The Bubbling Pot: America's political establishment is completely out of touch with public opinion on the subject of uncontrolled immigration. How long before our politics boil over?
Keene, David
"The Bubbling Pot" America's political establishment is completely out of touch with public opinion on the subject of uncontrolled immigration. How long before our politics boil over? B Y D A V I D...
...B Y D A V I D URING HIS SECOND DEBATE with Walter Mondale back in 1984, then-President Ronald Reagan was questioned about our immigration policy and the growing number of illegal or undocumented immigrants along our southern border...
...Thus, when Harvard's Samuel P. Huntington addressed the impact of the current wave of immigrants on U.S...
...Organized labor wanted it curtailed and various business interests wanted it expanded...
...If we can gain control of the borders, stem the flow of new illegals, and make it less comfortable for those who make it in to live comfortably, the problem will improve almost on its own...
...The single most important piece of any of these programs has to be border control...
...citizens holding office in a number of the former captive nations of Eastern Europe and at least one U.S...
...culture...
...In fact, few at the time saw anything inconsistent in favoring both secure borders and an amnesty for those who had managed to sneak into this country, as D K E E N E amnesty was seen by most as a way of rationalizing an increasingly irrational immigration policy...
...When the Bush administration condemned the citizen volunteers who, characterizing themselves as modern-day minutemen, sought out of frustration to help police the southern border earlier this year, a ripple of outrage went through the electorate...
...citizens...
...We have to figure out what to do about those already here...
...Congress was developing the nation's last attempt to deal with immigration policy back in 1984 when President Reagan mused about the wisdom of an amnesty...
...But it's an issue few politicians really want to confront, both because it forces difficult choices and because elite and public opinion on the issue are so different...
...They offered them amnesty and citizen-ship and assumed that as a result we would no longer have "illegals" to worry about...
...David Keene is chairman of the American Conservative Union...
...In today's America no serious politician will be heard advocating amnesty, though more than a few are supporting proposals that share the DNA of the amnesty Reagan found so attractive back then...
...whenever they choose...
...Any plan should be judged unrealistic if it does not first provide the resources and a strategy to cut down the number of those who can get into the U.S...
...AMAZINGLY, TODAY'S POLITICIANS are acting as if none of this happened and are preparing to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s...
...If one party in a two-party system ignores such issues, it risks its ability to win, but if both parties ignore them the very stability of the system is put at risk...
...Bush's advisers, along with a number of senators like John McCain and Teddy Kennedy, are backing proposals that in one way or another ease the path to citizenship for those who have come to this country illegally since the last amnesty...
...Those who came here wanted, above all, to become Americans...
...They also fail to appreciate the major lesson they should have learned from the last amnesty, which is that any proposal that puts illegals on a track to citizenship in a way that makes chumps of those who play by the rules will simply encourage others to head north and will be seen by most voters as unacceptable...
...citizenship...
...homeland, most urban gangs were native, and people's alarm at the country NOVEMBER 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 23 THE BUBBLING POT changing wasn't particularly strong...
...Ross Perot turned the White House over to Bill Clinton in 1992 by harping on the growing deficit and the flight of US...
...This left the bill's authors with the problem of the 3-5 million illegals already here...
...It is the growing sense of this balkanization that is the real cause of the disquieting and potentially explosive public hostility toward immigrants that is sweeping the country...
...Their solution was simple...
...This is especially true when establishment political leaders tend not only to dismiss the concern over uncontrolled immigration and disassociate themselves from those who raise it, but poke fun at or condemn voters who honestly believe it is a problem...
...The problem, of course, is that it won't go away at a time when mil-lions of voters perceive it as an issue that politicians have ignored for far too long...
...Congressmen who represent districts hundreds or even thousands of miles from our southern border are inundated with demands that they "do something" about the illegals in their district...
...There are U.S...
...SUCH A POLICY WILL INEVITABLY MAKE life difficult for some we don't wish to hurt, but it will ultimately convince many of them to go home and, more importantly, convince many who haven't yet come to stay home...
...24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2005 Likewise, Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo, like pundit cum politician Pat Buchanan, was consigned to the political outer darkness by White House aides and others who wish the whole issue would just, well, go away...
...country...
...But since there was no such commitment, all we managed to do was send the wrong message to those contemplating a move north...
...it will be defined instead by voters using something akin to the old "if it walks and quacks like a duck" test...
...Assuming, however, that Congress and the President get serious about securing the borders, we are still left with the very same problem Simpson and his colleagues faced in the 1980s...
...Some of them DAVID KEENE have been here for years and are doing what wave after wave of immigrants have done throughout our history: working hard, earning a living, raising their families, and becoming, well, Americans...
...citizens were required to renounce allegiance to any other nation or government...
...Today, all that has changed...
...We aren't about to round all these people up, load them into box cars, and send them home, but short of that what is required is a policy that makes it difficult for them to live and work comfortably here...
...Given the technology available today we can, in developing such a program, devise ways to track workers along with other legal visitors to our country to make certain they don't overstay their welcome...
...This may be sufficient for a "guest worker," but the public, unlike many politicians, understands that only those who play by the rules, embrace the American idea, and are prepared to accept this country as their only home should ever be considered for citizenship...
...There was a day when to vote in a foreign election, swear allegiance to a foreign potentate, serve in a foreign army, accept appointment or election to office in a foreign land, would result in the forfeiture of one's U.S...
...A successful proposal will have to grow out of an honest dialogue with a public vitally concerned about illegal immigration—a dialogue the administration seems loath to begin...
...These were people who were proud to call themselves Americans and knew in their bones that the nation of which they had become a part was worth fighting and dying to defend...
...Moreover, Osama bin Laden had yet to become a household name, nobody worried about international terrorists targeting the U.S...
...Whether they will or not, however, remains to be seen...
...People will fall through the cracks...
...The Wall Street Journal was still editorializing on the desirability of open borders as the answer to all our problems, and the only real complaints were coming from unions who feared the new wave of immigrants might cost their members jobs...
...Simpson reasoned that if we combined such sanctions with beefed-up security at the border itself, the growing problem could be effectively handled...
...citizenship...
...None of them call for a new amnesty exactly, but President We can secure our borders if we are willing to devote the resources necessary to do so...
...Attempts to marginalize concerns about immigration simply aren't working because they are too deeply and widely shared...
...This represents quite a turnaround among a nation founded by and made up almost exclusively of immigrants and their progeny...
...culture, he was denounced by fellow academics and intellectuals...
...The U.S...
...our immigration policy will continue to be set not by Congress and the bureaucracy, but by men, women, and children moving over the border when-ever and in whatever numbers they choose...
...Democrats know the GOP is in trouble on the question and are adjusting their own rhetoric to drive a wedge into the heart of the Republican base...
...it's difficult, after all, to marginalize a majority...
...law to get here, anything that encourages people to act on their desire to grab a piece of the American Dream illegally can only lead to disaster...
...government should actively discourage nations from encouraging this sort of dual citizen-ship and Congress should look at penalties for those who don't renounce their former allegiances when they become U.S...
...Some will find ways around whatever roadblocks we construct, some will find jobs by seeking out employers willing to risk the consequences, but by devoting resources to border security and enforcement it is reasonable to assume that we can reduce the current torrent to a trickle...
...Conceptually, of course, the 1986 policy might have worked if there had been any real commitment NOVEMBER 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 25 THE BUBBLING POT to securing our borders and making it difficult to survive in this country as an illegal...
...To deal with illegal immigration, the bill relied primarily on "employer sanctions" to punish busiCongress was developing the nation's last attempt to deal with immigration policy back in 1984 when President Reagan mused about the wisdom of an amnesty nesses that hired illegals under the theory that if the government enforced such sanctions against employers in the habit of hiring illegals, job opportunities here would dry up for them and they'd be more likely to stay home...
...By looking the other way, we have encouraged the cultural balkanization of our own country in ways that will haunt us for decadesand perhaps centuries...
...It was an article of faith, after all, that ours is a nation of immigrants symbolized by the Statue of Liberty's enduring beacon of hope to those unfortunate enough to have been born else-where...
...legally and simply stayed on when their visas expired...
...The United States is a nation based on a set of ideas rather than the religious or ethnic similarity of those who live here...
...These rather obvious facts, however, create a dilemma for policy-makers and politicians...
...What none of them seem to understand is that in today's world they aren't going to get to define the term...
...Dual citizenship is encouraged by many foreign states today for a variety of reasons...
...Hundreds of thousands already leave every year for these reasons, but the problem gets worse because more come than go...
...THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION early last summer began private discussions on the Hill and among those it likes to refer to as "stakeholders" to seek support for an immigration initiative the President's advisers hope will at least defuse matters...
...Here again there will be arguments about the severity of punitive measures we might take against employers and whining about the cost of compliance, but these too are issues that are politically resolvable...
...Mexico encourages its nationals to retain their citizenship once they get here and Mexico's President Fox won election as a result of margins piled up not in Mexico City but in Los Angeles and Chicago...
...They said they were prepared to unveil their "plan" after Labor Day, but that was before Katrina which bought them a little more time to develop something that'll sell to an ever more skeptical electorate...
...THIS IS DANGEROUS STUFF...
...It still is, but many who arrive today come not because they share or even understand the yearning that brought previous generations of immigrants to our shores, but because they simply want to make a buck—and send it home...
...In 1984, immigration was a hot issue among a few interest groups...
...True, there might have been as many as 5 million "illegals" in the country in 1984, but the problems that trouble so many Americans today were limited to a few places like San Diego and parts of Texas and Arizona...
...In today's America pollsters tell us that for the first time since Gallup was a baby, a majority of us tell them that immigration is bad rather than good for the DAVID KEENE which it will be difficult to escape, and they're doing it without altering their own softer substantive positions...
...None of the programs we devise will work perfectly...
...J N THOSE DAYS MOST AMERICANS VIEWED immigration positively...
...NOVEMBER 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 27...
...Without control of the borders the rest of the discussion is meaning-less...
...This is just as important as catching people at the borders, as it is estimated that perhaps 40 percent of the illegals here now came into the U.S...
...We took pride in our origins and bragged about the "melting pot" that took diverse peoples and forged them into Americans...
...Border control cannot be seen as a sop to those who keep asking for it or as an afterthought in a broader all-encompassing immigration policy, but as the key to everything...
...No one was happy with it...
...We can secure our borders if we are willing to devote the resources necessary to do so, and if we have the will we can make life difficult for those who try to live and work here as illegals...
...It was, in short, a very different day in a very different America...
...This is, of course, no longer true...
...The White House seems reluctant to recognize that the universe of "stakeholders" they must satisfy goes beyond those who employ immigrants or represent their interests to the broader public...
...But we didn't strengthen border security, Congress gutted the sanctions at the behest of employers who wanted to keep hiring illegals, and the federal government did little to enforce those that survived...
...From a conceptual standpoint everything that must be done 26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2005 up to the point of dealing with those already here is fairly straightforward...
...Thus, even as Richardson declares an emergency in his state, he continues to advocate measures that make it easier rather than more difficult for those who make it over the border to fit in...
...In spite of what happened in Europe, U.S...
...They all take great care to define amnesty very narrowly and suggest that because their proposals require applicants to pay a fine or impose other minor penalties in exchange for forgiveness they are not really amnesty proposals at all...
...Clinton's wife could benefit from an issue with even wider appeal this time...
...It is also possible to design a "guest worker" pro-gram that will, as the administration likes to say, "match willing workers with willing employers" to bring in the workers we need on a temporary basis...
...He looked into the camera as only he could and said, "I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here, even though some time back they may have entered illegally...
...Eventually nearly 3 million of those here at the time signed up, politicians of both parties congratulated themselves and each other on their brilliance, and moved on to other more pressing problems...
...It is no accident that first and second generation citizens tend to dominate the ranks of those who have won honor in this nation's wars...
...The founders saw Americans as a new people who had thrown off not only their past allegiances, but the ideas and ideologies of the old world...
...What's more, we can develop and implement a system of penalties and rewards that will make it highly unlikely that U.S...
...We gave them hope that if they could just make it up here and hang around long enough we would eventually overlook how they got in and hand them the ultimate prize: U.S...
...There was no public outcry even though as both candidate and president, Reagan had said time and again that a serious country must control its borders...
...Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and others are posturing in ways calculated to put the President and his partisans in a box from The White House and the entire political establishment may not realize it, but they are playing with political fire...
...Advocacy groups that spoke for immigrants, whether legal or not, cared about it...
...establishment politicians have somehow missed the lesson that in a democracy established leaders and political parties cannot safely ignore issues perceived as vitally important by major segments of the electorate...
...The Republican problem is that someone like Tancredo is likely to enter the fast approaching battle for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination or decide that the time is ripe for a single-issue independent campaign that could put the issue on the front burner even if it costs the GOP the presidency...
...They didn't shed their heritage or their pride in their origins, but they did everything they could to assimilate into their new country...
...Simpson himself, though he concentrated on immigration policy as it related to legal immigrants, was concerned that it did much less than he had hoped to tighten controls at the border and that it was shaped more by employers who depended on immigrant labor than by citizens worried about the impact of the new wave of immigrants on U.S...
...He had been trying to get his colleagues to focus on the problem since 1982, but the bill he introduced that year was killed and revived a number of times in different and weakened forms before it finally passed in 1986...
...Instead of providing taxpayer-financed incentives for them to come and stay illegally, a rational policy would remove such incentives...
...And, besides, few Americans in 1984 spent much time thinking about the question...
...He'd give them drivers licenses, make it easier for them to send their kids to New Mexico's schools, and continues to advocate easier access to medical and other services in the state...
...Since one recent poll of Mexican citizens living south of the border found that more than 45 percent of them regardless of socio-economic status would like to move to the United States, and that 27 percent might be willing to do so even if it means breaking U.S...
...citizen serving in the Mexican legislature...
...Those familiar with the GOP's fundraising programs say direct mail contributions are down as donors demand to know just what's going on...
...If there were 3-5 million illegals here in 1986, there are at least three times that many here today and that number is growing...
...We may need workers and we may benefit from immigration in dozens of other ways, but once we are in a position to control the number of immigrants we accept, we must develop a policy to re-create the melting pot and turn them into Americans...
...They should look to the European elections of a few years ago where political leaders and mainstream parties who dismissed concerns about the new waves of immigration streaming into Europe were shocked by the electoral power of extremists, minor parties, and outright charlatans willing to run on an issue they eschewed...
...The bill was a failure and the policy Simpson hoped would stabilize or even reduce immigration instead made things worse...
...Nativist types who didn't much like foreigners and never did were opposed to letting any more in, but one didn't hear people debating it in bars, at gas stations, or on talk radio...
...At the same time, we should as a nation remember that until fairly recently, U.S...
...If we can gain control of the borders, stem the flow of new illegals, and make it less comfortable for those who make it in to live comfortably, the problem will improve almost on its own as more and more who are here now leave without being replaced...
...The White House and the entire political establishment may not realize it, but they are playing with political fire...
...The nation's intellectual, political, and cultural elites tend to dismiss concerns about immigration as wrong-headed, ignorant, and probably racist...
...employers will hire illegals in meaningful numbers...
...The fight began because then Senator Alan Simpson was concerned both about the growing number of illegal immigrants and what he saw at the time as our increasing inability to absorb even the legal immigrants we were admitting at the time...
...jobs to the south...
...bling Pot America's political establishment is completely out of touch with public opinion on the subject of uncontrolled immigration...
Vol. 38 • November 2005 • No. 9
