Why is it that it's almost impossible to find someone who is against illegal immigration and also NOT an over-the-top bigot? Look, I understand at some level, you cannot favor restrictions on immigration without at least being softly bigoted no matter what sort of science and mathematics you throw at the topic; but I just want to discuss this like an adult with people but it's like you're forever barred from doing so because every conversation quickly devolves into accusations of bigotry (or, as you're more likely to be ignorantly described, racism). It sucks. It's arguable that favoring restrictions on immigration makes you something less than simply a nationalist but being against illegal immigration...how could you not be?
And yet, that stage is peopled by wanton racists and bigots spewing cartoonish hatred rather than a panel of people offering intelligent debate on the subject which consists primarily of (1) how do we get the Federal government to enforce the laws on the books (2) how should the Federal government go about enforcing those laws (3) what do we do about those illegals who are already here? There are other minor points like "(4) should citizenship be automatically granted for those who are born here?"; "(5) how accountable should businesses be for verifying the employment eligibility of their prospective employees?"; "(6) should we militarize our borders?"; "(7) should responsibilities of the Federal government that go unenforced fall upon the states to enforce?" etc. I'm sure you can think of more.
Overall, my take on immigration is best summarized as a paraphrase of the South Park episode "Goobacks" (what follows is an altered quote changing the temporal references to modern ones since the illegals in this episode, while obviously parodies of Mexican illegal immigrants, were from the future):
I think it's wrong to be against immigration because they're no different from us. They're just people trying to make their lives better. Look, it sucks that the immigrants' native country is so crappy, but the cold hard truth is that if we let them all come into our country, then it's just gonna make our country crappy too. Maybe the answer isn't trying to stop the [illegal] immigrants from coming, but making their native countries better. [...] I mean, maybe if we all commit right now to working toward a better future, then... then their countries won't be so bad, and these immigrants won't need to come over here looking for work.
That's roughly my stance. More harshly, I describe immigration in terms of poverty and poverty in terms of entropy. Generally speaking, you have no reason to leave your home country if you are doing well there. Yes, there is political oppression which can generate mass exoduses: there's plenty of historical examples. But for the most part, immigration is an escape of poverty for the hope of a better future rather than the escape of the economic and educational elite fleeing unfavorable home environments. I describe it as "Poverty flows into wealth" and I use both terms generally like in the way evolution is described from a population standpoint and not an individual one.
Wealth represents order in my view and like in the real world, order is not the natural state of things. Order requires a constant input of energy to both build and maintain. Poverty is entropy. Poverty requires nothing and requires one to do nothing or at least, not enough. In this respect, I favor (at least in bad economic times) restrictions on immigration in the sense that those whom we let in should possess skills and/or knowledge our country needs. We have plenty of unskilled labor in this country. Importing more helps no one and in fact, would likely result in wage competition which would ultimately lower wages for those on the bottom even more than they already have been which only means more overall suffering. This is where the above purple statement comes in but I'm left wondering just what it is that makes the United States and Western Europe so magical. What have the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, England, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and a couple others done so differently that other countries have failed so spectacularly at? And Japan's only on that list because they have so readily adopted a Western economic standard since the 1850s.
Is it something obvious like orderly transitions of power? Is it something simple like property rights? Is it something economic like a stable currency? Is it something environmental like lots of land suitable for agriculture? Is it something knowledge-based like education? I honestly don't know. Something tells me it would much cheaper for the United States to invest heavily in bettering the world not through imperial-like interventions, but through education; introduction of farming technologies in addition to sustainable farming techniques; sound environmental stewardship; micro-loans; etc. Of course, the drug trade would make this difficult in some areas but maybe this is where powerful military gestures would be appropriate (with the approval of the local governments first). This is gross oversimplification I know but are you going to tell me there aren't a shitload of college students out there who could be educated and trained in these techniques and sent out in the world à la Kennedy's vision of the Peace Corps? Commit to your liberal ideals AND get paid for it...win-win in my book as well as potentially ironic to have so many thousands of Americans effectively immigrating into their countries. But I'm rambling about shit I really know nothing about...but I have a blog, so that makes me an expert ;-P
My other problem with the pro-illegal immigration camp - actually, that's an unfair appellation. These groups who superficially appear in support of illegal immigration seem to be more in favor of unlimited, unrestricted immigration rather than the political Gotcha! that being in favor of illegal immigration sounds like. So in that respect, I must favor restricted immigration rather than being against illegal immigration.
The current wave of immigrants I think is historically unprecedented in the sense that, while they are from numerous countries, they all basically speak the same language. Yes, I know there are regional differences in their Spanish, but it's basically all the same. The differences are no where near that of Portuguese and Spanish. It's probably more like the difference between American English and British English. Anyways, because of this, corporations are kind of in our faces about the current wave of immigrants. Something tells me that no one would give a fuck about illegal immigration if we didn't have to Press 1 for English and if my paper towels didn't also have Rollos Grandes printed on the package. I come from an area with a large concentration of Koreans, but my Bounty Towels don't have 빅 타올 printed on them so why Rollos Grandes? (by the way, I just tossed "big towels" into Google Translate and am not assuming that that is necessarily both a correct translation and a correct transliteration - I also like how my spell check isn't concerned about the Korean lettering but flags "rollos grandes").
There's something insidious about such practices. It's like some sort of soft bigotry when companies use bilingual labelling. While Canadian law requires everything to be printed in both English and French, there is no such requirement for American companies meaning that they choose to do so even though well over 90% of their potential buyers speak and read English and a significant portion of them speak and read English only. So why all the Spanish? It can't be catering, otherwise we would see more packaging in other languages predominant in your local community, would we not? Why don't I see in addition to "Basmati Rice", बासमती चावल, printed on those packages to aid our sizable Indian community? Are these groups not worth the sycophantic pandering? I think of comedian Carlos Mencia, and I really tried finding a link for this point but could not locate one, who said (and I'm clearly paraphrasing here) that the dual labelling really is because of racism. It's both businesses implying that "these people" will never learn English because they are not real Americans and because they are not here TO be Americans. Plus, if the signs and labels and services were only in English, they would have to learn English and once they know the language, they'll start demanding better treatment and wages. Encouraging them to remain Spanish-speaking allows them to remain exploitable by businesses and thus helps create an underclass to keep the rest of those born here, but on the bottom of the economic ladder, in fear so that they themselves won't rise up demanding better treatment and wages because there will always be someone willing to do that work for less than they are demanding. And yet, if you are against bilingualism on packaging and services, you're the bigot even if you come supplied with a better educated version of that logic presented above.
And that being said, I really wish the various Hispanic groups in this country would be a bit more politically aware when protesting the bigots on the other side of the equation. You're not gonna get my support if you come across as though you do favor illegal immigration. It's probably not a good idea to bring any flag other than the American one to your protests. Flaunting your various cultures when protesting the bigotry of the opposing side only fuels their fears that you aren't trying to assimilate and serves only to alienate potential allies. Do you think the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s movement would have succeeded if they didn't appear at rallies well-dressed and looking like white Americans? Imagine if the Civil Rights movement never happened until just now. While their demands for equal treatment and rights would be as legitimate as could be, imagine if at the rallies, they were all dressed as gangsta rappers and fly girls from such videos? Do you honestly think that despite their irrefutable demands, that they would receive any kind of respect? That they would acquire the allies in places of power they would need to overturn such laws? Hell no. Anyone who shows up to these modern immigration protests with Sí se puede! or Estamos todos los Americanos! on their signs is doing their group exactly no favors and setting back their cause. Allay fears and you'll get what you want...
And this brings me back to the beginning in that I don't know what the fuck I am talking about. I guess, in the end, none of this matters. If I truly believe in the spirit of America, then people who aren't from the traditional White Anglo-Saxon Protestant background will be just as capable of ruling this country when their time comes because America is about an idea, not a race. And so long as that idea remains, we'll be fine and there's nothing to be afraid of. If anything, it will only get better as the Borg-like assimilative culture that defines this nation will continue to pluck out the good parts of other cultures and make them into our own. I also think of pictures of New York City from the 1920s where storefronts were all in Italian, Hebrew, and Chinese. They didn't change the dominant language of this country any more than the current wave will so, in that respect, I am not worried. It's annoying, but their children (and I see this given my line of work), really don't have an interest in speaking Spanish except to their parents and grandparents. The great melting pot of the United States is still hard at work :-)
The one argument that irks me about the unrestricted unlimited immigration camp is the argument "No human being is illegal". I can't help but think, what the fuck does that have to do with anything? Why do we even have countries if people should be free to go where they want whenever they want? I might buy the argument if Americans were flocking in record numbers to Costa Rica or Bolivia; if it were all kind of a wash in the end, but they're clearly not. Yes, the United States has wealth to spread around, but this wealth is not unlimited. Why shouldn't we restrict immigration, or at least make sure people aren't jumping the line, to protect this resource? It's like when couples have too many kids. How many children a couple can rear effectively depends on their wealth (not entirely, but it's a big factor). There's definitely a tipping point. And in this example, I'm not talking about recent immigrants who have larger-than-normal families. I'm talking about a country letting in more people than it can reasonably sustain. As Americans, we have a standard of living which we have come to expect. To let in too many, uh...applicants, that expected standard will necessarily become diluted. For now, we're okay, but it will reach a peak and then what? Just as we look down on couples who have more children than they could reasonably afford, how should we look upon a country which accepts more people than it can reasonably sustain?
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