Posted on 11/17/2005 9:03:55 AM PST by RKV
“Their parents’ generation was invited to France as laborers who were expected to return home but didn’t.” — “France Beefs Up Response to Riots,” Washington Post, November 8, 2005
“This program expects temporary workers to return permanently to their home countries after their period of work in the United States has expired.” — President George W. Bush outlining his worker-importation plan, January 7, 2004
As Muslim insurgents burn France’s suburban Occupied Territories, Americans can be forgiven for thinking “Thank God we have Mexicans and not Arabs.” Mexicans are Christian and politically passive, and large numbers of them and their children have assimilated thoroughly into the American people. Niall Ferguson made just this point in the Los Angeles Times.
But American supporters of mass immigration might want to postpone the self-congratulation. While it’s true that in this area, as in so many others, America’s problems are less acute than other nations’, the proposals before Congress to massively increase the importation of foreign workers could create two, three, many Clichys-sous-Bois in our future.
There are two reasons for this, one about Mexicans and one not. Regarding Mexicans: If you think we have a lot now, just wait until the president’s plan gets passed. The Mexican-immigrant population has been soaring, and all of the “temporary” worker proposals before Congress would supercharge that growth, both through their legal entry mechanisms as well as through the additional illegal immigration they will inevitably stimulate. The total number of Mexicans in the U.S. has grown from less than 800,000 in 1970, to 2.2 million in 1980, 4.3 million in 1990, 7.9 million in 2000, and 10.8 million this year (that’s 37-percent growth just in the past five years). Despite ludicrous claims by administration operatives that Mexican immigration will disappear on its own, Mexico’s own census agency forecasts between 3.5 and 5 million new immigrants to the U.S. per decade over the next generation, under current U.S. policy. Passage of the president’s plan or the McCain/Kennedy proposal — or even the less-egregious Kyl-Cornyn bill — would result in even more rapid increases in Mexican immigration, perhaps doubling yet again within a decade.
This is important because numbers matter; a Mexican immigrant population of 20 or 25 million is qualitatively different from today’s already-huge 11 million. It would create more of a constituency for the Aztlan irredentism that is already a normal part of political debate on the Left in California; more immediately, it would facilitate the Mexican government’s anti-assimilation initiatives (described in detail here by Heather Mac Donald) designed to create a regime of shared Mexican-U.S. sovereignty over much of our population, with Mexico City serving, in effect, as a second federal government that local and state officials would be answerable to. And when we rouse ourselves to reassert our exclusive sovereignty, as the French state tried to do in the no-go zones of its immigrant suburbs, the pushback might well be as intense.
But, of course, the word “Mexico” never appears in any of the worker-importation plans before Congress. The old Bracero Program (that ran for 20 years until the 1960s and sparked the illegal-immigration wave in the first place) was limited to Mexicans — Mexican men, in fact — but today’s anti-discrimination ethos makes such restrictions impossible. So what happens when American employers eventually realize there are workers abroad willing to accept wages even lower than Mexicans will accept? After all, Mexico is an upper-middle-income country by global standards, with a per-capita GDP in purchasing-power-parity terms of $9,600 — if you want huge amounts of really cheap labor, go to Indonesia (242 million people, 88 percent Muslim, per capita GDP $3,500) or Pakistan (162 million, 97 percent Muslim, GDP $2,200) or Bangladesh (144 million, 83 percent Muslim, GDP $2,000) or Egypt (77 million, 94 percent Muslim, GDP $4,200). We have been fortunate in that our Muslim population is comparatively small (1 percent of our population, compared with 10 percent in France), well-educated, prosperous, ethnically diverse, and geographically dispersed — all factors making radicalism and alienation less likely. But a new foreign-worker scheme could undo these benefits, by importing large numbers of poor, uneducated, ghettoized Muslim peasants, who will be expected to go back, but won’t.
Instead of risking our security with huge, unmanageable foreign-worker programs, the Senate and president would be wise to adopt the House Republicans’ approach of promoting attrition of the illegal population through consistent, across-the-board law enforcement, something we’ve never tried before. This would facilitate the assimilation of legal immigrants already here, enable the immigration bureaucracy to catch its breath, encourage low-wage industries to modernize, and shrink the sea within which foreign radicals — of all kinds — are able to swim.
Neither George Bush nor John McCain — nor even Ted Kennedy — want immigrant uprisings in America’s cities. But their immigration proposals would move us in that direction. We need to choose a different path.
— NRO contributor Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
My father-in-law came from Sicily. He had to learn English in America, when he arrived at the age of 16. He was a barber. Because of him, some of his siblings came to America, later on, and they ALL learned English and have done very well in America, working hard.
My father-in-law appreciated the value of a dollar, and was responsible with his money, earned as a barger.....he bought, with outright CASH, the homes he lived in later in his life. He worked until he literally couldn't any longer....and that was not too long after his wife of almost 60 years died....He was also a generous man.
He didn't believe in credit, never borrowed nor expected a dime from anybody...he had too much pride for that.
Exactly. And I agree. They can all take a flying leap off a short pier.
Spoke to a mason recently who said he hasn't received a pay raise in 15 years. Guess why?
Me and my mother are VERY close (NO, not like Norman Bates). I will be spending Thanksgiving with them. They are the only folks who I would take the long flight to Florida for!
That's the way the immigrants were - totally self-sufficient, proud to be Americans.
My husband's grandparents were from Amantea, Italy, they legally immigrated to the USA, learned English, and had a family of seven children, several of whom put themselves through college in Arizona, never asking for a dime from anyone. Fine family!
They sound like many, many immigrant family I've gotten to know over the years....glad to have those kinds of people immigrate to our country; they are an asset to our communities.
The immigrants of the past brought their fine cultures to share with us, and it was wonderful. Many of the illegal aliens from Mexico and South America are bringing their violent cultures with them, and we're expected to accept it for the sake of "diversity".
This is an invasion, there's no doubt about it, and our government has no intention of stopping it.
It is...and it'll be the end of America, what it has historically been and stood for; the idiocy is, what now draws the illegals to America will be gone, too. They're all killing it.
The Mexicans were chucked out of the US too. Doesn't keep some Mexicans to think it was takent illegally from them apparently. Similarly the French Moslems will want France. The difference and it is key is the religous divide.
Oh please, what a reach.
How long did the Spanish/Mexicans occupy the Southwest? 300 years, leaving their language, place names, culture, religion etc.
How long did the Moors "occupy" France? The time it took to them to get booted out by Charles Martel. March in, get whipped, run away.
Please don't bother me any more with such silly and lightweight non-historical observations.
Fair enough if you don't like, I was only offerring up one point in your favor. So you now admit the article is completely off base?
BTW, this is not about history, but rather what the immigrant in the US Southwest believe compared to what the immigrants in France believe. But if you want to argue on facts like they matter in this debate, have at it.
What a dumb article, among the difference between the US and France: 1. France enforces immigration law and these people came as legal residence and France let them stay permanently. That is the opposite of the US situation where we need to beef up our border security including probably having a guest worker program. 2. The immigrants in the case of the US share the same broad religion as the US again the opposite of the French situation. 3. France has not history of integrating immigrants, the US has a long history of integrating immigrants.
My point was that you forgot the unique situation of Mexicans in the SW of the USA which WILL lead then to an intifada, under certain conditions and in certain areas (such as "recession" and "LA").
I remember what I said. I stand by it, but I was willing to recognize that one point claim of lost lands as being similar. But as you point out historically the time difference and the length of time in the past is much different. So if you want to give up that one point, then all the points in the debate are on my side.
But again as I said in my last post, the issue of lost lands is NOT and issue of WHAT WAS, but rather an issue of what the Mexican immigrants in the Southwest US THINK WAS compared to what the Moslem immigrants in France THINK WAS.
They didn't expect them because handouts and entitlements didn't exist back then. You can blame FDR for getting the whole social service business started, and today's liberals for continuing it.
The problem is largely one of native born American liberals than the immigrants.
You mean like the Mafia? And the gang violence that existed between the Puerto Ricans and the Italians way back?
Assimilation of large numbers of immigrants is not flawless.
The number of Muslims in the US is statistically miniscule, about equal to the number of Buddhists.
The drain on our economy can be blamed in liberals who foster an enable the entitlement mentality that exists.
The disproportionate entitlement mentality, however, does not and has not resided with European immigrants.
Dog, more of those newer immigrants vote Republican than our own minorities.
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