Posted on 01/13/2020 4:10:24 AM PST by Kaslin
Up until last week, every GOP governor had either agreed to accept refugees or had yet to say one way or another, that is until Texas Governor Greg Abbott made his state the first to decline refugee resettlement, citing the “disproportionate” impact on the border state thanks to the Federal government’s “broken” immigration system and a “responsibility to dedicate available resources to those who are already here, including refugees, migrants, and the homeless.” Abbott’s decision predictably triggered the wrath of America’s ‘woke police,’ who rival Iran’s morality police in their hysterical zeal to impose their twisted definition of ‘virtue’ on the rest of society.
Presidential candidate Tom Steyer said the decision was “inhumane and violates American values.”
“New, and awful, update to this,” wrote The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell. “Despite the fact that mayors of *every* major city in Texas have asked to continue receiving refugees, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has now said they will be prevented from doing so.”
Columnist Monica Rhor called it “shameful” and “morally wrong.”
RAICES Texas, an immigration legal services group, wrote: “Prompted by xenophobia and fear, Gov. Abbott has decided to close the door on our refugee sisters and brothers seeking home & safety. There's absolutely no reason for this decision. Refugees & immigrants make Texas better.”
The Dallas Morning News claimed the state’s “reputation is tarnished now by opting out of something as fundamental to our national character as welcoming those fleeing war and persecution, as were those who founded this great country.”
“Shameful.” “Violates American values.” “Morally wrong.” “Prompted by xenophobia and fear.” Against our “national character.” These are all words and phrases used to tarnish not just those who stand against resettling refugees, but also those who oppose immigration in general. Critics accuse us of conflating refugee resettlement and immigration - both legal and illegal - but in truth, they are one and the same insofar as both, for the most part, represent the physical presence of impoverished, often unskilled peoples from cultures that often aren’t easily assimilable to ours. So from this point forward, I’m damn well conflating them, on purpose.
Granted, the idea that abortion & communist loving leftists are qualified to lecture anyone on morals is laughable and beyond absurd, sort of like listening to Adolf Hitler give a lecture about kindness to animals. But who really has the moral high ground here, immigration hawks or proponents of mass migration?
Consider: When countries, particularly wealthy ones, open their borders to mass migration, it inevitably creates a vacuum that draws millions, if not billions, of the rest of the world’s population. It’s often a dangerous journey, and many die on the way. Certainly, should they make it, their lives can be improved from what they were. But, would the world truly be a better place if all who would live somewhere else got their wish? What about those left twisting in the wind in the countries migrants are fleeing from? Those too poor, too frail, too tied down, or even too afraid to make the move? Assuming, as the left is prone to do, that all or even most migrants are ‘good people,’ does it negatively impact their countries of origin to lose so many ‘good people,’ people who, were they to take positive action where God placed them, could make their own country a better place?
In truth, by creating a system whereby those strong enough, clever enough, or even wealthy enough to move somewhere else are encouraged to do so, proponents of mass immigration have actually caused the entire planet to become worse than it previously would have been. Not only are destination countries negatively impacted by the strain mass migration puts on social services, infrastructure, and social fabric, but origin countries are losing a significant slice of their best people, and thus face ever-declining prospects of a better life for those truly stuck there.
For us, what if the billion or so who would move if they could magically were placed inside their preferred destinations - always the (hated?) West, of course. What if North America and Europe were filled to the brim with upwards of a billion people each? How would our own lives improve? Imagine sharing a country with three times the current population? How long before North America and Europe began to resemble the pathologies of the migrants’ countries of origin?
Finally, what of the poor, the downtrodden, and the often-ignored populations of our own country? Why, for example, is Austin’s liberal mayor so hellbent on bringing in more refugees when the streets of his own city are literally filled with homeless people? I’m not saying we turn our backs on those in need in other countries. What I am saying, however, is that the true moral course of action is not to encourage migration, but to find effective ways to help them, and their countries, right where they are.
Some immigration proponents will dismiss articles like this by downplaying the numbers. “Things would never reach that point,” they will smugly say. “We can take more than we are taking right now,” they will insist, because our “values” depend on it, or something. Ask them for a number, when enough will be enough, and they will rarely if ever give an answer.
In an article titled “GOP governors who embrace refugees deserve conservative support,” the Washington Examiner’s Brad Polumbo took umbrage at the sentiments shared in my January 6 column accusing the GOP governors who asked for refugee resettlement of betraying both President Trump and their constituents. To me, they are “RINO squishes all too happy to put foreigners over the citizens who elected them to office.” To Brad, they are “simply doing the right thing to help people fleeing tyrants and terrorists abroad.”
Watch how Polumbo ‘counters’ the anti-refugee argument by first downplaying the current refugee numbers, then tips his hand by bemoaning - with a carefully inserted “sadly” - the fact that the numbers are indeed low:
“First, we’re not talking about a wave of millions of refugees pouring into the country en masse … not even close,” he wrote. “The Trump administration has, sadly, limited the number of refugees the United States can accept to just under 20,000. So, between the 17 Republican governors, not to mention all of their Democratic counterparts, they’re simply agreeing to each take on what, less than 1,000 refugees at most? This isn't a very intimidating ‘invasion.’ And allowing a few thousand refugees, who aren’t even granted the right to vote, to enter red states will hardly mean ‘America ceases to be America.’”
True, 20,000 refugees alone won’t do it. But if establishment ‘conservatives’ like Cato Institute and leftist Democrats get their wish, a tipping point WILL someday be reached. Because when you combine the refugee numbers, vetted and screened though they may be, with the ‘tired and poor’ they would LIKE to bring in via an immigration system overhaul, it won’t be all that long before socialist-leaning voters vastly outnumber freedom-loving ones.
When that happens, America truly “ceases to be America,” and there’s no going back.
The argument raises some tough questions.
Should my grandparents have not brought my pop to this country and instead fought to make Italy a better place?
Did they let down other Italians by packing up and leaving?
I thought they were brave for leaving everything behind to start over.
One thing is different for sure. They didn’t come here to mooch. And they came here legally. And my mom and pop mostly forbade speaking Italian in the house because “We’re in America now!”
That’s 3 things :)
And they’re big things.
I still learned Italian from my grandparents.
My nephews and nieces don’t know a word and are about as Italian as WASPs :)
That’s a good thing. This is home.
But Pelousy and Schmuckers said there was no emergency!!!
30 million illegals have to go home. That’s all there is to it. Or it’s War.
What - Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, El Paso? Liberal run cities, all.
Arizona did this years ago and then Obama sued us and had the courts make us accept them again.
When do you run out of OUR money??? WHEN is to much to much???? WHEN!!!! do these stinking rich Dimocommunists start paying for all this free stuff. Just check THEIR TAX RECORDS, they NEVER give a crap to charities, etc.
Ole Lying Joe Butt-hole-en, ex-worthless VP of these mostly socialist states of Amerika, barely gives anything. Saw a post where that fool gave like $250 a few years ago to charities. Hell, my wife and I add a zero and a few more number here and there in his giving, and triple or double triple what that slob gives.
The LORD has given us more than we have a right to expect, and as such we gladly give to a lot of charities and to our local food kitchen to feed poor families. Just so people who do not read the Bible will know, Jesus Christ Himself said that "the poor will always be with us." So, we will never end poor people. They will always be here. That pisses off the Dimocommies because they promise to make everyone rich.
We still have legal immigration. Illegals are criminals and need to be expelled. All of them. Legal immigration is not comparable to illegal immigration.
Add to that, that is a percent of illegals who are not here to become Americans. They want to keep their language, keep their culture, and have no wish to become American. They are here solely for the money - welfare handouts or work. These are all good secondary reasons to expel them.
My grandparents came here legally. They wanted to become American. They would not teach their children their former language, because they were American. Not some hyphenated hybrid. And certainly not still a European. My grandfather refused to even consider ever returning to Europe for a visit to his family. His perspective was there is nothing for him in Europe and that he is an American.
Every single illegal must go. Once that has happened, then we can get back into the business of legal immigration. However, that privilege should be reserved solely for those who want to be American, have the drive, skills, and ability to work hard and add to our country. Taking government handouts is a disqualification.
It is not a tough question at all. Legal immigration is being use as a bludgeon to replace Americans with 3rd world socialists. STOP VIRTUE SIGNALLING.
It is not a tough question at all. Legal immigration is being use as a bludgeon to replace Americans with 3rd world socialists. STOP VIRTUE SIGNALLING.
There is no need for LEGAL immigration either. We are at 330 million. America for Americans. MAGA.
“But, would the world truly be a better place if all who would live somewhere else got their wish? What about those left twisting in the wind in the countries migrants are fleeing from?”
We tried that domestically with ‘Civil Rights’. Prior to the (white-led) ‘Civil Rights’ movement, blacks, including successful blacks were more or less forced to live in black communities. And with those successful blacks staying there, they kept things civilized, even to the point of some black areas in NY City getting higher test scores than some of the white areas, at least per Thomas Sowell, who should know!
Then came ‘Civil Rights’ and pretty much all of the successful blacks fled their black communities and gave us what we have today. One thing Dr. Sowell doesn’t mention was that part of ‘Civil Rights’ was getting blacks to vote, and with their vote, you got the potentate mayors in most of the big and medium-sized cities, and I suspect that was a big part of what drove out the successful blacks (in other words, not just greed, or hating their own).
Mass migration caused Climate Change.
Good article.
It’s time for an immigration moratorium for a few years. Kick out the illegals, including visa overstays, finish the wall, stop tourist “birthright” deliveries, etc.
Also, refugees should resettle in an adjoining country, not in the U.S. from half way round the world.
I don’t know WTF virtue signaling means but unfortunately i know you’re gonna tell me :)
And all caps too.
I act like a child on this board too many times also and use all caps.
ciao
So I guess Ms Rhor believes the extraction money from one person, and the redistributing of it to another person, even redistributing it to a noncitizen, at the point of a gun, to be a moral act.
“Shameful.”
“Violates American values.”
“Morally wrong.”
“Prompted by xenophobia and fear.”
Against our “national character.”
They forgot - “That’s not who we are.”
They never run out of pat phrases, do they? When the idiots spouting these phrases open their own homes to take in the current homeless, perhaps then we’d be more likely to listen to them. There are plenty to choose from on the streets of any big city right now. Have at it, progressives! They’re all yours. When you get that taken care of then you can start in on the ones flooding the borders. Until then, we don’t need your opinions, thank you very much.
I never could figure out why they don’t have anything better to do than to complain about what others are doing and thinking! Must lead pretty sad lives.
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