In a recent confrontation between protesters against the illegal flood
of unaccompanied children into the United States and counter-protests by
some Hispanic group, one man from the latter group said angrily, "We
are as good as you are!"
One of the things that make the history of clashes over race or ethnicity such a history of tragedies around the world is
that — regardless of whatever particular issue sets off these clashes —
many people see the ultimate stakes as their worth as human beings. On
that, there is no room for compromise, but only polarization. That is
why playing "the race card" is such an irresponsible and dangerous
political game.
The real issue when it comes to immigration is not
simply what particular immigration policy America should have, but
whether America can have any immigration policy at all.
A country that does not control its own borders does
not have any immigration policy. There may be laws on the books, but
such laws are just meaningless words if people from other countries can
cross the borders whenever they choose.
One of the reasons why many Americans are reluctant
to keep out illegal immigrants — or even to call them "illegal
immigrants," instead of using the mealy-mouthed word "undocumented" — is
that most Hispanics they encounter seem to be decent, hard-working
people.
This column has pointed out, more than once, that I
have never seen Mexicans standing on a street corner begging, though I
have seen both whites and blacks doing so.
But such impressions are no basis for deciding
serious issues about immigration and citizenship. When we do not control
our own borders, we have no way of knowing how many of those coming
across those borders are criminals or even terrorists.
We
have no way of knowing how many of those children are carrying what
diseases that will spread to our children. And we already know, from
studies of American children, that those who are raised without fathers
in the home have a high probability of becoming huge, expensive problems
for taxpayers in the years ahead, and a mortal danger to others.
A
hundred years ago, when there was a huge influx of immigrants from
Europe, there were extensive government studies of what those immigrants
did in the United States. There were data on how many, from what
countries, ended up in jail, diseased or on the dole. There were data on
how well their children did in school.
As with most things, some immigrant groups did very
well and others did not do nearly as well. But today, even to ask such
questions is to be considered mean-spirited.
Such information as we have today shows that
immigrants from some countries have far more education than immigrants
from some other countries, and do not end up being supported by the
taxpayers nearly as often as immigrants from other countries. But such
information is seldom mentioned in discussions of immigrants, as if they
were abstract people in an abstract world.
Questions about immigration and citizenship are
questions about irreversible decisions that can permanently change the
composition of the American population and the very culture of the
country — perhaps in the direction of the cultures of the countries from
which illegal immigrants have fled.
During the era of epidemics that swept across Europe
in centuries past, people fleeing from those epidemics often spread the
diseases to the places to which they fled. Counterproductive and
dangerous cultures can be spread to America the same way.
Willful
ignorance is not the way to make immigration decisions or any other
decisions. Yet the Obama administration is keeping secret even where
they are dumping illegal immigrants by the thousands, in communities far
from the border states.
Looking before we leap is not racism — except in the
sense that anything the Obama administration doesn't like is subject to
being called racist.
Americans who gather to protest the high-handed way
this administration has sneaked illegal immigrants into their
communities can expect the race card to be played against them. The time
is long overdue to stop being intimidated by such cheap — and dangerous
— political tactics.
