by John Ruskin
In his latest email, Gary Bauer has some interesting observations about the basics of immigration. As Bauer opines:
"It seems few are happy with this 'grand compromise,' which may not be so grand after all. On the one hand, it looks like another attempt to dress up a massive amnesty, just like the approach in 1986. But instead of three million illegal aliens, today we’re talking about 12 million. On the other hand, the bill does not adequately address key issues impacting legal immigration."
Bauer cites the remarks of columnist Mark Steyn, who noted:
“At some point, it’s worth trying to climb over the rubble of the 2007 [deal] and the 1986 amnesty and the 1965 immigration act, and going back to basics: What is immigration for? …Yet whatever the virtuousness of immigration for the host society, a dependence on it is a sign of profound structural weakness, and, when all the self-congratulation about celebrating diversity has died down, that weakness should be understood as such.
“The unspoken premise behind this bill is that the socioeconomic order in America now so depends on the vast apparatus of a giant shadow state of illegal immigrants that it can not be dismantled but only legitimized and thereby expanded. If true, that is a basic structural defect that should be addressed honestly.
“Meanwhile, Washington’s reluctance to be seen enforcing its own borders is very perplexing. From the ‘Washington sniper’ to September 11, 2001, there has been for a generation a clear national-security component to the illegal immigration issue. To present it only as a matter of ‘the jobs Americans won’t do’ is lazily reductive.
“The economists may see the vast human tide as an army of much-needed hotel maids and farm workers and nurses and plumbers, but to assume everyone on Earth sees himself as primarily an economic entity is complacent and (post- September 11) obtusely deluded. The political class’ urge to capitulate on the integrity of the national border sends as important a message to the world about American will as their urge to capitulate on Iraq.”
Well said by both Bauer and Steyn.
