Posted on 05/29/2007 6:55:47 AM PDT by ruination
To observe the sentimental fantasy and ruthless political calculation that fuels the Bush administration's immigration plans, one need only turn to Michael Gerson’s most recent Washington Post column. Former Bush speechwriter Gerson was a powerful voice in the White House, especially on the matter of injecting faith into policymaking; his May 25 column provides a window into how the administration deals with facts.
Gerson accuses opponents of the Senate’s recent amnesty proposal of a nativist fear of illegal immigrants. Such a fear, he argues, will hurt the Republican party’s electoral chances and miss an opportunity to make the country even more religious. Powerlineblog.com’s Paul Mirengoff has dismantled Gerson’s key arguments, rejecting in particular his claim that illegal immigrants’ religiosity should affect policy decisions about their fate: “The belief that matters most for purposes of this debate [writes Mirengoff] is not religious but civic — not belief in God but belief in our institutions and love for our country. It is the latter kind of thinking, and only such thinking, that will result in successful assimilation.”
But Gerson’s column is flawed on another front as well: It recycles of open-borders bromides that have nothing to do with the truth. In warning against a rejection of amnesty, Gerson states: “If the Republican Party cannot find ways to appeal to natural entrepreneurs, with strong family values, who are focused on education and social mobility, then the GOP is already dead.”
What planet is Gerson living on? Far from being “focused on education,” Hispanics have the highest drop-out rate in the country — 47 percent nationally, and far worse in heavily Hispanic areas. Schools in illegal-immigrant-saturated southern California spend enormous sums trying to persuade Latino students to stay in school and study, without avail. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, just 40 percent of Hispanics graduate, and those students who do finish school come out with abysmal skills. A controversial high school exit exam in California would require seniors to correctly answer just 51 percent of questions testing eighth-grade-level math and ninth-grade-level English in order to receive a diploma. Naturally, immigrant advocates have fiercely opposed this all-too-meager measure for school and student accountability. The California Research Bureau predicts that the exam will result in a Hispanic graduation rate of below 30 percent.
Behind Hispanic educational failure rate lies an apathy towards learning, as the Manhattan Institute’s Herman Badillo argues in One Nation, One Standard. Hostility towards academic achievement is higher among Hispanics than among blacks. Factor in gang involvement and teenage pregnancy, and the Hispanic drop-out rate looks almost inevitable. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that a whopping 15 percent to 20 percent of illegal immigrants may not qualify for the proposed amnesty because of their criminal records, according to the Wall Street Journal. Gerson’s claim of a culture “focused on education” is pure delusion.
Gerson’s hackneyed invocation of Hispanic “family values” is equally laughable. Nearly 50 percent of all Hispanic children are born out of wedlock, compared to 24 percent of white children and 15 percent of Asian children. Black out-of-wedlock births are higher — 68 percent — but the black population is not growing rapidly. And the fertility rate among unmarried Hispanic women is the highest in the country — over three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly one and a half times that of black women. The Hispanic teen-fertility rate also far outstrips other groups. Among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, the teen birthrate is 93 births per every 1,000 girls, compared with 27 births for every 1,000 white girls, 17 births for every 1,000 Asian girls, and 65 births for every 1,000 black girls. As conservative policymakers such as Gerson should know, there is no better predictor of future social pathologies than out-of-wedlock childrearing.
Low levels of education and high levels of illegitimacy help explain why, contrary to Gerson’s myths, Hispanics are not showing the “social mobility” of other immigrant groups past and present, as Harvard’s George Borjas has documented and City Journal’s Steve Malanga has reported.
Gerson’s disregard for basic accuracy makes his Machiavellian view of the law all the more troubling. He claims that Republicans must do whatever it takes to capture a portion of the “fastest-growing segment of the electorate” (of course, what is growing fastest is the illegal population, who as of yet are not entitled to vote). “At one level,” writes Gerson, “any immigration debate concerns a raw political calculation: Who ends up with more voters?” Such “raw political calculations” clearly govern White House machinations, but here are some factors that influence less partisan observers of the immigration mess: respect for the rule of law and a desire to show fairness to foreigners who comply with our immigration policies. In the American heartland, it is illegal aliens’ disregard for U.S. immigration rules that most infuriates the public. Conservatives usually embrace the rule of law as a central component of their ideology — except, apparently, when the primacy of law interferes with more important objectives, such as getting elected. Had Democrats used Gerson’s political calculus in deciding whether to support civil rights in the 1960s, they would have held on to power in the South, to be sure, but at the cost of principle .
Pace Gerson, it is not nativism, but facts and principle that lie behind opposition to the Senate’s latest amnesty proposal. Playing the nativist (read: racism) card allows propagandists like Gerson to ignore both.
Looks like ‘centrist’ Republicans have found a way to scream ‘racist’ at those who disagree with them.
Thanks for the post.
If anyone can refute the advocates of amnesty and illegal aliens it is Heather McDonald. And, she does it with real numbers.
They are worse than liberals in this regard, because they ought to know better.
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1837121/posts
Last Stand for American Sovereignty
“They are worse than liberals in this regard, because they ought to know better.”
That’s just it - they ARE liberals.
I wonder if the drop out rate is higher in “multi-lingual” vs. “english only” schools.
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
I'm not sure that's fair. They are certainly not conservatives. But to lump them with Teddy Kennedy, John Kerry, and Al Gore would remove all meaning from the word, "liberal."
The WH has pursued some generally conservative initiatives (ones that drive Teddy and John and Al nuts) successfully. And, the WH actually understands that we are at war, something that the left will never recognize until their granddaughters are in Burkhas. Even when that happens, the leftists' silly ideology will require that they celebrate Burkha diversity, as long as the Islamists don't touch their wealth. So I don't think calling the WH liberal is fair. Plus, we lose a word that makes a meaningful distinction in politics.
What I am complaining about is that, even when the WH is wrong and adopts a liberal position, it still expects conservatives to line up and support it--eg, CFR, No Child Left Behind, Illegal Immigration. When we don't, the WH gets pissy and starts calling us names. Funny he never takes off the gloves with Teddy, only the folks who put him in the WH twice.
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Well said. I speak Spanish fluently, have traveled all over Mexico (except to tourist places like Acapulco and Cancun), lived on a Mexican ranch for 6 months where I was the only “Bolillo” there. I actually think popular Mexican music is better than the hip-hop moron “music” that pollutes our airwaves. Most of the illegals are good people. It’s our politicians who are betraying us.
But we can’t absorb everyone in the world who wants to come here. This amnesty bill tells the world that amnesty bills are forever. We will never have any good faith enforcement of our laws. We have surrendered, come on in.
“here are some factors that influence less partisan observers of the immigration mess: respect for the rule of law and a desire to show fairness to foreigners who comply with our immigration policies. In the American heartland, it is illegal aliens’ disregard for U.S. immigration rules that most infuriates the public.”
yes that’s it in a nutshell...
To penalize peple who are applying to be REAL immigrants is hardly the actions of an America that believes in fairness and equality and the rule of law...
And to reward the cheating and puedo-Gengis Khan actions of the illegal aliens in such a cavalier fashion creates a slave-race of the American citizen tax-payers...
The N-word in this case was omitted from your excerpt: Nativism.
Sub-titles are important.
Laura Ingraham is just speaking about Heather MacDonald and this article right now...
Let's not forget that the majority of the illegals are from the bottom of their respective societies and are essentially hillbillies in the worst sense of the term. Meanwhile, my Colombian and Venezuelan colleagues, all of whom have college educations and would not be a drain on society, are put through hell by ICE.
I hate illegal immigration, but still despise ICE for its misplacement of priorities.
Interestingly enough, most of the TRUE guest workers are NOT a problem. Whether its the Argentinean kids working at the ski resort I go to, the Filipino techs I know who are here on work visas, or the Poles who were working all of the concessions on the boardwalk last week, I know such folks were screened, and tend to be those with initiative and functioning brains. I can't say the same for the most of the illegals, and I live in the most illegal-tolerant region of the country.
Most folks I know learn English the old fashioned way: from popular media (television, movies, etc.). The youth in their ethnic ghettos don't have much of an interest in Mami's novelas, I am happy to report.
BTT
There won’t be 50 United States in 20 years, thanks to the OBL Quislings.
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