Posted on 01/13/2016 7:21:31 AM PST by Kaslin
Ramesh Ponnuru, a respected editor and writer for National Review, argues in a recent essay that immigration restrictionism "is rapidly becoming a defining issue for American conservatism." It isn't just that Republicans and conservatives increasingly support tighter control of immigration, Ponnuru writes, but something more overarching. Where a candidate stands on immigration is turning into a litmus test for conservative fidelity. That explains why Marco Rubio, despite his unabashedly conservative voting record, finds himself being scorned in some circles as a "moderate" Republican: because he supported a bipartisan bill that would have expanded legal immigration and offered a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Immigration hardliners don't agree on everything. Some demand a fence along the entire Mexican border, some want all illegal aliens forcibly deported, some urge that even legal immigration be halted. But this, says Ponnuru, is the "new political reality: A hard line on immigration, however it is defined, is now part of the conservative creed."
It pains me to think he may be right.
I have been a committed conservative since I was in my teens. My politics have been shaped around fundamental conservative values — individual liberty, limited government, free markets, opposition to tyranny, respect for religion, the indispensability of civil institutions, gratitude for America and its blessings. I vote Republican more often than not, but I am no GOP loyalist. My allegiance is not to any party, but to conservative ideals.
One of those ideals has always been the encouragement of immigration as an engine of American progress and prosperity. I grew up in Ohio, a state filled with Americans-by-choice — including my father, who came from Czechoslovakia in 1948. As my conservatism deepened, so did my conviction that an open and welcoming immigration policy was a self-evident part of the conservative creed. In one of my earliest columns for the Boston Globe, a plea to open the door to Haitian refugees, I described immigrants as the great "growth hormone" of American history. "The vast majority of immigrants repay their adopted homeland with energy, enthusiasm, hard work, and new wealth," I wrote.
I wrote it as a Republican-leaning conservative. Twenty-two years later, my view hasn't changed. I'm distressed that that of so many Republicans and conservatives has.
Just a few election cycles ago, immigrant-bashing and seal-the-border nativism was limited to a relatively narrow sliver of the political right — the likes of culture warrior Pat Buchanan, TV personality Lou Dobbs, and former Arizona congressman J.D. Hayworth. Far more prevalent was the pro-immigration approach of Ronald Reagan, the most influential American conservative of modern times.
Reagan endorsed open borders long before becoming president, championed that view as a candidate for the White House, and reiterated it even in his farewell address to the nation. Invoking a favorite metaphor — the "shining city on a hill" — Reagan envisioned America as a city "with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity," and whose "doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here."
A Republican who spoke that way today would be mocked as a sellout and a squish, trashed by talk-radio hosts who used to call themselves Reagan conservatives, but who have discovered ratings gold in stoking anti-immigrant sentiment. More than a few recent GOP candidates who espoused the Reagan vision — Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie — recast themselves as immigration hardliners.
I know, of course, that all ideological camps undergo change over time. I understand that in our system of "big tent" politics, heterodox opinions within a party or movement sometimes displace the reigning orthodoxy. Democrats were once the party of segregation. Republicans were once ardent protectionists. Public attitudes mutate, and political values mutate with them.
The immigration restrictionists aren't all demagogues and lemmings. Many are people I know to be thoughtful and principled — people with whom I agree on numerous issues. I think they are making a profound error on immigration. But I can't deny that the momentum, for now, is with them, and that open-the-borders conservatives like me have become the dissidents.
Another fake conservative telling us what conservatism is.
If the US can’t do nation building overseas anymore, how can we do the same by not assimilating aliens here?
Wow. H-1B abuses are rampant, along with Obama made-up programs such as OPT that put American STEM graduates at a distinct disadvantage. Illegals crowd out teenagers and high school grads from jobs. Yet conservatives are wrong in wanting to dial back these problems?
That simply isn't true. Conservatism has not stood for open borders. They've stood for reasonable immigration based on the needs of the nation.
FWIW, and this author should know it, Ellis Island did not admit all comers.
Facts:
1) Except in the very odd/exceptional election year of 1964, the Dems haven’t cracked 50% of the whites in a Presidential election since 1932.
2) Once the ‘64 election was over, the Dems understood that they would never win another Presidential election again unless the Republicans REALLY screwed up...or unless they changed the electorate in a dramatic way.
3) The Dems, courtesy of Bobby Kennedy who wrote the law, and Teddy Kennedy who pushed it in the Senate, passed the 1965 Immigration Act. That law dramatically reduced immigration from our then-traditional large sources of immigrants - England, Ireland, Holland, Germany, etc. - and replaced them with vast numbers of Turd Worlders...whom everyone knows vote around 80% for Dems, and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives, as new immigrants have traditionally done.
4) As a result of the ‘65 Act, and due to the Dem’s outright lying in ‘86 regarding an effective (or any) fence, there are now probably 30 - 40 million illegals in this nation. Note that the (probably low-ball) figure in 2005 was 11 million...we have 2-3 million come in every year, so simple math says that the number is actually somewhere between 31 and 41 million). If any substantial portion of these people ever become citizens, then the Dems will have accomplished a complete shift of the electorate, and will be virtually invincible on the national level. Every state will become like California, both politically and economically - which is to say, overwhelming Dem and broke. But at least if you don’t like California now, you can leave for a better place without much trouble - where are you going to go if EVERY state is like that?
5) Every Republican, and every Conservative voter MUST UNDERSTAND that if such a state of affairs comes to be, NO OTHER ISSUE WILL MATTER AT ALL, because we will ALWAYS AND FOREVER lose on those issues. Immigration is THE issue of this election, and this election is as critical as the 1860 election was - and for the same reason, because it will determine whether this nation continues on as it has existed in the past, or becomes a new and unrecognizable entity that simply occupies the same geographic territory.
Please wake up, and help others to do so by sending them this post (or recommending “Adios America” to them). It really is THAT important.
I think the problem is the term “Conservative†has become so abused by the DC Political machine it has lost all meaning.
Today you can be Pro Big Govt or anti Big Govt and call yourself a “Conservative, you can be Pro Interventionist Foreign Policy or against it and call yourself “Conservativeâ€, Pro or anti Amnesty and be called a “Conservativeâ€, pro or anti activist Judiciary and be called a “Conservativeâ€
Yet another person who pretends not to know the difference between legal and illegal. That doesn’t seem conservative to me.
As Mark Levin says, “We are not a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of citizens.”
This oversight renders his entire argument invalid.
But, thanks for playing, Jeff!
That explains why Marco Rubio, despite his unabashedly conservative voting record …Ahem . . . Mr. Jacobite needs to read that list. Or if he has, stop lying about it.
Reagan endorsed open borders long before becoming president …Uh, no. That “open the border both ways” quote is always yanked out of context.
I have been a committed conservative since I was in my teens. My politics have been shaped around fundamental conservative values—individual liberty, limited government, free markets, opposition to tyranny, respect for religion, the indispensability of civil institutions, gratitude for America and its blessings. I vote Republican more often than not, but I am no GOP loyalist. My allegiance is not to any party, but to conservative ideals. One of those ideals has always been the encouragement of immigration as an engine of American progress and prosperity …Another lie out of Jacobite. What is happening at the southern border is not legal and limited immigration (which would not need so-called “encouragement”), but an invasion from a very un-conservative ideology:
The communists are further reproached for desiring to abolish countries and nationality. …Those that have read the enemy’s playbook are not fooled by the sophistry of people like Jacobite.
Why? after spending thousands of dollars educating our children we throw them into cauldron of artificial international competition from wage slaves from all over the world under the H-1B visa program.
Rising wages and falling unemployment used to be desirable things that our government and industry at one time promoted. The term for this situation was prosperity. An archaic term for sure.
All that has changed because rising wages and falling unemployment is now consider a crises by the Establishment and its only solution it to flood the US labor market with culturally incompatible wage slaves from really awful places, most of whom hate America.
Actually, during the period from around the 18 80s to the early 1920s, pretty much anyone who wanted to come could come. We rejected a dew folks based on physical or mental unfitness, and perceived ability to support themselves, but folks could come without being subject to an immigration quota.
Except f or those who couldn’t pass basic indpection, Ellis Island, for about 40 years, pretty much did admit all comers. Just as trump will read MIT all comers after expediting them back in, if they meet basic qualifications (not a criminal, not previously on welfare, readily employable). In many ways, trump’s immigration policy is similar to the “open door” policies of the 18 80s through about 1920.
In a sense, Jacoby is right. Immigration, when lawfully and intelligently administered, is an engine of growth.
But, and it’s a huge one, immigration has been unlawfully and stupidly administered for at least twenty years now.
It is time to cut off the inflow, at least the illegal inflow but more likely both legal and not, and sort out the mess. Those that broke the law go home. Period. That means immigration law as well as other laws.
Those that came legally but refuse to assimilate? Perhaps they, too, have to leave. I don’t mean those who come and settle into any of the “little china” type areas, as long as they don’t work to undermine US sovereignty. I mean those that purchase land in Texas, milk the welfare system for millions, have gold and jewels stashed on their property, and still have the chutzpah to plot against the United States.
If the United States borders mean nothing, then the United States ceases to be a nation, much less a great one.
He misses the point. Rubio disqualified himself when he joined the Gang of Eight, but that has little to do with the expansion of legal immigration. The expansion of legal immigration may have been a bad idea (or maybe not, if illegal immigration could be completely stopped), but it was not a deal breaker.
It was the other point mentioned, rewarding criminals with citizenship in return for their criminal behavior, that was completely and permanently disqualifying. Conservatives tend to believe that we should have far fewer laws and a much smaller government but also that laws should be enforced and that crime should not pay.
Throw in the bonus that US Senate Candidate Rubio was opposed to Amnesty and then US Senator Rubio supported Amnesty, and the discussion is over. Even if Presidential Candidate Rubio claimed to have changed his views, no sensible voter would trust that slick liar.
read MIT should be readmit.
I wrote it as a Republican-leaning conservative. Twenty-two years later, my view hasn't changed. I'm distressed that that of so many Republicans and conservatives has."
Thanks for informing us that you have been a cheerleader for exactly what transformed California from Reagan Country into a permanent Obama bastion.
Who needs Americans in America? Obviously not you, Jeff Jacoby.
Not only where a substantial portion of those that came into the country through Ellis Island where sent directly back home, around 40% self deported back to Europe because they couldn’t ‘make it’ here. They went back home. Less than 50% of all immigrants stayed.
Then you are the enemy and your daughters deserve the rape Soros has planned for them.
NR in 2015.
Not Readable.
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