I find this fascinating … do our friends across the aisle really think that illegal immigration is going to be the issue that wins, say, the Senate race for them?
Maybe this is just a random fluctuation, but I did a little survey of the 18 posts currently on Red Mass Group‘s front page. Here’s what I found:
Illegal immigration: 9 posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
MASSter List: 3 posts (1, 2, 3)
Pioneer Institute promotions: 2 posts (1, 2)
Casino bill: 1 post
Jobs: 1 post
MA-Sen race: 1 post
EaBo on TV: 1 post
Fully 50% of the front-page posts are about illegal immigration in one form or another – and given that MASSter List and the Pioneer posts are externally generated (and are posted here at BMG as well, though front-paged less often), it seems that actual RMGers care a lot more about illegal immigration than just about any other issue.
I just don’t think that’s true of most MA voters. But maybe I’m wrong.
sue-kennedy says
but I was not one so I said nothing.
Seriously every member of every group that has ever been victimized should recognize the ugliness of scapegoating the powerless.
The most recent claims of driving violations and crimes by immigrants could be aimed at any other group. Jews, blacks, hispanics, gays, union labor, women, catholics, all could be attacked with the same claims. Criminals and drunk drivers come from all walks of life and are not singularly owned by immigrants.
brudolf says
I attempted to make this point politely, but without statistics, on RMG:
http://redmassgroup.com/diary/13033/mass-sheriffs-are-joining-same-program-deval-patrick-stopped-in-january-of-2011
The upshot of the responses (Rob Eno’s latest comment notwithstanding) is that yes, RMG is obsessed with illegal immigration.
johnk says
The “Patrick stopped” nonsense, Patrick instead revised and joined with jailhouse review, which is an option that other parts of the country have done. It reviews convicted criminals, who are serving sentences. But what I want to point out is that at any time Hodgson and the other clowns could have joined the program, other counties and cities had joined, but they didn’t. I’m not discussing the merits of joining, just pointing out that Hodgson is full of it parading around like and idiot and calling Patrick a moron. What is also interesting is that the towns/cities/counties that had later joined all withdrew from the program. That should tell you something.
johnk says
oh, wait.
Patrick says
In the recent incidents that have made the news it appears to if certain individuals here illegally had been deported sooner then they wouldn’t have been here to commit crimes.
Jasiu says
It can also be said that if certain individuals here legally (and even naturally born here) had been deported, they wouldn’t have been here to commit crimes either.
Patrick says
You are talking Minority Report or something.
David says
you’re the one talking Minority Report. See, the problem is that there are something like 12 million undocumented (or “illegal,” if you prefer) immigrants in the country. Every deportation takes time and resources, and we simply don’t have enough to deport all of them, even if we wanted to. How do you tell, in advance, which are the ones more likely to commit crimes and which are the ones just here to find a job? That’s where Minority Report would come in handy. So as soon as we solve that, we’ll be all set.
Patrick says
An illegal alien gets arrested and their fingerprints get forwarded to ICE. It should take a lot fewer resources to get that done at least. It would also seem to target those illegal aliens who are actually causing problems.
David says
First, that’s not what your original comment was talking about. But, that’s fine – we can limit the discussion.
Second, um, we already do what you’re talking about.
So, glad to see you’re standing with the Governor on this!
Patrick says
That is what RMG is talking about. All those many posts over at RMG are in the context of Secure Communities.
Please tell me if I’m mistaken, but the Governor is not talking about the same thing as far as I understand it. Convictions are sent to Washington, not arrests.
David says
That’s what the Gov said in the source I linked to. That’s all I know. Doesn’t sound like it’s limited to convictions, since every arrestee is fingerprinted AFAIK, but I could be wrong.
stomv says
johnk says
from the program that Hodgson could have joined years ago (but didn’t)? This was solely based on the sheriff’s office and police departments involved. Not the Governor’s office.
Things are not as easy as you are making them, police departments often cite that it makes their job (which is to catch criminals in case you forgot, and I think you did) MORE difficult. It prohibits them from doing their job. Maybe you should check why we had police withdraw from the program.
Patrick says
Ask them.
These are the same police that wanted to keep flag details. Maybe concern about police work is too simple an explanation.
johnk says
this program is not new, you have counties and police forces join, then leave. Their job is to proctect, but they decide to leave the program. Why? Does it work, like you say? Maybe is really doesn’t work, maybe it makes it more difficult to catch the bad guys. But you can’t wrap your head around that. where is is working here? We have had 5 / 6 years ofthe program available. Show me!
johnk says
Framingham Police Department story in 2009.
Patrick says
After two years all he can say is that it could hurt? What I take from that is that for the 2 years it was in effect it did not hurt the relationship with the community or else he would have said so.
I take issue also with what he balks at.
I understand that detention and transportation would be unfunded mandates. But going to court? Does he balk at going to court often?
johnk says
it’s not cut and dry and some of these bozos lead on. Word choice in a statement is what you are pining your argument? Come on, you have police telling you it doesn’t help them do their job. You can be skeptical, and have an opinion, but you need to open your eyes to what law enforcement who participated in the program tell you, not the Op/Ed guys from the Herald.
Peter Porcupine says
The training, etc., described was done late in the Romney adminsitration, and Patrick halted participatioon by executive order when elected.
In fact, Baker said his first action as Gov. would be to rescind said order and allow particiaption again.
Peter Porcupine says
I had that backwards in my mind – Patrick did not ISSUE an order, he RESCINDED one which allowed the Sheriffs to participate. Baker was prominsing to ISSUE the necessary order if elected.
johnk says
noted in the other post that Barnstable signed their MOA six after.
petr says
Illegally present in the country isn’t a direct correlative with likelihood of committing crimes so a deliberate aggression aimed at ‘illegal immigrants’ isn’t going to correlate with a decrease in crime. The largest portion of “illegal immigrants”, by a wide margin, are people who have overstayed their visa: that is to say they arrived here legally and have become illegal by bureaucratic delay (of which delay they might, it is true, be taken deliberate advantage)
Patrick says
These specific crimes which have been in the news. They were committed by illegal aliens who long ago should have been deported. How much doubt is there that had these individual been deported that their victims would now be alive?
sue-kennedy says
You could say that about any criminal. Lets lock them up, deport them or execute them before they commit a crime.
Lets take every drunk driving incident and every violent crime, determine which demographic group they belong to: Black, hispanic, Jew, Catholic and attack them.
This is an obvious red herring to continue a vicious attack that has been going on for some time against a powerless group that is where we all cam from. In each generation there has been a new group of immigrants that have faced widespread bigotry. My family came over just in time to be victimized by the Know-nothings.
Its depressing that we don’t seem to have progressed since then.
Patrick says
These specific crimes which have been in the news. They were committed by illegal aliens who long ago should have been deported. How much doubt is there that had these individual been deported that their victims would now be alive?
David says
On Twitter, RMG’s Rob Eno responds:
But, Rob, what is your evidence for that? Of course, he has none. The best evidence I could find on a quick search was a poll from Jan. 14, 2010 – the Suffolk poll that accurately predicted Scott Brown’s win, so it’s a poll that Rob should like. Here’s what it said (PDF) about the issues MA voters think are important:
The poll didn’t specifically ask about immigration, but certainly, any voter who thought it was the most important issue would have fallen into the “other” category. That one got 4%. So, there you go.
Sorry Rob, but I just don’t see it.
hoyapaul says
continuing to think that illegal immigration is such a meaningful issue to most here in the Commonwealth. Republicans have been out-of-touch with the Massachusetts electorate for decades now, so what else is new.
kbusch says
1. Immigration might be particularly important to the Tea Party bloc that thinks their country is disappearing — with its socialist Kenyan-American President and the ignominy of having to “press 1 for English”.
2. Conservatives are just plain more tribal. Immigrants — especially illegal ones — are ipso facto from a different tribe.
3. In some communities immigration has been quite transformative; long-time residents feel quite dislocated. Where that happens, immigration is quite important.
jconway says
Lot of Browns support came from contractors and tradesmen (sadly including more than a few of my relatives and family friends) who feel squeezed by illegal immigrants. I feel their pain, but the real culprits are our lousy economy which has killed lot of construction projects and a long term project by Republicans to marginalize unions and supporting outsourcing. It will be hard to reach voters but they need to know illegals are getting screwed just as much if not more so than they are.
sue-kennedy says
without the immigrants. They are produce more than they consume.
stomv says
I’m not so sure. [assuming that you’re referring to undocumented. The class of *all* immigrants is awfully big]
Our struggle wouldn’t be with child care or landscaping or house cleaning. It wouldn’t even be with roofing or hanging drywall. Those are all positions for which there are sufficiently skilled documented workers, who wouldn’t cost that much more — or the task, which in many cases is somewhat optional [landscaping and house cleaning could just be scaled back] anyway.
The real issue: migrant agricultural workers. Our nation relies on migrant workers to pick our crops. Now, they need not be undocumented — if all of the undocumented immigrants instantly disappeared, we’d fix the agricultural visa problem in about 3 weeks. The crops demand it, and there really isn’t a local labor force capable and interested in following the crop up the coast.
So, collapse? Nawp. There’d be a downturn for sure, in housing and a number of other areas. But it wouldn’t collapse, so long as Congress fixed the agricultural issues.
sue-kennedy says
deporting 11 mil immigrants might cause a downturn that would take time to recover from. Long term implications would not be good for the economy.
Losing 11 million workers – bad for business, losing 11 mil consumers, worse. The fact that immigrants start business and hire employees at a much higher rate than the native born – double whammy.
That our economy is currently able to absorb this huge loss at this time – unlikely.
Countries that have adopted guest worker programs without a path to citizenship have created worse problems, with permanant ghettos and an uneducated underclass. Why choose a system that has performed so poorly over a tried and true immigration system that helped build this great country?