Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans protested this past week all across the southwestern United States, voicing their opposition to any plan that would tighten our borders to slow down illegal immigration, or round up illegal immigrants already in the US and ship them back home.
Half a million Mexicans marched in Los Angeles, where the Mexican population proudly displays a disturbing nationalist and separatist attitude.
(ADDED: In today's Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan notes that while we assimilate immigrants culturally and economically, we are not "assimilating our immigrants patrotically." She explains that we are no longer teaching the "American dream"; rather we spend our time on the politically correct deconstructing and debunking and disassembling of it. And without a shared dream, patriotism atrophies and dies. Interesting.)
Naturally this display of anger has Washington DC in a tizzy. Republicans are treading on glass, because they have been actively courting the Hispanic vote for the past eight years. Democrats are ecstatic because once again an opportunity to present Republicans as "racists" and "bigots" may have presented itself.
But here are a few reality check points.
First, a vast majority of Americans are very concerned about illegal immigration. Even though Mexican protesters numbered into the hundreds of thousands, their numbers are still only a drop in the bucket of the American population.
Second, it should be assumed that an appreciable portion of the protesters are illegal immigrants. Even though they are angry, their illegal status prevents them from voting in elections (California notwithstanding). And the boldness of this weekend's protests gives lie to the notion that illegal immigrants are "hiding" and "living in fear" in this country. Such imagery is designed to conjure up images of the Frank family huddling in terror while jackbooted Gestapo officers tear apart their building. The fact that so many illegals took to the streets with virtually no arrests made -- and no deportations -- should squelch that idea once and for all.
Third, the anger expressed by Mexicans is not shared throughout Latino communities. There were no major protests in Florida, where the majority of Latinos are of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent. It is doubtful that Latino immigrants and their families, who either came to America as political refugees or entered legally and endured the naturalization process, have much patience with illegal immigrants who are bucking the system.
Economist Thomas Sowell has probably the best rational discussion of immigration problems in this article published by RealClearPolitics: Guests or Gate Crashers?
Sowell's conclusion:
None of the rhetoric and sophistry that we hear about immigration deals with the plain and ugly reality: Politicians are afraid of losing the Hispanic vote and businesses want cheap labor.
More:
We could solve the problem of all illegal activity anywhere by legalizing it. Why use this approach only with immigration? Why should any of us pay a speeding ticket if immigration scofflaws are legalized after the fact for committing a federal crime?
Most of the arguments for not enforcing our immigration laws are exercises in frivolous rhetoric and slippery sophistry, rather than serious arguments that will stand up under scrutiny.
How often have we heard that illegal immigrants "take jobs that Americans will not do"? What is missing in this argument is what is crucial in any economic argument: price.
Americans will not take many jobs at their current pay levels -- and those pay levels will not rise so long as poverty-stricken immigrants are willing to take those jobs.
If Mexican journalists were flooding into the United States and taking jobs as reporters and editors at half the pay being earned by American reporters and editors, maybe people in the media would understand why the argument about "taking jobs that Americans don't want" is such nonsense.
Finally, Michelle Malkin has an amusing post regarding "undocumented workers," the euphemism given to illegal aliens by the mainstream press, which demonstrates that illegals have plenty of "documents" -- forged ones, that is.
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President Bush is meeting with Mexican president Vincente Fox today to discuss his immigration plan. (More on Bush's proposed "guest worker" program here.)
Republican leadership isn't happy with Bush's plan and have proposed the Secure America's Borders Act.
Democrats generally support a "guest worker" program and have strong reservations about heightened border security and deportation; they accuse Republicans of trying to criminalize the rendering of aid to illegal aliens. They offered a comprehensive immigration plan two years ago, The SOLVE Act.
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