Illegals vs. Enforcement - The protesters in the street get it. Does Congress?

NRO ^ | March 28, 2006 | Rich Lowry

[neverdem]

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March 28, 2006,

7:22 a.m.

Illegals vs. Enforcement

The protesters in the street get it. Does Congress?

Advocates for illegal immigration might have trouble ginning up much support for their cause if they didn’t have recourse to a handy expedient: constantly importing more supporters. Every day that more illegal immigrants arrive in this country is a day that the constituency for defying our immigration laws grows larger.

Illegals demonstrated that last weekend when they swelled the ranks of anti-enforcement protesters in a Los Angeles rally estimated at 500,000, and in rallies in Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, and Milwaukee that drew tens of thousands. The protests generated sympathetic media coverage that emphasized how much opposition there is to a House bill toughening enforcement, although the idea of stricter enforcement is wildly popular with the American public.

Proponents of an amnesty and guest-worker program often say, “There are some jobs Americans won’t do.” When it comes to manning massive protests against our immigration laws, they are right. For that, you need illegal labor.

In the short term, the anti-enforcement protests might backfire. In 1994, illegal immigrants were part of a huge protest against California’s Proposition 187, which denied various public benefits to illegals. But the specter of protesters waving Mexican flags only fueled public support for the measure, which passed handily. This time, there was an ample supply of American flags at the L.A. rally, but influential blogger Mickey Kaus still reports that there was an even split between Mexican and American flags. “If you said ‘Mexican flag’ every time you saw a Mexican flag,” Kaus writes, “you never stopped talking.”

Well, aren’t there plenty of Irish flags at St. Patrick’s Day parades, and Italian flags at Columbus Day celebrations? What makes the Mexican displays more ominous is their hint of a large, unassimilated population existing outside America’s laws and exhibiting absolutely no sheepishness about it. As the New York Times put it delicately in a report on the protests, they included “immigrants who were long thought too fearful of deportation to risk so public a display.” But there is safety in numbers.

Opponents of immigration enforcement hope to create demographic realities on the ground that inevitably shape our policy. Already, one of their favorite arguments is to ask, with exaggerated incredulity, “What are you going to do with the eleven million illegals already here, deport them all?” Mass defiance of immigration laws serves to make those laws seem steadily more unenforceable, undermining them from within.

Democrats are happy to stoke this self-perpetuating dynamic, since it directly benefits them. Political scientist James Gimpel of the University of Maryland says that Latino voters who have recently become citizens vote Democratic by a margin of 2-1. So, the more new Latino voters there are, the stronger the lax-enforcement Democrats become.

Republicans are tempted to get on this treadmill, too, in order not to “alienate the Latino vote.” It used to be only California that the GOP had to fear “losing,” but now it’s also Arizona, Texas, and Colorado, with Latino voters becoming more important in southern states like Georgia and North Carolina as well. But whatever Republicans do to allow more Latinos into the country only creates more Democratic voters in the near term.

If demographics isn’t quite destiny, it really matters. Look at Europe. Muslim immigration is challenging the cultural identity of Holland and has created unpoliced no-go zones in the Paris suburbs. The nightmare is something similar happening here, unless we pause to culturally digest our recent immigrants. Harvard scholar Samuel Huntington, who presciently wrote of a “clash of civilizations” years before 9/11, warns of the threat to America’s national cohesion from an ever-growing, poorly assimilated Latino population.

All such warnings seem unduly dire — until, as the Europeans have learned, they come to pass. Then it’s too late (what are you going to do, deport them all?). The stakes in the current immigration debate are huge, in both defining our laws and what we are as a nation. The protesters in the street get it. Does Congress?

— Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.

(c) 2006 King Features Syndicate

	http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200603280722.asp

[neverdem]

American Dhimmitude

[rellimpank]

--thanks--

[Icelander]

Rich Lowry is a good man.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Do you support or oppose H.R. 4437, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005?

Support
82.2%


Oppose
17.8%

---

Ask any Veteran
what they think of the "plan" to reward
illegal "guest workers"
with a "path" to citizenship.

---

Time for the real conservatives on FR,
be it Republicans, Independents or Democrats
(like Zell Miller and John O'Neill) to band together
and oust the looney left and RINO's

---

The "Politically Correct RINO's" on FR are the same group
who "swore"
klintoon, hitlery, hanoi kerry, sanbdi ber(bur)glar, al bore, jane beno,
would be prosecuted for
pardongate, chinagate, the bribes in upstate NY in the 2000 NY Senate race, waco, etc, etc,
"when" the "time was right".

NOW the The "Politically Correct RINO's" on FR
want YOU to actually support the "plan" to reward illegal "guest workers"
with a "path" to citizenship.

How could an illegal be a "guest" of anything?

What part of criminal don't RINO's understand?

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Free Republic Opinion Poll:
Do you support or oppose H.R. 4437, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005?

FReeper Member Opinion
as of 4/01/06 at 1 PM PST

Support 83.6% 1,468

Oppose 16.4% 289

100.0% 1,757

Thank Goodness the FReeper RINO's are
only 16.4 %

---

The "Politically Correct RINO's" on FR are the same group
who "swore"
klintoon, hitlery, hanoi kerry, sanbdi ber(bur)glar, al bore, jane beno,
would be prosecuted for
pardongate, chinagate, the bribes in upstate NY in the 2000 NY Senate race, waco, etc, etc,
"when" the "time was right".

NOW the The "Politically Correct RINO's" on FR
want YOU to actually support the "plan" to reward illegal "guest workers"
with a "path" to citizenship.

How could an illegal be a "guest" of anything?

What part of criminal don't RINO's understand?

[Fruit of the Spirit]

"illegal immigrants" is tantamount to calling terrorists "insurgents".. They're illegal ALIENS!! Just like Martians would be.

---

Proponents of an amnesty and guest-worker program often say, “There are some jobs Americans won’t do.” When it comes to manning massive protests against our immigration laws, they are right. For that, you need illegal labor.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-hicks1apr01,0,6111380,print.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

"What immigrant-rights groups refuse to acknowledge is that an unchecked flow of unskilled labor drives down wages for entry-level jobs, rendering all poor Americans, including millions of teenage workers, less than competitive."

"Are illegal workers doing jobs that Americans won't do? This often-heard argument is specious. The reality is that most Americans won't do entry-level labor for the meager wages often offered to undocumented workers."

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[dr_who_2]

"just more fish wrap from nro"

[blackie]

Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!

Support our Minutemen Patriots!

Be Ever Vigilant!

[HiJinx]

NRO Fishwrap Ping?

Fishwrap? Huh?

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Please call them INVADERS and don't compare them to people who are legal aliens!

IF you aid and abet CRIMINALS, you are a criminal!


President Bush has been great on most things except for our border.
He has been great on the war on terrorists.
But on the border he is a gross failure.
He acted fast and correct on the 3,000+ people murdered at the world trade center.
He ignores the many rapes, murders and robberies which might be larger than the murders and money loss at the world trade center.
More Americans are abducted on the border of Mexico than in Iraq!

Start building the fence.

It should be made a felony for Criminals who overstay their visas and Invaders.

I believe we should give amnesty to these poor CRIMINALS or INVADERS.
This should be a 2 week amnesty to get the heck out of our Country.
The ones who ignore this amnesty should be buried in a tent city jail and fined $10,000 or buried elsewhere.
All aiders and abettors of these CRIMINALS or INVADERS should get 1 year in a tent city jail and a $10,000 fine for each CRIMINAL aided.
Those in government should be the first ones charged.

[djf]

I think what we're seeing now is that a few months ago, maybe twenty percent of Americans were aware of illegal immigration, and eighty percent of those didn't like it.

Now, thanks to the rallies and them flying that flag, and badmouthing patriotic Americans, eighty percent of Americans are aware of illegal immigration and eighty percent of us don't like it.

Them croutons are digging their own grave...

[Ben Ficklin]

Laege Majority Favor Guest Workers

[djf]

Oh, BTW, and last year I had about 8 lettuce plants in my garden. Had as much lettuce as I needed all summer/fall. Then the suckers went to seed.

Last I looked, which was yesterday, I got about 8,649 lettuce seedlings starting in my garden.
All lettuce is is an edible weed.

Put your kids to work about an hour a week, and you'll have more lettuce than you can shake a stick at.

[SUSSA]

The illegal aliens and the criminals who hire them and the criminals who harbor them are getting out in the street making their desires known. It is way past time those of us who support the rule of law and secure borders did the same.

Join Veterans for Secure Borders, The Minuteman Project, Latino Americans for Immigration Reform, Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, and other groups protesting amnesty for these criminals, and demanding the government protect our borders.

http://www.areckoning.com/

FReepers should be at this rally in strength. Saturday, May 6, in Crawford, TX.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

LA Kennedy backs Bush on Illegals!

[devolve]

[Ben Ficklin]

Its too bad that the republican party couldn't unite behind Bush, if only to stop Kennedy as the man who calls the shots on immigration.

If it is any solace, two years ago Tancredo predicted that the bill that Congress produces will be worse than the Bush Plan.

[wardaddy]

Amen Rich! Preach it brother.

Republicans are tempted to get on this treadmill, too, in order not to “alienate the Latino vote.” It used to be only California that the GOP had to fear “losing,” but now it’s also Arizona, Texas, and Colorado, with Latino voters becoming more important in southern states like Georgia and North Carolina as well. But whatever Republicans do to allow more Latinos into the country only creates more Democratic voters in the near term. If demographics isn’t quite destiny, it really matters. Look at Europe. Muslim immigration is challenging the cultural identity of Holland and has created unpoliced no-go zones in the Paris suburbs. The nightmare is something similar happening here, unless we pause to culturally digest our recent immigrants. Harvard scholar Samuel Huntington, who presciently wrote of a “clash of civilizations” years before 9/11, warns of the threat to America’s national cohesion from an ever-growing, poorly assimilated Latino population. All such warnings seem unduly dire — until, as the Europeans have learned, they come to pass. Then it’s too late (what are you going to do, deport them all?). The stakes in the current immigration debate are huge, in both defining our laws and what we are as a nation. The protesters in the street get it. Does Congress?

we are being betrayed ..

[wardaddy]

BTTT!