Republican Immigration fascination - please explain....

[HardWorkingDem]

Can someone please explain why Republicans are so fixated about illegal immigration of people from Central America?

Am I missing something? I think it is pretty much agreed that illegal immigration creates an underground economy that benefits about all Americans (low wages, lower prices, people willing to work at harder jobs for less money, et cetera) and because there has never been a Osama Bin DeJesus, the fear of a Central American terrorist seems quite overblown.

So what are the real reasons Rethuglicans are so concerned about Central Americans entering the US? I'm baffled.

[mahina]

1. Oldest trick

It's a manipulation, like the abortion and gay marriage issues. Designed and focus grouped to divide and conquer.

Define an 'other', a 'them' and then it follows; if they are 'them' then we are suddenly'us'. Right out of der fuhrer's playbook.

What to do to fight against this racist bullshit? People are afraid, tense, economically on the brink, what better time to rally people to their lowest nature. AIIIGGHHH.

[Brundle_Fly]

2. smokescreen

something * thinks he can get people to talk about, other than his significant and glaring failures, all being brought to light.

[leftstreet]

3. Notice they spend NO time going after the Corps that hire them

It's just standard anxiety-based Republican fund-raising.
Nothing to see here.

[Hekate]

4. Drugs, gangs -- both real. And something older: xenophobia & isolationism

All that's happening is that the Republicans, to their shame, are mixing the real-enough with the imagined to further their own ends.

Historically, the US has gone through periods of isolationism where we want to pull up the drawbridges and let the rest of the world do whatever it wants without us. "Whatever" is usually a war.

The xenophobia generally accompanies large numbers of immigrants who arrive with their strange languages and different ways. The knock is almost invariable: they take our jobs, fill up our schools, cluster in neighborhoods where they put up business signs in foreign languages, yammer away in front of us in tongues we can't understand, and they will never assimilate.

Why should anything change in a century and a half?

The business with gangs is very real, by the way. Twice now I've seen extended news reports about a really vicious gang with membership scattered across our country, whose members came to the US as young boys out of some Latin American country waging a vicious war. X-13 or something. Sorry I can't be more specific.

The majority of immigrants, whether legal or illegal, come here to live quietly and send some money to the folks back home. They want what everyone else wants -- a living wage, school for the kids, some security.

A minority are crooks, both petty and badass. And the badasses (like X-13 or whatever they call themselves) are serious bad news.

Like I said, the Repubs are mixing fact and fear and using it for their own ends.

Hekate

[Midnight Rambler]

18. That would be MS-13

They're Salvadorian, and guess what? Born of our own activities with the death squads.

[Hekate]

19. Thanks for filling in my blank spot

:eyes:

Hekate

[mrcheerful]

5. You left out the part

where its the repigs and companies like Wal mart that hire these illegal people. The repigs talk the talk but seldom if ever walk the walk.

[rucky]

6. they hate brown people

nothing gets their mouths frothing like a good ol' minority bashing.

[mrgorth]

10. Seriously

did he forget the latent thug racism.

[leesa]

7. They BRING them in to work for them for nothing then demonize them by

telling the Joe and Jane Six-packs that they are stealing their jobs and their health care and robbing their homes, etc., etc. Same scam the elites ran with the blacks, the Irish, the Chinese and many other groups at various times. A trick as old as the hills and it works every time.

[SCDem]

8. $7 billion dollars per year into Social Security that is not going to be

claimed from immigrants.

It will be all talk and no action.

[DeaconBlues]

9. Please tell me how low wages help anyone

especially the millions of Americans who have to work for those wages

[HardWorkingDem]

13. Low wages from the underground economy..

assist in keeping prices lower. Can you imagine the costs of items like fruit and vegetables if migrant workers and those uncared for workers were paid high wages?

Or even meat prices. The biggest meat producing plants pay very low wages for hard work.

I'm not saying it is right, but most economists I've talked to have told me that Americans indirectly benefit from undocumented workers in many ways.

[DeaconBlues]

14. having tomotoes cost less isn't worth the price of wage slavery

According to your logic, we should never increase the minimum wage, because it would just cause prices to go up.

I haven't talked to many economists lately, but the people I have talked to would gladly pay a few cent more on meat and fruit if they were actually paid what their work was worth.

[HardWorkingDem]

16. Jesus, I'm not advocating anything...

Why is that so many DU'ers try to put words in the mouths of others? I'm not advocating keeping people poor or not raising the minimum wage. I'm trying to figure out why the Rethuglicans have such a fascination with Central American immigration because if it is examined, a prohibition of it seems to run counter to their beliefs and if so, then what is their TRUE interest in stopping it.

Is it racism? Is it a fear of potential new Democratic voters? Or what?

I mean, think of it - to them, wouldn't it seem that cheap, unregulated labor would be a boon to their business buddies? Look at all the meat processing plants in America and what cheap labor means to them. Heck, I can remember when butchers were paid a huge wage and it was a very well sought after occupation to go into.

There seems to be a piece of the puzzle here that is missing and I can't figure it out and I'm asking for help because I believe that one way to defeat our political enemies is to fully understand their methods and madness.

[applegrove]

11. The only way to keep the markets roaring while the price of oil

rises in the next 50 years is to have the cost of other things go down to balance it out. Like the cost of labour.

[Bridget Burke]

12. It's a good wedge issue...

Like gay marriage & abortion. Hoping to distract people from the economy & the War.

Small correction: "Central America" is the region between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec & the "end" of North America. Most of Mexico is not in Central America, and the whole region is, in fact, part of North America.

[HardWorkingDem]

17. Used Central America because....

with the current tone of DU at this point every designator seems to offend someone at some point.

Thank you for the clarification.

[Skidmore]

15. The portion of the Rs who benefit from the defacto slave labor

and reduction in wages and benefits for the American worker is alienating the portion of the Rs who are on the losing end of this situation. Some Dems are willing to say it's okay to break the law to garner votes instead of insisting on the enforcement of the law which hurts both those immigrants and the American worker. Dems need to also insist on fair trade policies as part of that package. But, we, as a party, are going to get hung up on whether it is racist to call a couple of groups of people on breaking the laws of the land.