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 E
Pluribus Unum?
Illegal immigration, amnesty…
[Mark
Alexander] 4/13/06
"[T]he
policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body
may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the Language,
habits and principles which they bring with them. Whereas by
an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants,
get assimilated to our customs, measures and laws: in a word,
soon become one people." --George Washington
Out of many,
one.
That was
the national motto proposed by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams
and Thomas Jefferson in 1776. Both simple and elegant, it embodied
the notion that the original 13 Colonies were united as one
under the Declaration of Independence. By extension, it implied
that all who had come to America's shores (and all who would
come) must be united -- must all form one front -- in defense
of freedom and liberty. For 200 years, we were, with some notable
exceptions, one people united behind constitutional republicanism.
But with the social degeneration of the '60s and the economic
decline of the '70s, that unity began to disintegrate. This
was the era in which multiculturalism emerged -- the era in
which ethnocentricity became chic.
Contributor
Mark Alexander
[Courtesty of The Federalist Patriot]
Mark
Morrison Alexander is Executive Editor and Publisher
of The
Federalist Patriot, the Web's "Conservative
E-Journal of Record" and now the most widely
subscribed Internet-based publication. [go to Alexander index]
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Arthur Schlesinger,
a former Harvard professor and senior advisor to JFK, published
a retrospective on this era in 1991 called "The Disuniting
of America." Schlesinger wrote primarily about the orthodoxy
of self-interested hyphenated-American citizen groups -- who,
rather than unifying to become one, were diversifying to become
many. He warned that the cult of ethnicity would result in "the
fragmentation and tribalization of America," the natural
consequence being that these special-interest groups would
be co-opted by the political parties.
"Instead
of a transformative nation with an identity all its own," Schlesinger
wrote, "America increasingly sees itself in this new light
as preservative of diverse alien identities -- groups ineradicable
in their ethnic character." He asserts, by way of inquiry, "Will
the melting pot give way to the Tower of Babel?"
The disuniting
of America is a foundational concern underlying much of the
current security, economic and social debate (both rational
and irrational) about immigration. This is the concern that
a nation, which is already ethnically fragmented internally,
risks complete disunity of its national integrity in the absence
of borders.
It is clear
that the overwhelming majority of Americans are rightfully
adamant about many immigration issues: strict border security
and enforcement; automatic detention and deportation of illegals;
no extension of amnesty or fast-track citizenship for illegals;
preservation of our tax-subsidized medical, educational and
social services for American citizens and documented immigrants;
strong penalties against employers who hire undocumented migrant
workers; and "Americanization" of new legal immigrants
-- rather than the ill-conceived provisions of bilingual schools
and government services which, in effect, dissuade immigrant
integration.
We are also
resolute in our rejection of birthright citizenship for children
of illegal aliens, though this right is assured by our Constitution's
14th Amendment. However, at the time of this Amendment, there
was no provision distinguishing legal and illegal immigration.
In other words, legislation outlawing this birthright for illegal
aliens might well pass the Constitutional test.
On the other
hand, the overwhelming majority of Americans don't want to
pay $15 for a head of lettuce, wash our own restaurant dishes
or launder our own sheets and towels when traveling. In addition,
we would much rather somebody else take on laborious low-skilled
and low-paying occupations like landscaping and construction.
Currently, there are 10 to 15 million illegal aliens in the
United States. Only one president in four decades, George W.
Bush, has dared make reconciling this issue a central administration
objective. This is because the issue has no clear political
consensus.
The only
contemporary comparison to the cross-party divisiveness of
immigration is the recent debate over Dubai
Ports World management of U.S. port terminals. You'll recall
that this issue pitted the President and his national-security
team against disingenuous Democrats eager to appear tough on
national security, weak-kneed Republicans unwilling to stand
on principle in an election year and an American public fully
caught up in the moment.
However,
while the Dubai Ports debacle was clearly manufactured by opportunists
in both parties, the immigration debate is all too real --
this isn't just another flash in the political pan.
President
Bush has charged Congress with taking up this complex issue.
The House
has already approved the Sensenbrenner immigration legislation,
which essentially proposes to round up all illegals and drop
them at the border, and criminalize anyone who had anything
to do with them in the interim. This plan leaves one to ponder
whether such tough-minded reform was spun out of xenophobic
angst, or was merely a byproduct of everyday American nativism.
The Sensenbrenner plan does not have a critical provision for
guest workers, and is largely unenforceable -- or, if enforced,
largely unaffordable. But it plays well with the same constituency
that believed the Dubai Ports folks were really interested
in smuggling nuclear bombs into the U.S.
Worse, the
Senate compromise bill would provide illegals amnesty [read:
fast-track citizenship] rather than guest-worker status if
they have been in the country for five years and do not have
a criminal record -- other than the misdemeanor crime of crossing
the border illegally. This proposal should be a deal-breaker
for any legislation. If here for less than five years, they
would have to apply at one of 16 designated ports of entry
for a new temporary "guest worker" visa for low and
unskilled workers.
The House
Bill makes no provision for amnesty, which is good, but it
also makes no provision for guest-worker permits, which is,
well, asinine. Of course, the assumption is that when the House
and Senate bills are reconciled in conference, the House wants
to start the negotiation on guest workers at zero. Unfortunately,
there is some public confusion between "amnesty" and "guest
worker" -- the latter being both desirable and essential
to the U.S. economy.
Of course,
every member of the House and Senate is mindful of the fact
that there are millions of American voters of Hispanic origin
-- eight percent of the electorate -- which is a significant
factor in how this legislation will be framed.
To debate
this issue meaningfully, however, one must first survey the
facts regarding the security, economic and social implications
of immigration.
Security
Concerns...
In any discussion
about immigration, border security must come first. Even if
Mr. Sensenbrenner can find a way to round up all undocumented
Hispanic immigrants and deport them, they'll all be back in
a few days unless we can establish some real border security.
Clearly, this would entail both a physical barrier and enough
security personnel to enforce both border and internal immigration
regulations.
A formidable
security wall along our border with Mexico would also provide
a measure of safety against terrorist incursions, but there
are already serious security problems brewing within our borders.
In our current
state of ethnocentric disunity, we tolerate cadres of radical
Hispanic identity groups composed of both naturalized immigrants
and illegal aliens. These groups provided the ethnic incitement
behind last month's half-million-strong protests in Los Angeles
and other cities from coast to coast. These were protests not
just on behalf of immigrant "rights"; for many, they
were a means of promoting the reunification of the southwestern
United States with Mexico. This "reconquista" movement
is marked by the flying of the Mexican
flag over the American flag.
The Hispanic
reconquest movement is on the verge of violent nationalism
-- if it hasn't already become just that -- with all its terrorist
implications. If they do in fact resort to violence, all bets
are off in regards to the status, guest worker or otherwise,
of any illegal alien in this country from south of the border.
Economic
Concerns...
The essential
protectionist argument against the provision of guest-worker
permits is that these workers take jobs away from Americans
and reduce wages for everyone. There is, however, little factual
basis for those arguments. As Former House Majority Leader
Dick Armey was fond of noting, "Demagoguery beats data." In
other words, an emotional rant tends to be louder than a reasoned
analysis.
With U.S.
unemployment now at 4.8 percent (with most of these being the
chronically unemployable), we need immigrant workers regardless
of the ruckus that protectionists might raise. Indeed, most
of the jobs performed by immigrant labor are low wage -- but
few U.S. citizens are lining up for those jobs. Low wages reduce
the cost of products and services provided, thus reducing the
cost of living for consumers. The alternative is plain to see:
a lower stander of living and higher inflation.
David Card,
professor of economics at UC Berkeley, compared wages nationally
and found that high-school dropouts in cities with an abundance
of immigrants performing low-wage jobs are no worse off.
Further,
immigrant labor isn't just a policy, as some have suggested,
of creating poverty in America while alleviating it in Mexico
and elsewhere. Greater prosperity in Mexico means greater security
in the United States. NAFTA has helped, but that's just the
start. North America's transportation infrastructure must be
improved and extended farther south in Mexico, bringing the
prosperity enjoyed under NAFTA in the north to more of the
country's citizens. Similar principles apply to our CAFTA partners.
The overall
economic prosperity resulting from free-trade agreements, including
job in-sourcing and outsourcing, creates hardships for some
Americans while creating opportunity for others. This provides
little solace to those whose financial security is threatened
by free trade, but the fact is that most Americans benefit
from free trade.
Once again,
the economic protectionists are wrong -- and European economies
are proving it. In a recent speech to the European Parliament,
British Prime Minister Tony Blair criticized Western European
economies for their unwillingness to compete on a global level: "What
type of social model is it that has 20 million unemployed in
Europe? Productivity rates falling behind those of the USA?
That, on any relative index of a modern economy -- skills,
R&D, patents, information technology -- is going down,
not up."
Of course,
there are other economic concerns, particularly the cost of
social services for illegal aliens -- which are enormous. The
most costly of these social services are education, healthcare,
housing and criminal incarceration. In 1994, California passed
Proposition 187 to stop the hemorrhage of tax dollars for services
to illegal aliens. Unfortunately, the federal courts struck
down the law.
Social Concerns...
How does
a nation that has institutionalized ethnic disunity integrate
millions of immigrants?
In 1919,
Theodore Roosevelt penned these words: "In the first place,
we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good
faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he
shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for
it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because
of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated
upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and
nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance
here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else
also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag,
the American flag. We have room for but one language here,
and that is the English language ... and we have room for but
one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
Unfortunately,
the Left has spent four decades hyphenating and disenfranchising
every ethnic group it can in order to create special-interest
constituencies. Challenging this disunity exposes one to substantial
ridicule -- claims of intolerance, bigotry and jingoism. Yet
these subcultures, including immigrants, fail to become properly
integrated into civil society.
We are now
beginning to bear the social consequences of multicultural
politicization in both American and immigrant minority populations. "Progressive" policies
-- bilingual education being the worst offender -- have the
effect of insulating and ultimately ghettoizing otherwise hardworking
and well-intentioned immigrants. For fear of appearing "culturally
imperialistic" by forcing newcomers to learn our language,
history and laws, we've condemned them to permanent impoverishment.
But then, such policies have always bred Democrat votes.
Conclusion...
The Patriot
has always endorsed the measures we mentioned earlier: strict
border security and enforcement; automatic detention and deportation;
no extension of amnesty or fast-track citizenship; preservation
of our tax-subsidized medical, educational and social services
for American citizens and documented immigrants; strong penalties
against employers who hire illegals; and Americanization of
new legal immigrants. We are also resolute in our rejection
of birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants,
and we support legislation to that end.
Additionally,
we strongly endorse free enterprise and free trade, including
the regulated in-sourcing of low-skill labor through time-limited
guest-worker visas.
As a nation,
our biggest hurdles will be creating a guest worker program
with functional status verification to register between five
and ten million guest workers; providing the personnel for
document authentication and enforcement for those workers;
and establishing a secure border with Mexico.
However,
will Congress demand enforcement at the border and in the workplace?
The 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli bill enacted a ten-thousand dollar
fine and up to a year in prison for hiring an illegal alien,
but after three arrests, Congress directed the Justice Department
not to prosecute infractions of this law.
As always,
The Patriot advocates for the restoration of American
principles and the adoption of those principles by all
who seek to be called "American."
Will we ever
again be a nation committed to the principle of E pluribus
unum? Perhaps. In 1956, the 84th Congress declared our official
national motto to be "In God we trust." This motto
is especially instructive amid all the current political pandemonium,
for only through God can we all truly become one. ONE
copyright
2006 Federalist Patriot
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