¿Pueden ser más tontos?
One third of the Texas population, according to the 2000 Census, was Hispanic. That proportion will almost surely rise in the 2010 survey. On the national stage, Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic group. Discarding their votes over immigration-related issues helped trigger "The Macacalypse," a.k.a. the Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress.
As this New York Times story suggests, however, some Texas lawmakers evidently didn't get the memo:
In a sign of rising passions over immigration issues, Texas lawmakers prepared for the 2007 session this week by filing a flurry of bills that would deny public assistance and other benefits to the children of illegal immigrants, tax money transfers to Mexico and the rest of Latin America and sue the federal government for the costs of state border control.Fine. Politicians who treat Hispanic voters like dogs should expect, sooner or later, to get bitten. Some Texas politicians, so it seems, are determined to get time on the links with J.D. Hayworth, the soon-to-be former representative of Arizona's Fifth Congressional District. Entonces, tengo que preguntar: ¿Pueden ser más tontos?
At the same time, a Dallas suburb, Farmers Branch, became the first Texas municipality to enact measures fining landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, authorizing the police to seek certification to act on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security and declaring English the city’s official language.
4 Comments:
O.K. So I understand that it is acceptable that some of the people break some of the laws some of the time. But I have some questions.
Which people may break laws with impunity? Do you gotta be brown? Is it only the truly downtrodden? How about be? May I break some laws?
Which laws may be broken? Spitting on the sidewalk? Spitting on your sidewalk? Only immigration laws? How about intimidation laws? May I break those? May anyone?
What is the law of laws that may be broken with impunity? Research needs to be published surely!
With all due respect,
Hinheckle Jones.
Mr. Chen,
I am a long time reader of your blog and am generally nothing but impressed by your writing skills and the lucidity of your ideas; however, on the topic of illegal immigration, you seem to always resort to watered-down name calling wrapped in broad platitudes. As someone who is on the fence (no pun here) as to what the optimal immigration policy should be, I would appreciate it if you tried to address the issue with the same sort of insightful analysis that you apply to other topics.
Anyway, thank you for maintaining this very thought-provoking blog. I understand this is an issue that obviously gets under your skin, but I hope you can move beyond your personal feelings to really contribute to the discussion.
I see the good professor endorses efforts by his favorite politicians to elect a populace more favorable to them.
In defense of Prof. Chen, here, I don't think it's necessary to use sophisticated arguments against racism. It should be obvious. A law against renting to undocumented immigrants, for example, will only lead to racial profiling. You don't seriously think that the police are going to ask all the gringos for their papers do you? Unless they do, they will be selectively enforcing the law based on race, and that's wrong, stupid, evil, and in my opinion, it barely even deserves a response.
Having said that, though, I don't think that was the point of the post. He was talking about the political stupidity of these measures given the demographic dynamics in texas, not the ideological correctness of the policies. That's an important distinction.
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