: Scalia's connazionale Fiorello La Guardia--another short, energetic, explosive headline-grabber, in his time the delight of his fan club, who grew increasingly rancid and inflexible as he drifted into irrelevance and old age.   If only we'd quit admitting these people who don't share our values...

You Pays Your Money....

My friend John has been tracking headlines on the Supreme's immigration coverage.   Here's the best pairing:   

  High Court Allows Immigration Checks

So the Wall Street Journal.  Compare HuffPost:

 AZ IMMIGRATION LAW 'GUTTED' 

 There are others.  Via Politico, I see that Governor Brewer calls it a 'victory,' i.e., for the Arizona statute, but I can't for the life of me see how she gets to that.  Apparently AZ can ask you for proof of status, as part of an otherwise lawful stop. But they can't put you in jail if you don't have it on you, so where's the fun?  Way I see it, they left the Governor with nothing but a thong.

Followup: I see Dellinger agrees. 

Followup II:  But Frum thinks it "Solomonic."  I'm a Frum fan, but this time he's smokin' dope.

 

"That One, Out!"

This just in, folks--Newt Gingrich has an idea:

...a “citizen review” process that would put ordinary citizens on juries to decide whether individual illegal immigrants should be granted legal status or deported.

Well for once, ol' Newtie is singing music to my ears.  For years I've thought we ought to have a scheme at the law school where every professor got three peremptory challenges, such that, as a student pranced down the commencement gangway, you could holler "that one, out!"--and a trap door would open and the offender would tumble to oblivion, or more narrowly, just never to be seen or heard again.  It;'s a bit like the British Navy or interestate concealed carry: just letting folks know you have the power will win a lot of arguments, and you won't have to use the device all that much.

My only limitation is that (as is so often the case) Newt is being to cautious.  I'd to have the rule apply to the entire neighborhood: every year, we'd get together and vote folks off the island.   Or maybe we could just have a lottery,and the loser gets stoned to death.  Oh, you say it's been tried? 

Immigration Fact of the Day

People movement patterns are changing; immigration from Mexico to the US, both legal and illegal, is down; some Eastern Europeans are leaving the west to go back home.  Even China is now loosening some immigration barriers.  South Korea now leads in the number of foreigners resident in China.

And which nation is second?  Go here.

Dred Scott Redux?

UB's crack Wichita bureau spotlights a fascinating dustup between the Sheriff and San Francisco and Federal immigration authorities:

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF/AP) — If the San Francisco sheriff’s plan becomes reality, illegal immigrants arrested for petty crimes won’t be held in jail longer than necessary, even if federal immigration agents may want them detained for possible deportation.


Instead, starting Wednesday, deputies will treat those eligible for release just like U.S. citizens: They will be cited to appear in court.


City officials, however, aren’t so sure about Sheriff Mike Hennessey’s plan.

The new policy is his attempt to comply with a city law that prevents police from aiding federal authorities in non-felony crimes and a U.S. law that requires authorities to share fingerprints with immigration agents.


ICE Spokeswoman Virginia Kice said Hennessey’s decision is “unfortunate.”

Wichita asks: Fugitive slave law? But I would go a half step further: rerun of Dred Scott. You remember Dred Scott: slave carried to free territory, claims his freedom, Supreme Court rips his case to shreds. And we all know how that ended.  

Afterthought: I did my best to keep from calling this "The ICEman cometh." But I suppose somebody else has used this line already.

Bush on Immigration

Remember George W. Bush?  Dick Cheney's sock puppet, the guy who thought he gave orders to Donald Rumsfeld?  Yes, I know that he is a %^&$#$% little %$# of *&^! and that we are well rid of him.  But here he is in Time Magazine showcasing his views on immigration.  And you know what?  This is one issue on which he was always pretty good.  I don't know if there is any particular way to deploy this instinct: Bush has made it pretty clear now that he'd rather go mountain biking and on the whole I suppose that's a relief.    Still, if there is some way to use his, ahem, talents to confuse or embarrass the more jingoistic among his colleagues, I hope somebody pursues it.

The Irresistable Allure of the Illegal Alien

Well, for the moment, it looks like game, set and match Niki.   Meg Whitman says she was shocked, shocked, to learn that her longtime faithful housekeeper was an illegal, and she certainly didn't know anything about a letter from the Feds questioning her social security number--but now comes the Eveready Gloria Allred brandishing what appears to be the letter with an annotation saying "Nicky Please Check This."   Gloria says the handwriting is that of Meg's husband,  Griff Harsh,who earlier in the day stood silent as his wife told the world that this illegal stuff was all news to her.

Heaven knows where we go from here.  Maybe there are two Nikis.  Maybe Meg has another husband (Griff, please check into this).  Maybe--okay, forget it.  But while embarrassment junkies are busy clucking over the folly of a person in public life even dabbling with an illegal, it's worth considering just how tempting the allure of the illegal must be. 

No, no, I'm not talking about lousy wages or dreadful working conditions--well, maybe that too.  But the real point is that you've totally got 'em by the short hairs.  One false move, one slip, one cracked teacup or greasy wineglass and you're off the ladder of insecure residency and straight down into the chute of deportment.  Must be a heady experience to spend  few moments every day with a person over whom your dominance is so complete that they live in dread of your every move.

Jobs and Illegals: The Motivation Factor

C. W. Nevius has a clever piece up at SFGate about the travails of an Oakland retailer trying to find good help. I particularly like the bit about the guy who can't show up for a job interview on Saturday before 2 p.m. because "I go out on Friday nights." The point point of the piece is, of course, that there is one source of potential employees ready, eager and unavailable: illegal aliens. "They come in here with great personalities; they're on time, ready to go," Nevius' source reports.

No reason to doubt him, but I'm not sure the inquiry goes far enough. There is one very good reason why the illegals are so eager: they've got no options. The guy who likes to sleep so long figures he does have options--maybe another job, or maybe public assistance programs for which he may be eligible while the illegals are not.

The catch is that if you snapped your fingers and legalized all the illegals, it wouldn't be long before they found they that they, too, could take a capacious view of their alternatives. Granted there maybe a "character" factor here with a certain inertial force, but it's unlikely to be long before they find themselves thinking like the natives (and complaining about all the new upstarts who succeed them).

But it doesn't mean that all the job-hunger will instantly vanish. The number of jobs will stay constant; the number of employees will (depending on how you count the illegals) increase or at worst remains the same. So while the newly legalized might experience a decline in motivation, the formerly protected might discover an unfamiliar twinge of motivation. Who knows, they might even decide they have to get up at noon.

If They Make Me Head of the Transition Team...

...here's what I'm supposed to read, at least on anti-trust. I'd love to see lists like this for a dozen other subjects (Kevin?) (Bob?) (Diane?)

Of course, I am not for a moment suggesting I actually intend to read all this stuff, or any of it. But it's nice to float in the sea of possibility. And I am consoled by Tim Muris' suggestion that if you're reading stuff on anti-trust, you shouldn't be heading the transition team.

I should add that I trust they will not make me head of the transition team anyway. Lucky me. Lucky you. Lucky everybody.

Three Things Things I Know About Immigration, I Think

I guess you could say I'm pretty much of a wet on issues of immigration. I believe that, on the whole, immigration probably does more good to the economy than harm. I do think we should try to do more in the way of "civic education," acculturation--this is, after all, a great country (why else would they want to come?) and it is important to try to keep it functioning. Anyway, we might as well: I suspect that the debate is on the whole pretty pointless because, aside from Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo, I suspect there really aren't many people willing to do what it would take to maintain any meaningful controls.

Still, here are three complicating wrinkles that I believe to be true:

• I think you'd have to acknowledge that the H-1B Visa program, that brings "non-immigrants" (hah!) in for "necessary" jobs--that it's a form of indentured servitude. On the other hand, I'm one who has a soft spot for indentured servitude. I suspect that over the centuries, it has helped some people (probably including some of my ancestors) to get a chance they wouldn't have had otherwise.

• I suspect that the great zeal for foreign graduate students is motivated by the need for cheap labor to staff research labs. Whether one could add "at the expense of the taxpayer" is, perhaps, a more difficult question.

• I recognize the evidence is equivocal, but I suspect it is true that (a) immigrants have a lower crime rate than the general population, but that for the children of immigrants, the crime rate is higher.

Border-Jumping for Traditionalists

With one ear, I am listening to Joseph Ellis on CSpan2 discuss the relationship between the new United States (in the 18^th Century) and the Indian tribes. Apparently George Washington had a threshold problem in treating with the chiefs: he couldn’t deliver. That is, Washington might have wanted to guarantee the security of Indian lands but meanwhile, his European-Americans were tumbling out into the new frontier and there was nothing, practically speaking, he could do to stop them.

May be excused if I note the beginning of a grand tradition here? Seems like he had the same problem we have/had when we tried to keep 12 million illegals from storming the barricades today. It’s not that we might not want to stop of it—clearly, quite a few Americans do want to stop it. But the inconvenient truth is that we haven’t a clue how to do it.

OK, I guess if you are willing to devote the resources that the Soviets devoted to keeping people in, then you might staunch the flow, at least for a couple of generations, until the dam breaks and the flood comes raging through anyway. But without spotlights, brick walls, electric fences and battalions of sharpshooters, mass (im) (e)migration control is simply not an option, except in the rather short term. And that is the sort of Sovietization the United States has never been willing to accept, and is not willing to accept now. Border jumping is, as they might say, as American as apple pie. Or chili rellenos.

Afterthought: Of course, this may reinforce the notion that we can expect the United State to split up within, say, 50-75 years.

Immigration: All Balls Loose on the Table

We’ve got painters all around the outside of Chez Buce today so I can’t get to my car without wading through a band of Limbaugh surround sound (I hope our neighbors will forgive us). It did give me the exquisite pleasure of hearing Rush whine that he was being “marginalized by the Republican party.”

“Marginalized” seems to be a favorite word among the self-pity faction of the wingnut set these days, but it occurred to me he does have a point. That is: he was talking about immigration and here, at last, we have an issue that really sets traditional alliances on their head. I remarked earlier today that I found myself in the odd position of agreement with NRO’s Corner. DeLong (along with others) points out that the issue has caused The Corner at last to discover the mean-spirited arrogance at the editiorial page of the Wall Street Journal (link). NPR this morning took delight in running supposedly “acting against type” soundbytes: A Republican who embraced the cause of illegals, a Dem who thought we were being over run with them.

I don’t have any confident expectations here, but I do know that all balls are loose on the table at the moment, and when they are all loose on the table, you never know what will carom off what. And let’s hear it for marginalization. I hope these guys are better as housepainters than they are as critical students of politics.

Fn.: I stay away from opining about immigration not because I don't care but because I haven't a clue what to say about it. I know that not even Jack Bauer is going to school-bus 12 million illegals back to Mexico (aside: thanks, Kevin!). I tend to suspect that immigrants contribute more to the economy than they take out of it, but you'd never guess it from hanging around at the prompt-care door to any even remotely public hospital. I do suspect that the United States will probably hive off some kind of new entity in the southwest within the next 100 years, though probably not within my lifetime. I wouldn't say "a new nation," because the very idea of the nation-state seems to be under stress at the moment--but that is a whole nuther story.

What Andy Said

This might be first: I'm agreeing with NRO's Corner (link) (but ignore the mash note to the WSJ).

H/T Tigerhawk (link).