Leading Republican pollster Glen Bolger finds enduring support for reform

Arizona’s new immigration law, SB 1070, put immigration back on the front burner, and Americans of all political persuasions are reconsidering their attitudes. Do immigrants help or hurt the United States? Do they help or hurt the economy? Does it make a difference if they are skilled or unskilled, legal or illegal? And what exactly do voters want Congress to do about immigration – if reform, what kind of reform?

Leading Republican pollster, Glen Bolger, partner and cofounder of Public Opinion Strategies, went into the field to ask just two weeks after passage of the Arizona law.

The new poll surveys attitudes of Republican, Democrat and, perhaps most important, independent voters. Whether or not Congress decides to tackle immigration this year, the findings paint a fresh, nuanced portrait of American attitudes.

ImmigrationWorks partnered with the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, Americans for Immigration Reform, the National Restaurant Association and the American Council on International Personnel to produce the poll.

VIEW DIRECT LINK TO POLL:  http://www.immigrationworksusa.org/index.php?p=209

Poll results

Executive version

Pollster memo

Key findings - Republican voters

Pollster

Media

A Detailed Look at Immigrant Employment by Occupation
By Steven A. Camarota, Karen Jensenius
August 2009

Click here to download a pdf version of this Memoramdum
(or view: http://www.cis.org/articles/2009/occupations.pdf)

This analysis tests the often-made argument that immigrants only do jobs Americans don’t want. If the argument is correct, there should be occupations comprised entirely or almost entirely of immigrants. But Census Bureau data collected from 2005 to 2007, which allow for very detailed analysis, show that even before the recession there were only a tiny number of majority-immigrant occupations. (Click here to see detailed table.)

Among the findings:

•Of the 465 civilian occupations, only four are majority immigrant. These four occupations account for less than 1 percent of the total U.S. workforce. Moreover, native-born Americans comprise 47 percent of workers in these occupations.

•Many jobs often thought to be overwhelmingly immigrant are in fact majority native-born:
?Maids and housekeepers: 55 percent native-born
?Taxi drivers and chauffeurs: 58 percent native-born
?Butchers and meat processors: 63 percent native-born
?Grounds maintenance workers: 65 percent native-born
?Construction laborers: 65 percent native-born
?Porters, bellhops, and concierges: 71 percent native-born
?Janitors: 75 percent native-born

•There are 93 occupations in which 20 percent or more of workers are immigrants. These high-immigrant occupations are primarily, but not exclusively, lower-wage jobs that require relatively little formal education.

•There are 23.6 million natives in these high-immigrant occupations (20 percent or more immigrant). These occupations include 19 percent of all native workers.

•Most natives do not face significant job competition from immigrants; however, those who do tend to be less-educated and poorer than those who face relatively little competition from immigrants.

•In high-immigrant occupations, 57 percent of natives have no more than a high school education. In occupations that are less than 20 percent immigrant, 35 percent of natives have no more than a high school education. And in occupations that are less than 10 percent immigrant, only 26 percent of natives have no more than a high school education.

•In high-immigrant occupations the average wages and salary for natives is one-fourth lower than in occupations that are less than 20 percent immigrant.

•Some may believe that natives in high-immigrant occupations are older and that few young natives are willing to do that kind of work. But 33 percent of natives in these occupations are age 30 or younger. In occupations that are less than 20 percent immigrant, 28 percent of natives are 30 or younger.

•It is worth remembering that not all high-immigrant occupations are lower-skilled and lower-wage. For example, 44 percent of medical scientists are immigrants, as are 34 percent of software engineers, 27 percent of physicians, and 25 percent of chemists.

•It is also worth noting that a number of politically important groups tend to face very little job competition from immigrants. For example, just 10 percent of reporters are immigrants, as are only 6 percent of lawyers and judges and 3 percent of farmers and ranchers.

NOTE:  Steven A. Camarota is the Director of Research and Karen Jensenius is a demographer at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Broader Measure of Unemployment Shows Bleak Picture
By Steven A. Camarota, Karen Jensenius
August 2009

Backgrounders and Reports
Click here to download a pdf version of this Memorandum

(or view: http://www.cis.org/articles/2009/worse_than_it_seems.pdf)

While the current high rate of official unemployment is well known, it only includes those who have looked for work in the last four weeks. There is a broader measure of employment, referred to by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as U-6, which includes the unemployed and people who would like to work, but who have not looked for a job recently, as well as those involuntarily working part-time. This report examines the U-6 measure and finds that things are much worse than the official unemployment numbers imply. The situation is particularly bad for minorities, the young, and less-educated Americans. These are the workers who face the most competition from immigrants - legal and illegal. (All figures in this report are seasonally unadjusted and are from June 2009.)

Among the findings:

•As of June 2009, the overall unemployment rate for native-born Americans is 9.7 percent, but the broader U-6 measure shows it as 16.3 percent. There are 12.7 million unemployed natives, but using the U-6 measure it is 21.7 million.

•The unemployment rate for native-born Americans with less than a high school education is 20.8 percent. Their U-6 measure is 33.2 percent.

•The unemployment rate for young native-born Americans (18-29) who have only a high school education is 18.5 percent. Their U-6 measure is 30.3 percent.

•The unemployment rate for native-born blacks with less than a high school education is 27.5 percent. Their U-6 measure is 42 percent.

•The unemployment rate for young native-born blacks (18-29) with only a high school education is 25.8 percent. Their U-6 measure is 37.4 percent.

•The unemployment rate for native-born Hispanics with less than a high school education is 22.6 percent. Their U-6 measure is 36.5 percent.

•The unemployment rate for young native-born Hispanics (18-29) with only a high school degree is 21.3 percent. Their U-6 measure is 32.7 percent.

•The overall unemployment rate for immigrants (legal and illegal) is 9.7 percent, but their U-6 measure is 19.7 percent, which is significantly higher than the rate for natives.

•The unemployment rate for immigrants with less than high school education is 12.8 percent. Their U-6 measure is 27.1 percent. The unemployment rate for young immigrants (18-29) with only a high school education is 9.6 percent. Their U-6 measure is 24.2 percent.

NOTE:  Steven A. Camarota is the Director of Research and Karen Jensenius is a demographer at the Center for Immigration Studies.

(view at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2009/healthcare_reform.pdf)

Immigration will affect and be affected by the health reform legislation being crafted in the U.S. House and Senate. There are around 12 million uninsured immigrants. Their presence means every provision designed to extend health coverage to those without insurance will potentially expand taxpayers’ costs by billions of dollars. Many immigrant households have children who are automatically eligible for government health care, even if their parents are here illegally.

Bear in mind, Government agencies and nonprofits often look only at income levels and similar qualifiers when enrolling new beneficiaries in public programs like Medicaid and SCHIP. They often overlook immigration status, even though that could disqualify someone from program participation.

Health reform legislation, particularly H.R. 3200, contains a number of provisions that open the door to taxpayer funding of immigrants’ health care. That’s for illegal aliens, legal aliens who are supposed to rely on their sponsor for financial assistance their first five years here, and certain immigrants who sponsor other immigrants.

In brief:

•Despite nominally barring illegal immigrants from receiving a health-insurance subsidy, an amendment to require that applicants be screened for eligibility — as are all other welfare recipients — was rejected on a party-line vote.

•Even legal immigrants whose sponsors are supposed to provide them financial support would be eligible for taxpayer-funded subsidies.

•Certain legal immigrants who qualify for premium subsidies or expanded Medicaid would also be able to sponsor new immigrants, whom they would have to pledge to support.

•Illegal immigrants would be exempt from the legal mandate to have health insurance, but they’d still receive taxpayer-funded medical services at health clinics and hospitals required to serve all those presenting with medical emergencies.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE:  James R. Edwards, Jr. joined the Center in 2009 as a fellow and is also currently a Principal at the MITA Group. He brings nearly 20 years of experience in the political, public policy, and communication arena. He was an Adjunct Fellow with the Hudson Institute for more than a decade and was selected as a 1998 Lincoln Fellow by the Claremont Institute. Edwards was author, with James G. Gimpel, of The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform (Longman, 1998). He earned his doctorate at the University of Tennessee, and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Georgia.

By Steven A. Camarota
August 2009

As Congress and the nation debate health care reform, the impact of immigration policy is an important component of that discussion. This Memorandum provides information about immigration’s effect on the nation’s health care system. The analysis is primarily based on data collected by the U.S. government in March 2008 about insurance coverage in the prior calendar year (2007).

Among the findings:

•In 2007, 33.2 percent of all immigrants (legal and illegal) did not have health insurance compared to 12.7 percent of native-born Americans. (Table 1)

(Read the entire report at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2009/healthcare.pdf)

Senate Immigration Bill Would Allow 100 Million New Legal Immigrants over the Next Twenty Years
by Robert Rector
May 15, 2006
WebMemo #1076
The Heritage Foundation

If enacted, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611) would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years, allowing an estimated 103 million persons to legally immigrate to the U.S. over the next 20 years—fully one-third of the current population of the United States.

Much attention has been given to the fact that the bill grants amnesty to some 10 million illegal immigrants. Little or no attention has been given to the fact that the bill would quintuple the rate of legal immigration into the United States, raising, over time, the inflow of legal immigrants from around one million per year to over five million per year. The impact of this increase in legal immigration dwarfs the magnitude of the amnesty provisions.

In contrast to the 103 million immigrants permitted under CIRA, current law allows 19 million legal immigrants over the next twenty years. Relative to current law, then, CIRA would add an extra 84 million legal immigrants to the nation’s population.

The figure of 103 million legal immigrants is a reasonable estimate of the actual immigration inflow under the bill and not the maximum number that would be legally permitted to enter. The maximum number that could legally enter would be almost 200 million over twenty years—over 180 million more legal immigrants than current law permits.

Immigration Status To understand the provisions of CIRA, largely based on a compromise by Senators Chuck Hagel (R–Nebraska) and Mel Martinez (R–Florida), it is useful to distinguish between the three legal statuses that a legal immigrant might hold:

Temporary Status: Persons in this category enter the U.S. temporarily and are required to leave after a period of time.

Near-Permanent, Convertible Status: Persons in this category enter the U.S. and are given the opportunity to “adjust” or convert to legal permanent residence after a few years.

Legal Permanent Residence (LPR): Persons in this category have the right to remain in the United States for their entire lives. After five years, they have the right to naturalize and become citizens. As naturalized citizens, they have the constitutional rights to vote and to receive any government benefits given to native-born citizens.

A key feature of CIRA is that most immigrants identified as “temporary” are, in fact, given convertible status with a virtually unrestricted opportunity to become legal permanent residents and then citizens.

Another important feature of both CIRA and existing immigration law is that immigrants in convertible or LPR status have the right to bring spouses and minor children into the country. Spouses and dependent children will be granted permanent residence along with the primary immigrant and may also become citizens. In addition, after naturalizing, an immigrant has the right to bring his parents into the U.S. as permanent residents with the opportunity for citizenship. There are no numeric limits on the number of spouses, dependent children, and parents of naturalized citizens that may be brought into the country. Additionally, the siblings and adult children (along with their families) of naturalized citizens and the adult children (and their families) of legal permanent residents are given preference in future admission but are subject to numeric caps.

Key Provisions of CIRA Four key provisions of CIRA would result in an explosive increase in legal immigration.

Amnesty for Current Illegal Immigrants: CIRA offers amnesty and citizenship to 85 percent of the nation’s current 11.9 million illegal immigrants. Under the plan, illegal immigrants who have been in the U.S. for five years or more (60 percent of illegals) would be granted immediate amnesty. Illegal immigrants who have been in the country between two and five years (25 percent of illegals) could travel to one of 16 “ports of entry,” where they would receive amnesty and lawful work permits.[1] In total, the bill would grant amnesty to 85 percent of the current illegal immigrant population, or some 10 million individuals. (view article at: The Heritage Foundation)

Relevant Excerpts(click here to view): National Guard Deployment to Effectively Assist Border Patrol in Securing the Border Region

Source Document (click here to view): The Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus
Report prepared by the Caucus Observation Team composed of: Lt. Col. Frederick A. Peterson, III. (RET), USMC, JD and John E. Stone, II, Captain (VA) Virginia Defense Force (both Congressional staff members)
Report Entitled: Results and Implications of the Minuteman Project, June 17, 2005

From Feudalism to Consent: Rethinking Birthright Citizenship

by John C. Eastman, Ph.D

Legal Memorandum #18

March 30, 2006

Excerpts follow:

The jurisdiction clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is somewhat different from the juris­diction clause of the 1866 Act, of course. The pos­itively phrased “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States might easily have been intended to describe a broader grant of citizenship than the negatively phrased language from the 1866 Act, one more in line with the modern understanding. But the relatively sparse debate we have regarding this provision of the Fourteenth Amendment does not support such a reading.

When pressed about whether Indians living on reservations would be covered by the clause since they were “most clearly subject to our jurisdiction, both civil and military,” for example, Senator Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in the drafting and adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, responded that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States meant subject to its “complete” juris­diction, “[n]ot owing allegiance to anybody else.”

And Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced the language of the jurisdiction clause on the floor of the Senate, contended that it should be construed to mean “a full and complete jurisdiction,” “the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now” (i.e., under the 1866 Act).  That meant that the children of Indians who still “belong[ed] to a tribal relation” and hence owed allegiance to another sovereign (however dependent the sovereign was) would not qualify for citizenship under the clause. Because of this interpretative gloss, provided by the authors of the provision, an amendment offered by Senator James Doolittle of Wisconsin explicitly to exclude “Indians not taxed,” as the 1866 Act had done, was rejected as redundant.

The interpretative gloss offered by Senators Trumbull and Howard was also accepted by the Supreme Court—by both the majority and the dis­senting justices—in The Slaughter-House Cases.

The majority in that case correctly noted that the “main purpose” of the clause “was to establish the citizenship of the negro” and that “[t]he phrase, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.”

Justice Steven Field, joined by Chief Justice Chase and Justices Swayne and Brad­ley in dissent from the principal holding of the case, likewise acknowledged that the clause was designed to remove any doubts about the constitu­tionality of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which pro­vided that all persons born in the United States were as a result citizens both of the United States and of the state in which they resided, provided they were not at the time subjects of any foreign power.

Although the statement by the majority in Slaughter-House was dicta, the position regarding the “subject to the jurisdiction” language advanced there was subsequently adopted as holding by the Supreme Court in Elk v. Wilkins.

John Elk was born on an Indian reservation and subsequently moved to non-reservation U.S. territory, renounced his former tribal allegiance, and claimed U.S. citizenship by virtue of the Citizen­ship Clause. This Court held that the claimant was not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States at birth, which required that he be “not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance.”

Elk did not meet the jurisdictional test because, as a mem­ber of an Indian tribe at his birth, he “owed imme­diate allegiance to” his tribe and not to the United States. Although “Indian tribes, being within the territorial limits of the United States, were not, strictly speaking, foreign states,” “they were alien nations, distinct political communities,” accord­ing to the Court.

Drawing explicitly on the language of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, the Court continued:

Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States, members of, and owing immediate allegiance to, one of the Indian tribes (an alien though dependent power), although in a geographical sense born in the United States, are no more “born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” within the meaning of the first section of the fourteenth amendment, than the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children born within the United States, of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign nations.

Indeed, if anything, American Indians, as mem­bers of tribes that were themselves dependent upon the United States (and hence themselves subject to its jurisdiction), had a stronger claim to citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment merely by virtue of their birth within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States than did children of foreign nationals. But the Court in Elk rejected even that claim and in the process necessarily rejected the claim that the phrase, “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, meant merely territorial jurisdiction as opposed to complete, political jurisdiction.

Such was the interpretation of the Citizenship Clause initially given by the Supreme Court, and it was the correct interpretation. As Thomas Cooley noted in his treatise, “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States “meant full and complete jurisdic­tion to which citizens are generally subject, and not any qualified and partial jurisdiction, such as may consist with allegiance to some other government.”

The Supreme Court’s Wrong Turn in Wong Kim Ark

Despite the clear holding of Elk and the persua­sive dicta from Slaughter-House that mere birth on U.S. soil is not sufficient to meet the constitutional prerequisites for birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court held otherwise in United States v. Wong Kim Ark,[15] with expansive language even more broad than the holding of the case itself. It is that erroneous interpretation of the Citizenship Clause, adopted 30 years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, that has colored basic questions of citizenship ever since.  (view memo in entirety)

Birthright Citizenship and the Constitution
by Edward Erler
WebMemo #925
December 1, 2005

(NOTE: The following is an entry concerning the first section of Amendment 14 of the Constitution as found in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution.)

Before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, citizens of the states were automatically considered citizens of the United States. In 1857, the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision had held that no black of African descent (even a freed black) could be a citizen of the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment was thus necessary to overturn Dred Scott and to settle the question of the citizenship of the newly freed slaves. ... Senator Jacob Howard of Ohio, the author of the Citizenship Clause, defended the new language against the charge that it would make Indians citizens of the United States. Howard assured skeptics that “Indians born within the limits of the United States, and who maintain their tribal relations, are not, in the sense of this amendment, born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” Senator Lyman Trumbull, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, supported Howard, contending that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” meant “not owing allegiance to anybody else . . . subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States.” Indians, he concluded, were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States because they owed allegiance—even if only partial allegiance—to their tribes. Thus, two requirements were set for United States citizenship: born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction. By itself, birth within the territorial limits of the United States, as the case of the Indians indicated, did not make one automatically “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. And “jurisdiction” did not mean simply subject to the laws of the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of its courts. Rather, “jurisdiction” meant exclusive “allegiance” to the United States. Not all who were subject to the laws owed allegiance to the United States. As Senator Howard remarked, the requirement of “jurisdiction,” understood in the sense of “allegiance,” “will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States.”  (view memo in entirety)

The Basic Right of Citizenship
A Comparative Study
Center for Immigration Studies
September 1993
by Sarah A. Adams

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." United States Constitution, Amendment 14, section 1, clause 1.

This seemingly simple sentence in the United States Constitution has recently been the cause of much debate among politicians and the public alike. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the automatic right of citizenship to anyone born in the United States (while subject to its jurisdiction). This has generally been interpreted to mean that the residence status of the parents makes no difference. The parents could be here illegally or simply passing through on a tourist visa; in either case their child born here would automatically be a citizen of the United States. Although, at first glance, this may seem to affect only a very small number of people, in actuality, births to illegal aliens account for a large percentage of the total hospital births in certain areas of the country. For example, Michael Antonovich of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors states that two-thirds of the births in Los Angeles county hospitals are to illegal aliens. Additionally, Mr. Antonovich notes that these children now account for 30 percent of all AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) cases in Los Angeles County.

(view entire article and list of countries granting birthright citizenship: Center for Immigration Studies)

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & RECENT LEGAL ARGUMENTSON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP VIEW THE FOLLOWING LINK: 

Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund

Amicus Curiae Brief in Support of Respondent

The Supreme Court of the United States

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

Re:  Yaser Esam Hamdi & Esam Fouad Hamdi as Next of Friend of Yaser Esam Hamdi, Petitioner

v. Donald H. Rumsfield, Secretary of Defense, et al, Respondent

"Illegal Aliens and American Medicine"
Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Ph.D., Esq.
Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 10, Number 1, Spring 2005(click here to view)

To learn more about our current immigration law, view this detailed chart explaining the various entrance categories and numbers associated with each. 

Department of Homeland Security -- Office of Inspector General Report

An Assessment of US Customs & Enforcement's Fugitive Operations Team

(March 2007 OIG-07-34)

DHS OIG issues report estimates of over 600,000 FUGITIVE ALIENS in U.S. with whereabouts unknown.  In this report, fugitive apprehensions are prioritized as: (1) those posing a threat to the nation; (2) those posing a threat to the community; (3) those with violent criminal history; (4) criminal fugitives; and (5) non-criminal fugitives. 

M.C.C. (MAJOR CITIES CHIEFS) IMMIGRATION COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS -- For Enforcement of Immigration Laws by Local Police Agencies (Adopted June 2006) (View Here)

August 2008 issue

Wage Reports For Illegal Workers A Huge Hidden Cost To Social Security

"The Social Security & Medicare Advisor"

The Senior Citizens League, Inc.,

By Mary Johnson

Statement to the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims

by Phyllis Schlafly, President Eagle Forum

July 18, 2006

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/schlafly071806.pdf

by James A. Bernsen

The Lone Star Foundation

"...In 1970, there were only 310,000 foreign-born citizens in the state. By 1990, that number had increased 391 percent, to 1.5 million. The immigration rate since then has exploded. According to a 2004 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the number of foreign born residents of Texas in that year was 3.45 million – 1,100 percent of the 1970 number.  In 1970, the foreign-born population of Texas was three percent. In 1990, it was eight percent. In 2004, foreign-born residents represented 15.7 percent of all Texans. Although Texas has seen widespread migration from within the United States as well, this wave of external immigration comes with much more profound social – and fiscal – consequences.

The majority of this increase comes from legal immigrants, but a large – and proportionately growing – percentage comes from illegal immigrants. Texas, according to the Census Bureau, is now home to 15 percent of all illegal immigrants in the United States. Since 1993, the population has doubled by conservative estimates. Some studies have estimated that the population has even tripled...."

"Illegal Immigration Alternatives:  How States Should Respond"

View this Heritage Foundation Web Memo (at the above link) authored by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D.(June 26, 2007).  Carafano references a recent report entitled "State Approaches to Illegal Immigration" organized by the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute.  The report makes specific recommendations for discouraging unlawful presence by withdrawing many of the benefits and entitlements granted by state and local governments. 

Why is Mexico's Voter Registration System Better Than Ours?
By Allan Wall
VDARE.COM

Mexico has a better voter registration system than the United States.

That may come as a shock to those who believe nothing in Mexico could be superior. Nevertheless, it is true.

My wife is a Mexican citizen. I’ve accompanied her when she votes. (Being a non-citizen here, I don’t, of course, vote.) Every registered Mexican voter has a Voter ID card, complete with photograph, fingerprint, and a holographic image to prevent counterfeiting.

At the Mexican polling station, there is a book containing the photograph of every voter in the precinct. This book is available to the poll workers and observers from various parties. If there’s a doubt as to someone’s identity, the poll workers can simply look up the person’s name and see if the photo matches up.

The Mexican voter’s thumb is smudged with ink. That way, if he shows up at another polling site to vote, they know he’s already voted elsewhere. (The ink wears off after a few days.)

It’s a good system. Sure, Mexico has many problems. But hey, they solved that one!

Mexico’s 2000 presidential election elected Vicente Fox with a plurality of the vote. Some were happy, others weren’t. But there was no significant dispute over who had won the election. And that was a great accomplishment.

In contrast, U.S. voter registration is a joke. Thanks to the “Motor Voter” regime, not only is it unnecessary for a voter to prove citizenship, it is also unnecessary to prove identity. Registrars have been instructed not to be inquisitive about applicants’ citizenship - or lack thereof. It should come as no surprise then, that the last few years have seen more and more examples of voter fraud coming to light, including the casting of ballots by non-citizen voters.

...And everyone registering is required to provide a driver’s license or social security number. And election officials are actually supposed to try to verify the numbers.

First-time voters registering by mail have to provide proof of identity (a photo ID, utility bill, paycheck, bank statement, or government document with name and address) when registering or voting.

That’s good as far as it goes. But what about everybody else? Why not, like Mexico, require a permament voter ID, with photo, for everybody, all the time?

Reason: Hispanic pressure groups like MALDEF and National Council of La Raza wouldn’t like it. Every time the suggestion of a photo ID comes up, some so-called Hispanic activist or defender attacks it as discriminatory.

...Yes, the U.S. has a long way to go to get up to Mexico’s standards.(view entire article:VDARE.COM)