Immigration Realism

John Fonte’s understanding of the immigration debate is unfortunately out of touch. (See his NRO piece, “Comprehensively Wrong,” posted on July 25.) So perhaps we can do something to help him better understand it.

Fonte contends, among other things, that the reform we endorsed in our “Conservatives’ Letter on Immigration Reform,” published in the Wall Street Journal on July 10, is “mostly Democratic.” Tell that to President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Frist, and the 22 other GOP legislators who voted for that approach in the Senate.

John Fonte may find some of these lawmakers insufficiently hardline — and he apparently scorns bipartisanship even in the interest of solving the nation’s most pressing problems — but they are still Republicans, and a number of them are conservatives’ conservatives. As for the 33 signatories of our letter — they included George Shultz, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Grover Norquist, Bill Kristol, Ed Gillespie — well...the list speaks for itself.

Then there are Fonte’s outmoded ideas about enforcement. It used to be — years ago — that the public faced an either/or choice between immigration and enforcement. Immigrant advocates asserted that policy should be driven by their clients’ rights and that this required an increase in immigration quotas, while conservatives talked about law and order, enforcing the border, and retaking control, all of which generally meant fewer immigrants. But the debate has changed dramatically in the last year or two. Thanks to the president and other Republican proponents of reform, there’s another option on the table now — one that combines the workers we need to grow the economy and the tough enforcement measures we need to secure the border and restore the rule of law

Tamar Jacoby is so easy to dislike.

One of her particularly annoying tendencies is to be dishonest, and to hide what she truly wants. For example, she call for "more honest immigration quotas". What does that mean? Well, of course it means massive increases in already large-scale legal immigration, but of course she's not going to come out and say that. So instead she uses the word 'honest', which doesn't make one damn bit of sense, and is especially galling coming from her.

And the original letter in question does indeed make it sound like these 'conservatives' belive that foreigners have a right to come to the US to work. It just does.

That she goes on to both speak well of, and criticize the Pence/Hutchison plan is very telling. That a radical like Jacoby likes the Pence plan tell us that the Pence plan is garbage (even though Pence is an otherwise excellent conservative), but the fact that she dislikes it tells us thatt the Pence plan isn't radical, or bad, enough for her tastes.

First of all, the Pence plan requirement about English is just like all the other English requirements from all the other 'reform' bills, in that it is meaningless. Today the law says that to become a citizen, one must demonstrate command of English, yet for some reason we have Voting-Rights Act mandated foreign language ballots all over the nation. Why would that be necessary if we enforced the existing English requirements to immigration/naturalization law? And lets face it, most of the contenders for 08 would be as bad or worse than President Bush on this issue, so any enforcement from them would likely be as nonexistent as it has been under the current President, and the last one, and the one before him, .....

This English thing is just a smokescreen, an empty bone thrown out to try and mollify conservatives.

All the talk about amnestied illegals and guest workers not being eligible for permanent status for so long is also meaningless. The fact is that the 'guests' will be allowed to stay, and since most will have broought over part of their families while still technically 'guests', then its almost a sure bet that most 'guests' will choose to stay. So what if they have to wait a few more years to become citizens. They have the prize -- which is permanent residency in the US. That Jacoby wants to make their path to citizenship quicker is very suspicious seeing as how it is the same thing as increasing the Democratic voter rolls more quickly!

By this time in the article, however, Jacoby has let in a little truth, as she describes the so-called 'temporary guest workers' as what they truly are; long time legal immigrants. Now if only the Jacobys, Kennedys, and McCains of the world could be as honest when labeling their proposals. But I guess its easier to sell the fraudulent 'Earned Citizenship and Guest Worker Program' than it is the more honestly titled 'Multi-Step Amnesty and Gigantic Increase in Permanent Legal Immigration.'

But her honestly is short-lived, as by the close she is back to using calls for a more 'rational, realistic immigration policy.' Why can't you just be honest? Why not admit that your method for solving the illegal immigration problem is to so massively increase permanent legal immigration to such an extent that it meets all or most of the demand of foreigners wanting to come here; and if that means 2, 3, 4, or 5 million per year, then so be it? Why can't they just say that?

And her calls for assimilation would be easier to take seriously if she weren't calling for the above-mentioned enormous increases in immigration, which is not assimilation-friendly at all. Increasing the flow will only weaken assimilatin and strengthen all the forces opposed to it. And of course the onus to adapt should always be on the immigrant. If public resources are required to help the immigrant along, then that is another indictment of immigration policy. Taxpayers should not have to spend their money to futher along what is already a gift.

Cripes. Before I clicked on the article I knew who the author would be. According to Jacoby we should get on our knees and thank God for the "new Americans".

THE "NEW AMERICAN".....

.....<

We are now one of the largest Spanish-speaking nations in the world. We're a major source of Latin music, journalism and culture.

Just go to Miami, or San Antonio, Los Angeles, Chicago or West New York, New Jersey ... and close your eyes and listen. You could just as easily be in Santo Domingo or Santiago, or San Miguel de Allende.

For years our nation has debated this change -- some have praised it and others have resented it. By nominating me, my party has made a choice to welcome the new America.

As I speak, we are celebrating the success of democracy in Mexico.

George Bush from a campaign speech in Miami, August 2000.

You can read the speech here.

Here is an excerpt of a good critique of that speech:

In equating our intimate historic bonds to our mother country and to Canada with our ties to Mexico, W. shows a staggering ignorance of the civilizational facts of life. The reason we are so close to Britain and Canada is that we share with them a common historical culture, language, literature, and legal system, as well as similar standards of behavior, expectations of public officials, and so on. My Bush Epiphany By Lawrence Auster

Very well put and your analysis nails her disingenuous butt right to the wall. The problem with all this talk by the left about helping these immigrants is that when their rhetoric is compared to reality their arguments carry no value.

We're told all they want to do is work, but the reality is they cost us tens of billions in welfare related services......we're told 'all they're looking for is a better life' but we see that many have no occupational or language skills so they latch onto we taxpayers for support, sucking us dry of $ that would be better spent on the future of our own children......we're told they 'do the jobs Americans won't do' but in reality it's obvious many employers choose to let go of Americans and hire illegals so they can EVADE several payroll taxes and pay a substandard wage because they know their employee living expenses will be supplemented by taxpayer $......

It's obvious we've been fed a lot of BS by our (alleged) leaders on this issue and it's sad more Americans have not woken up to this scam.

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