Illegal aliens rally to demand US citizenship |
By Alan Caruba
Every few years immigration becomes a
political issue and, in truth, it has always been an issue in the minds of
generations of Americans from its earliest years. Initially, those who were
here, largely from England, wanted others like them, but America was a dynamic
place spreading West and with a growing industrial sector.
Events elsewhere in the world also
played a role. By the middle half of the nineteenth century more than one-half
of the population of Ireland emigrated due to a famine there. They were joined
by Germans who came to America to escape severe unemployment, civil unrest, and
other hardships.
From 1820 to 1870, more than seven and
a half million immigrants came to the United States—more than the entire
population of the country in 1810. Their labor helped build canals and
railroads.
They were followed by a mass
immigration from Russia and Eastern Europe in the second half of the nineteenth
century and early twentieth. The majority were Jews escaping persecution. They
were joined by a massive immigration of Italians. In the 1880s there were
300,000 Italian immigrants, but that doubled by the 1890s and not long after
that more than two million had arrived. By 1920 America had four million
Italians who now called it home. Among both the Italians and Russians were my
ancestors.
That was then and this is now. Mostly
Americans are being told that the immigration issue is about politics; getting
more Hispanics into the nation so they can vote for Democrats. There is a
measure of truth to this, but the real issues that are rarely addressed in the
mainstream media are demographic, the effect their immigration—particularly
their illegal immigration—is having on fundamental issues of employment, the
cost of educating them, the criminals among them, and their access to various
welfare programs all funded out of the pockets of taxpayers, local, state and
federal.
Most dramatic, but never spoken of is
the way the influx of illegals is making life very difficult for those waiting
in line to legally become citizens; those seeking immigration visas and green
cards They are getting shafted as they wait months or years for their
applications to be processed by a bureaucracy overwhelmed by the waves of
illegals.
In California, however, it is now okay
for illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses. None of this makes any sense
since, of course, they are breaking our laws just by being here. Only in America
would we witness rallies in which illegal aliens demand to be granted instant
citizenship.
In late 2014, the Center for Immigration Studies issued a report
noting that nearly one in six adults in the U.S. is foreign-born. Based on
Census Bureau data, the Center found that the nation’s immigrant population
(legal and illegal) hit a record 41.3 million in July 2013, an increase of 1.4
million from July 2010. That was double the number in 1990.
“The new data makes clear that while Latin
America and the Caribbean are still a significant source of immigration, the
growth is being driven in large part by immigration from Asia, the Middle East,
and Africa,” said Steven Camarota, the Center’s Director of
Research.
Do we really want to be opening our
doors to immigration from the Middle East? Isn’t that what contributed to the
recent murderous attack on the French satirical newspaper? Isn’t the Middle East
where the attack on the World Trade Center was planned? Weren’t other attacks
here inspired by the Islamic jihad? Isn’t northern Africa called the Maghreb in
recognition of its Islamic nations? Aren’t we wondering not if, but when,
another attack will occur here?
Writing about immigration issues in
June 2014, Nancy Thorner, a Research Fellow at The
Heartland Institute, noted that “Since October of last year 52,000-to-60,000
unaccompanied children have arrived at our border with Mexico with the
expectation of being allowed into our country. They came mostly from Honduras,
Guatemala or El Salvador.”
They came in the thousands, but they
were fully expected by the Obama administration that had set up what was simply
a mass invasion. U.S. immigration laws exempted them from being turned away at
the Mexican border.
“Recently Democrats,” wrote Thorner,
“have sought to re-frame the deepening crisis by identifying the immigrants as
‘refugees’, to coincide with the different rules and laws that apply to people
with that label. That is one reason critics believe Obama’s intention is to find
a way to keep all 60,000-plus immigrants here permanently.” The White House “has
projected a staggering cost of $2.28 billion to care for and resettle child
immigrants from Central America; some say that figure is
low.”
The politics surrounding immigration
will be highlighted on Wednesday (Jan 14) when an immigration plan heads to the
House for a vote. As reported by the Associated Press, “It would block President
Barack Obama’s recent limits on deportations and undo protections for immigrants
brought to the United States illegally as children.” Obama has tried to change
immigration law using executive orders. That’s
unconstitutional.
What is news is the fact that the
House Speaker John Boehner, seen by his critics as too accommodating to the
President, has embraced the tougher plan.
“At issue, is a $39.7 billion spending bill to
keep the Department of Homeland Security funded through February. The House
version would block Obama’s November order granting temporary relief from
deportation to about 4 million immigrants who are in the country illegally. Most
have been here at least five years and have children who are citizens or legal
permanent residents.”
“In a surprise to many, the House GOP
proposal would also reverse a 2012 program called Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals that removed deportation threats to certain immigrants brought
illegally to the U.S. as children.”
Assured of passage in the House, if
the bill makes it through the Senate largely intact, Obama is expected to veto
it.
The issue of immigration is about to
take center stage for a while, becoming a priority as it is put to a vote, but
the real issues of Immigration are as much about people as politics, as much
about its costs as about compassion.
© Alan Caruba, 2015
2 comments:
Much more about assimilation as it is about compassion. Become American, OK. Become a blight on society, not Ok. Big difference.
IQ-55 foreign invaders from a wholly alien and unassimilable culture have neither the genetic nor the social wherewithal to have any positive or useful role in a society created by white Western European men. They're here for El Güelfare, nothing else. They hate us and want to conquer and exterminate us, and they say so. They are also acting on it.
Some cultures couldn't care less about liberty. You see it in East Asia as well as in the criollo cultures of the New World--they're hive insects and they want security, not liberty. They get what they want and they complain that their "secure" societies are prisons--then they come here and try to make us more like China or Cuba.
Round them up and ship them back. "Compassion" be damned. Rights are the obligation of the state to the citizen under the social contract. Wetback invaders aren't citizens and any rights they may or may not have are a matter between them and the governments of their nations of birth. Ship them back. All of them.
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