The leftist press would believably paint it as akin to a holocaust, and whatever party wrote the laws would be in deep caca.
1. Half the problem are libertarians, neoconservatives, and the country clubbers using the same language and giving the left cover.
2. The left will scream about anything we do.
Bush wants amnesty, the Democrats are supporting welfare for illegals. We still lose!
Therefore, it ain't going to happen nationwide. Get over it, and spend your energy encuraging assimilation. This country was the melting pot of the world for centuries, and I'm amazed that conservatives have surrendered to the idea that assimilation is now impossible.
Assimilation did not just occur.
It happened because every other generation we restricted immigration. We also created an education system to promote assimilation.
Today we have an education system promoting ethnic seperatism and you want to increase the number of people comming in? Shall we be forced to allow in another 50 million in the next 25 years?
That is precisely the problem. I grew up in New York City, and the entire education system there, up until the 1970s, was directed at assimilation - and it worked. It wasn't painless and seamless, but people ended up with enough in common to understand each other and their kids had enough background to get ahead in the US.
I believe Bush's plan called for programs to encourage assimilation, but that's pretty useless at the federal level. I think folks should get out there and work on their local school boards. Threaten to cut off the money unless they stop the multi-cult trash and start teaching things like English, real American history, etc., to everyone, regardless of where they or their parents were born. I think you'd be surprised by how many immigrants would join you. They came here to get ahead, not be trapped in a Dem immigrant ghetto.
Amnesty? AMNESTY! What is it about *illegal* don't you understand? They must go now!
In this period, we would create a targeted guest worker program.
No. Enforcement now, and we'll talk about other things later. That's what J.D. was insisting on, and he's right.
Assimilation did not just occur. [/sarcasm] It happened because every other generation we restricted immigration.
There were virtually no limits on immigration 100 years ago. At the time there was a larger percentage of the population born abroad than now. We assimilated them because we 1) welcomed them to America. And 2) insisted they join the American culture and learn English.
Telling a whole class of people that they are not welcome forces them into ethnic ghettos where they will never assimilate. It's not an accident that immigrants *stopped* assimilating when we started seriously limiting immigration at the unions behest 75 years ago. You have it exactly backward.
Today we have an education system promoting ethnic seperatism
Yes. So why are you wasting time trying to keep illegals out (which won't happen), when you could be spending your time fighting the education establishment and getting rid of multiculturalism? Some educrats are beginning to get the picture. Help them see the light.
Shall we be forced to allow in another 50 million in the next 25 years?
You have (had) a choice. Let them in under a legal framework. Or let them in the way the Democrats prefer, as an underclass they can exploit. The "anti-illegal" conservatives stupidly blocked Bush from creating that legal framework when he had the chance, and now they're going to have to continue to live under the Democrats system of anarchy on the border, and disintegrating American culture. The Stupid Party strikes again.