Sowell: American society cannot keep allowing illegal immigration

    Many Americans are concerned because millions of illegal immigrants enter this country and little seems to be done to stop them. But California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, is upset because now something is being done to catch some of them.
    Police raids on dozens of Wal-Mart stores are "terrorizing" illegal immigrants, according to House Minority Leader Pelosi. What would she do about illegal immigrants? Legalize them!
    This mind-set is not confined to Nancy Pelosi. There are several bills currently before Congress to make "undocumented workers" -- we are too delicate to call illegal aliens what they are -- legal residents. After that, they are on the road to citizenship.
    In other words, come here illegally and we will make you legal!
    Just recently, California's outgoing Gov. Gray Davis signed a law giving illegal aliens the right to get driver's licenses. Since driver's licenses are widely accepted as identification, that amounts to providing illegal aliens widespread access to the institutions of American society, private and public.
    Illegal aliens living in California can go to the state universities and pay only the in-state tuition, while native-born American citizens who live in neighboring Oregon or Nevada have to pay much higher out-of-state tuition to attend California's state universities. Apparently Mexico is not out of state.
    Some of this is just shameless politics, in utter disregard of what most Americans want and oblivious to the irreversible changes that massive illegal immigration introduces into American society. When an illegal immigrant is allowed to settle in the United States, any child born to that illegal alien automatically becomes an American citizen -- and all that child's relatives back in Mexico or elsewhere then have the inside track to come here legally.
    All this is widely known. But it is also widely disregarded in the quest for Hispanic votes. Yet what is happening cannot all be explained by cynical and short-sighted politics.
    After all, we still have a free press and innumerable television channels. If those in the media who loudly proclaim "the public's right to know" when it suits their interests were serious about alerting the public to what is happening, and put as much indignation into it as they put into many more trivial issues, the mass outcry from voters would quickly get the politicians' attention.
    The fact is that the intelligentsia have no stomach for defending American society or its culture and values, and certainly not as much interest in doing so as they have in posturing as friends of the underdog, or as citizens of the world who are above parochial national concerns.
    Another factor is that even critics of illegal immigration have to admit that many of the most hard-working people in California are people of Mexican origin, both legal and illegal.
    You don't see Mexicans or Mexican Americans begging on the streets of San Francisco, for example, the way you often see healthy white men who look perfectly capable of working, if they did not find begging an easier or more profitable life.
    But it is a bogus argument that illegal immigrants do work that most Americans refuse to do. The fallacy would become obvious, even to the media, if Mexican reporters came over here illegally and worked for half of what American reporters were getting.
    Would the media still buy the argument that these reporters from Mexico were just doing work that you cannot get Americans to do? Or would they finally wake up to the fact that the pay level has a lot to do with whether Americans will accept certain jobs?
    Another fallacious argument is that today's immigration is nothing new because this country has absorbed millions of immigrants in the past. In the past, people came here to become Americans, not remain foreigners. But between the multicultural craze and the proximity of Mexico, Americanization has an uphill fight and may never become the norm.
    The question is not how many new Americans can we accept but how many more foreigners can we absorb? And how many terrorists?

Another factor is that even critics of illegal immigration have to admit that many of the most hard-working people in California are people of Mexican origin, both legal and illegal.

Two things have always bothered me about this oft mentioned observation.

First it focuses on the individual and not the problem. Immigrants are not the problem. Unregulated immigration is. The problem is the process, not the victims of the process.

Second is the misnomer that somehow hardwork is the anecdote to California's problems. Regardless of how good the work ethic, an under educated and unskilled laborer can't contribute enough in productivity to pay for the cost of public services that he consumes. This inverted relationship simply accelerates when this immigrant has a family. Most of California's mandated public services are linked to children.

State denied House seat because of illegal immigration, study says
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON Missoulian State Bureau

HELENA - Counting illegal immigrants in the census cost Montana a U.S. House seat in 1990 and denied it a new district in 2000, a study by a group that favors immigration restrictions concludes.

The study, by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that backs tougher restrictions on immigrants, contends that counting illegal immigrants in the census benefits states with the most illegal immigrants, while it penalizes other states without them. California gained three new House seats after the 2000 census because of illegal immigrants, while North Carolina gained one, said the study, reported in Thursday's Wall Street Journal.

"The presence of illegal aliens in other states caused Indiana, Michigan and Mississippi to each lose one seat in the House in 2000, while Montana failed to gain a seat it otherwise would have," the study said.

What's more, the study said, illegal immigration not only realigns seats in the House but reshapes presidential elections because the Electoral College is based on the size of state congressional delegations.

The census also counted noncitizens in 2000, which besides illegal immigrants includes people on long-term temporary visas, such as foreign students, guest workers and other exchange visitors, and legal permanent residents, also known as green-card holders, the report said.

Looking at the House seats redistributed because of all noncitizens counted in the 2000 census, not just illegal immigrants, California gained six seats, while Florida, New York and Texas each gained one, the report said. Montana was one of nine states that either didn't gain a seat it should have or lost a seat, the study said.

Despite a growing population from 1980 to 1990, Montana lost one of its two U.S. House seats after the 1990 census because it didn't gain enough residents to retain the seat.

That led to the 1992 showdown between the two longtime U.S. House incumbents for the state's single remaining House seat. Democrat Pat Williams, who had represented the western district, topped Republican Ron Marlenee, who had represented the eastern district.

Although Montana's population kept growing in the 1990s, the state lacked enough residents to regain the other House seat after the 2000 census.

Although illegal immigrants can't vote, they are counted as part of the federal census each year.

Officials from the Montana Republican and Democratic parties declined to comment on the study, which may be found at www.cis.org.

Brad Keena, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., said his boss wants to look into the study's conclusions.

"I suspect the average Montana citizen would rightly call this an outrage," Keena said of the study's conclusion. "While it's important for the government to know who lives where in the United States, a distinction still has to be made between the lawful population and those here illegally."

Added Keena: "The stakes are too high to allow one state to use an inflated population count to win more representation at the expense of lawful residents of other states."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.