For about as long as I've been old enough to have an opinion on it, I have been in favor of immigration to the US. I never bought the stories about wide spread abuse of governmental services by immigrants or the "they're taking our jobs" scare talk.
I took what I considered to be a pragmatic economic view of the issue. We need people to do jobs that Americans increasingly seemed unwilling to do and the immigrants needed and wanted an opportunity for a brighter economic future. I saw in the success of the Latino and Asian immigrants in opening their own businesses and achieving the "American dream" a refutation of the claims of native minority groups that racism and history had made it impossible for them to get ahead. On the whole I viewed immigration as a positive for our country.
A few years ago chinks (no pun intended) began to appear in the armor of my immigration position. The cons of immigration become increasingly evident while the pros seemed to be harder to spot. The problems of the border towns in California, Arizona, and Texas and the refusal of many new immigrants to assimilate raised concerns about the wisdom of continuing immigration. But, at the time, it was not a subject that I gave a great deal of thought to and my core beliefs on the issue remained unchanged.
September 11th brought to light just how dangerous the consequences of our lax immigration and border controls could be. An attack on our country was planned and prepared for over many months, even years on our own soil by declared enemies of our country who had little difficulty entering and leaving the US on multiple occasions before the attack.
The reaction of some immigrant groups after the attack also exposed the fact the even after living in our country for years and enjoying the many freedoms we afforded them some immigrants had scant loyalty to the US and were sometimes even openly disdainful of American ideals of liberty and democracy. Radical Islamists called for the overthrow of the government and the establishment of a Muslim state, creating the threat of future attacks from this small but dangerous group from within our own borders. In the months afterward, I have had to seriously question whether open immigration was still a value that our country wanted to embrace.
The final nail in the coffin was hammered home courtesy of an article in the latest edition of the National Review by Steven Camarota. It is not available on line but here is a brief excerpt:
When the history of the 1990s is written, the most important story may not be the GOP takeover of Congress, the boom economy, or the Clinton impeachment. The big story may be the decade's unprecedented level of immigration--a social phenomenon affecting everything from the nation's schools to the political balance between the two parties.
Newly released census figures show that the foreign-born population reached 31.1 million in 2000. This is by far the largest immigrant population in U.S. history, and represents a 57 percent increase from 1990. Even during the great wave of immigration from 1900 to 1910, the foreign-born population grew by only about 31 percent; over the past 30 years, the number of immigrants in the U.S. has tripled. If current trends are allowed to continue, the foreign-born share of the population will in fact pass the all-time high by the end of this decade.
Besides just demonstrating the frightening scope of the current levels of immigration, Camarota also points out that the immigrants of today are for the most part poor and uneducated. Whereas in the late 19th and early 20th century the Irish, German, and Italian immigrants coming to America had roughly the same education level as the average native born American at the time, today very few new immigrants have even attended high school. The costs to educate this new generation of immigrants in enormous and is one of the reasons that our educational system as a whole has performed so poorly of late.
It is also one of the reasons why during the economic expansion of the 90's the poverty rate remained unchanged. While most native born Americans were able to improve their fortunes during the decade this flood of poor immigrants insured that little progress could made overall. And, in purely economic terms, a recent study conservatively estimated that the immigrants of the '90s cost the United States government a net $20 billion dollars after comparing outlays to the immigrants with taxes collected from them. That was more than enough for me. Shields down, argument over. Where do I sign up to oppose immigration?
Camaroate does not propose completely eliminating immigration but rather wants to tighten a few rules which would result in a much lower figure of around 300,000 legal immigrants a year, a number he believes we can deal with. He also favors tightening controls on the borders, which in light on 9/11 seems to be a no brainer.
The problem as I see it is that no politician or party wants to touch this issue. Bush has clearly demonstrated his willingness to pander for the Hispanic vote by proposing legalization of illegal immigrants already here and doing nothing to place further restrictions on them. The culturally aware and diverse Dems also see immigration as a votes issue believing that once the immigrants get here they can be lured to the plantation with promises of government aid and feel good victimization to explain their plight. This could be a very dangerous situation if it continues and we might find ourselves falling into a trap that has already occurred in a few European countries.
For decades most European countries have encouraged immigration to provide labor for their work forces in the face of declining native populations. Now some Europeans are beginning to question the wisdom of further immigration in the light of the rising crime rates, intolerance towards Jews, and abuse of women among certain immigrant communities (can you guess which one I'm talking about?). But because so many immigrants are already there and can vote, no politician is willing to stand on the issue for fear of being punished at the voting booth with their block voting power. Talk about a truly frightening situation.
The issue of immigration is not on anybody's front burner right now. But in the next few years it may turn out to be one of the most critical challenges we face in ensuring the future of a prosperous and free United States. I know where I now stand. How about you?
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