Avoiding the Issue

Fire of Liberty

Here's Jonah Goldberg's take on the whole illegal immigration argument and the recent protests in the streets of Los Angeles, Dallas and Phoenix. As Jonah notes, the folks who take to the streets and their supporters in Congress and the media seem to be confusing the whole debate. Now while these folks are going before the cameras saying that we're a nation of immigrants and that Congress is pushing a law that attacks such values but they fail to realize that the focus is on illegal immigration and the folks who continue to facilitate such actions by providing them jobs. I'd say Jonah sums it up when he notes:

Our border with Mexico allows for levels of illegal immigration that have no historical precedent. In 1970, there were fewer than 800,000 Mexicans in America, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. In 1980, there were 2.2 million. In 1990, the number reached 4.3 million, and by 2000 it had climbed to 7.9 million. In 2005, there were 10.8 million —— a spike of 37 percent in half a decade. Today, roughly a third of all undocumented immigrants in America are Mexican, and they make up a disproportionate share of low-wage immigrants.

The Mexican government aids and abets illegal immigration in myriad ways, including giving prospective entrants to the U.S. a how-to guide for how to slip across the border, telling them not to wear heavy clothes, to drink plenty of water, and to keep your professional smuggler-guide in sight at all times. There's much less in the booklet about how to fill out the right forms and pass the naturalization exam.

The Mexican government is being perfectly rational. Mexico depends on the billions of dollars its fellow countrymen send back home, and it benefits — or hopes to — from the political clout Mexican-Americans have in our political system.

This isn't an anti-Mexican observation. It is, in fact, merely an observation, and an irrefutable one. But it flies in the face of a lot of idealistic abstraction. Most Americans are proud, to one extent or another, of America's status as a "nation of immigrants." That's why the protest organizers were desperate to have a lot of American flags and "We are Americans" chants. The more illegal immigration from Mexico can be seen as consistent with the "story of America," the better it is for people who want to either maintain the status quo or expand illegal immigration.

You'd think that we could have an honest debate about illegal immigration but then again the folks on the other side of the argument still think that the uproar is over immigrants in general. Go figure.

**For more on the illegal immigration problem in the US see here, here, and here.