Editorial:
EDITORIALS Reform or resentment? Radical changes in social policy are promised by the new Congress. No doubt, some changes are needed. But as Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Robert Dole (R-Kans.) begin...
...ET CETERA MY DINNER WITH KAROL "A month ago, I was invited to a small luncheon with the pope but arrived in Rome a few hours too late," Michael Novak explained in his review of Pope John Paul II's Crossing the Threshold of Hope {The Wall Street Journal, October 27,1994...
...We are, most of us, relative newcomers ourselves and nativist claims sound hollow in our ears...
...Two groups-immigrants and children-are particularly vulnerable to the politics of resentment...
...Nor are there lobbyists or special interest groups with the clout to resist legislation that in the case of immigrants may be largely xenophobic and in the case of poor children mostly punitive...
...And wife of Leonard Deen...
...Even if the whole country sat down to watch Spencer Tracy in Boys Town, Gingrich's idea could hardly stand the scrutiny of the most casual viewer...
...Simply ask: Who will care for the children...
...But Mr...
...Most Americans also understand that some parts of our economy depend on eager, hard-working laborers, skilled and unskilled, who will put in long hours for relatively modest pay...
...Readers will remember her evocation of "green" in Commonweal's pages (June 17,1994), just as the editors remember her annual performance as Lady Bountiful in bringing us a lunch from her garden...
...Immigration: California voters in a fit of pique voted yes to Proposition 187...
...And face it: Every member of Congress has constituents of some ethnic group or other who will demand, and receive, special treatment for their own "illegals...
...Father Neuhaus confesses that this is "heavy-duty name-dropping"-but then someone's got to do it...
...Something of the same resentment and mean-spiritedness seem to underlie plans to send poor children to orphanages...
...But even marginally stricter enforcement could help stave off more drastic restrictions...
...Sound Draconian...
...She is also co-author with Mariet Ponsot of two books on writing: Beat Not the Poor Desk and The Common Sense (Boynton/Cook/Heinemann...
...Leave aside the cost for care: $40-$45,000 per child, per year...
...One of its goals was to cut educational and medical services to illegal immigrants, the costs of which are now borne by California taxpayers...
...Our reviewer {see page 21) insists that in the line of his journalistic duties he has been within a few yards of John Paul on at least two occasions but no words were exchanged...
...The late Peter Hebblethwaite, in his review {Times Literary Supplement, November 11, 1994), backed up his comparison of the pope to an elderly professor: "I once heard him discussing whether Portuguese had a word for 'nostalgia.'" Unlike Novak, Richard John Neuhaus got to the Vatican on time...
...Why...
...Those saintly women and men have few successors...
...The federal government should enforce the current immigration laws: Provide more immigration officers and border guards, clean up the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization and make it more effective, force the courts to act expeditiously in deportation hearings...
...It may be as Abigail McCarthy has argued in these pages ("Orphans Need Homes," January 26, 1990), that some children would benefit from the security and discipline of an orphanage...
...And the mother of five...
...second, enforce the current laws against employers who hire illegals by levying maximum fines and imposing maximum jail sentences...
...Most Americans, right, left, and center, are unwilling to carry national identity cards...
...Probably not totally...
...The many thousands of unmarried teen-age mothers do constitute a problem for the country...
...Forget the costs of building...
...Is it workable...
...economy when their visas run out...
...Wow...
...In fact, people who want to come here and have the money, can and do buy airplane tickets, arrive legally as students or tourists, and disappear into the underground U.S...
...Add to this our religious traditions, which, varied though they are, urge us to welcome the stranger...
...The most effective deterrent to illegal immigration would be to keep such immigrants from working, no matter where they come from or how they got here: First, mandate a counterfeit-proof, computer-connected national identity card for all Americans and require it for employment and government services...
...If, as expected, 187 does not meet the constitutional test, still the voters and the suits against Washington will have made a point...
...begin their remaking-government spree, will they be able to distinguish between reform and resentment...
...Consider the nation's conflicted views and history...
...My experience in reading these pages was as if I were making up for what I missed...
...Six other states, including Florida and Texas, have sued the federal government for reimbursement, arguing that such expenditures stem from its failure to enforce immigration laws...
...But enforcing the current immigration laws means not only rigorously patrolling the U.S.-Mexican border but also tracking down and deporting visitors from all over the world who overstay their visas...
...The great orphanages of yesteryear were run by nuns and priests-or by their Protestant and Jewish equivalents-and dedicated to the long-term, time-consuming, twenty-four-hour-a-day job of raising children...
...Of course, she writes poetry herself-and essays...
...I read the book," he reported {National Review, December 5, 1994), "within a few days of a long and lively dinner with the pope...
...Gingrich seems to have more than this in mind...
...If Proposition 187 passes constitutional muster, proponents say it will discourage undocumented migrants from crossing the Mexican border...
...Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan is emblematic...
...Barriers to effective enforcement of the law do not abrogate the law...
...A federal district court has denied Florida's claim...
...Most Americans are unwilling to become the kind of country that closes its borders to newcomers...
...Such enforcment, above all, could help to assuage the sense of resentment that has given rise to mean-spirited measures like Proposition 187...
...A group of these . on "Gardening" {Antioch Review, Fall 1993) are among the "Notable Essays of 1993," recently so designated in The Best American Essays, 1994 (Houghton Mifflin...
...And then, she teaches English at Queens College where she is associate professor...
...Leave aside the current laws and social welfare regulations...
...Immigrants and children are uniquely without elected representation...
...When he did address me," our reviewer adds, "it seems he was also talking to a few hundred thousand other people present as well...
...It would discourage illegal migration by increasing the "opportunity costs," while assuring those waiting to come legally that an orderly queue is being maintained...
...Making their children "orphans" by governmental fiat will not solve the problem, just as entertaining a nativist politics will not solve the problems of aggrieved California taxpayers...
...Of course, the pope often phones late at night just to chat...
...That leaves civil servants-a group the Republicans are otherwise eager to cast from the temple of government...
...After all, it is not only Mexicans who illegally immigrate, but Irish, English, Eastern Europeans, Pakistanis, Indians, Koreans, and Chinese as well...
...A RENAISSANCE WOMAN Commonweal's poetry editor, Rosemary Deen, can usually be spotted during her biweekly visits behind a large stack of thin envelopes, sorting through the doggerel, verse, haikus, and everything that passes for poetry, including the wonderful poems she chooses for these pages...
Vol. 122 • January 1995 • No. 1
