Posted on 10/02/2007 8:17:23 AM PDT by fweingart
OUR OPINION: LOCAL LAWS ARE NO SUBSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL REMEDY
Riverside, a small New Jersey town, got more than it bargained for after passing a get-tough immigration law last year. Proponents of the law blamed newcomers from Latin America for crowding, scarce parking, increased crime and strained public services. Although it never was enforced, the law worked anyway.
Influx of strangers
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Brazilians and other immigrants fled. Now the town has other woes: a deserted downtown, economic malaise and lingering resentment. Two weeks ago, Riverside repealed the law in the face of mounting legal bills and lawsuits likely to be lost.
Riverside's dynamics were predictable. Wary of strangers who spoke a different language and brought different customs, many residents rebelled. They feared the sudden influx of strangers: Why can't they speak English? They are taking our jobs.
Ironically, Riverside had experienced many immigrant waves before. Portuguese settled there in the 1960s and built businesses. This made the town attractive to Brazilians, who began arriving in 2000. How many of the new arrivals had legal status is unknown. But they revived the local economy.
Then came the new law. It mandated fines, jail time and possible loss of business licenses for anyone who knowingly rented housing or employed an undocumented immigrant. Soon after the law passed, many newcomers left. Along with them went the prosperity that their work and earnings pumped into the town.
Sad to say, Riverside's experience is quintessentially American. It reflects the love-hate relationship with immigrants that has existed since before our nation's founding. In the 1750s, Benjamin Franklin railed against German immigrants and their presumed threat to the English language. But our language and system of government survived the Germans, along with succeeding waves of Irish, Chinese, Italian, Polish, Mexican and Cuban immigrants. And the United States thrived.
Sensible solutions
Those groups arriving during eras of highest immigration were key to building U.S. industrial and economic power. The current wave, marked by immigrants from the Southern hemisphere, is no different.
Amid this wave, Riverside blamed undocumented immigrants for its woes, as did many of the 30 towns nationwide that enacted similar laws. Congress shares much of the blame for this. For years, the immigration system hasn't worked in the nation's best interest. Lawmakers with sensible solutions have been outflanked by a resilient minority. Municipalities would be better off lobbying Congress. Self-defeating local laws are no substitute for comprehensive immigration reform.
The part about "southern and eastern European immigrants" having resided in "self-segregated ghettoes" when they came to America 100 years ago is certainly true. And it is equally true that these autonomous communities existed for generations. (Many large cities, even today, have their own "Chinatowns." And "Little Havana" is, of course, a Cuban-American enclave in Miami.)
For quite awhile, this segregation was surely a reaction to bigotry by many native-born Americans. For instance, signs that bitingly declared, "Irish Need Not Apply"--or those with similar insults toward Italians or Poles--were once commonplace.
Fortunately, however, that mean-spiritedness is largely a thing of the past. And even those living in ethnically segregated communities today have assimilated to a reasonable degree.
I am less clear, however, as concerning your observation that "many [immigrants] initially came here with the idea of staying temporarily." What evidence do you have to support that view? (It has always been my impression that those who landed at Ellis Island had much more than temporary American status on their agendas.)
And the belief that late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century immigrants did not especially wish to "become American" strikes me as odd. In order to gain their coveted American citizenship, they were required to renounce all other rulers and principalities--including those of their native lands--and, so far as I am aware, they did so eagerly.
You are exactly on target!
Unfortunately, there is a portion of the right--the Big Business portion--that is also opposed to our cracking down on the illegals. And between these two unlikely bedfellows--the transnationalists on the left, who view national sovereignty as a mere social construct (and an intolerable one, at that); and the cheap-labor cheerleaders on a portion of the right--well, the prospects for our turning back the illegals do not appear so good.
I remember in my class on migration we learned that 20% of Italian immigrants returned to Italy. Figures were lower for scandanavian immigrants, I recall. Thomas Sowell also talks about this in "Migrations and Cultures."
Crikey! That is so sad, it’s downright Hell-Funny!
I was not aware that the percentages were quite so high. But I will have to defer to Mr. Sowell on this. He is certainly a scholarly person. And, presumably, he researched this matter thoroughly before commenting upon it in his book.
Even so, that means that four out of every five immigrants from Italy remained here, to become Americans; and an even higher percentage of Scandanavians did so.
For too long, members of many ethnic groups were excluded from mainstream society. Fortunately, this form of anti-assimilationism is just about dead.
The left-wing variety of anti-assimilationism---a.k.a. "multiculturalism"--is certainly no improvement.
Sorry to go off topic a bit (we have the same illegal problem) but I couldn’t help scrolling back to this comment.
You have a General Election next year . I take it President Bush is retiring , and your Republican Party is gearing up to choose a replacement .
The only candidates that get a mention here is Giuliani and that Fred Thompson . Are there any others running ? Who chooses ; the Republican Party members or a committee ?
Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo.
And a fat lot of good it does us!
We get establishment Republicans, by and large, who end up crawling into bed with the Democrats and converting to Satanism.
Well, who votes them in? How many posters on this board are active in primary battles? Especially the smaller ones like for local and state office which start people like JulieAnnie, Chuckie Hagel, Orrin Boobyhatch, and Dickie Lugar on their careers?
How many are willing to desert a sinking ship if a lib gets nominated as a Republican and work for a third party?
If JulieAnnie or Juan McCainez get nomianted in 2008, the funeral is over, the wake has begun and the Republican Party is dead as a doornail.
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