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Marching Against Law and Common Sense	
By Michael Radu
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 18, 2006

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=22035

We are told that hundreds of thousands demonstrated on April 10
throughout the country in favor of immigrants and against the proposed
House of Representatives version of the immigration bill.

It is interesting and suspicious that, all of a sudden, and in contrast
to the Los Angeles demonstrations a few weeks ago, the sea of Mexican
flags of �la raza� have been replaced by white dress (�peace�?) and
American flags. One should give the obviously well funded and organized
groups behind it credit--but then, they have long experienced and
enjoyed the unwavering support of such benefactors as the Ford
Foundation, the Catholic Church, and assorted elements of the Left.

The demonstrators and their spokesmen are on the streets in support of
three great lies, and they are fully aware of it.

Great lie #1. �We are all immigrants.� Hence there is no difference
between my grandparents, who legally arrived by boat from Europe at the
turn of the twentieth century, were checked for health at Ellis Island
and entered the United States without the benefit of bilingual
education, free �emergency� health care (that includes emergency room
treatment for colds), or �affirmative action� for �anchor� babies,
and those who cross the Mexican border at will, making a joke of the
law. To compare the willing accomplices of coyotes or polleros (border
traffickers of people) to legal immigrants is an insult to the latter
and to give illegals the status of �victims� (of �racism�, 
exploitation�, etc) is absurd.

Great lie #2. �Without illegal immigrants the country will come to a
standstill.� Really? If America�s prosperity and superpower status
are indeed dependent on the price of California onions and
strawberries, or the cleaning ladies of its restaurants, we are in
greater trouble than we think. If, as most economists, on both sides,
argue, the percentage of illegal immigrants in the labor force is less
than 5%, virtually none of whom have education and skills. The economic
argument is no argument at all, just a pretext for farmers who refuse
to mechanize, businesses looking for cheap labor, and the politicians
they contribute to.

Great lie #3. �Illegal immigrants are honest, hard-working people who
only want to participate in the American dream.� That is when the term
�illegal� is used at all, which it seldom is. Indeed, all we hear is
�undocumented immigrants,� as if the dog ate their papers. Instead,
the 12 million or so illegals have planned and willingly paid thousands
of dollars each for breaking the laws of this country: so much for
�honesty.� As for the �American� dream, it has been painted all in
green hues, rather than red, white, and blue. That explains the now
conveniently disappeared Mexican flags, and the fact that remittances
from illegals are Mexico�s largest or second-largest source of hard
currency, depending on the year. This lie reaches grotesque levels when
Latino politicians and activists call the illegals �heroes� or when
hierarchs of the Catholic Church openly espouse the notion of open
borders � and law-breaking. If the Cardinal of Los Angeles and his
colleagues are prepared to pay for the benefits received by the
millions of illegals in their country, fine, that�s very Christian.
But posturing as willing would-be martyrs is an insult to the memory
of past Christian martyrs, not to mention bad citizenship.

Perhaps those who cling to the notion of illegal immigrants� 
willingness to assimilate should look to Maywood, California as an
omen. That town, with a 90 percent Hispanic population, most of it
illegal, has formally decided to disregard all U.S. (and California)
immigration laws and regulations, going so far as to give
�sanctuary� to illegals and to prohibit all police checks on
drivers� licenses and drunk drivers, because, God forbid, they may
�profile� or �insult� illegals. This is a result of imported
Mexican lawlessness combined with Californian political correctness.

Mexico itself will not and cannot �do� anything about emigration to
the United States. If all those now sending money back to Zacatecas or
Chiapas would have to stay in Mexico, it is more than likely that,
sooner or later, they would do something about elite corruption,
incompetence and demagoguery.

While most of the pseudo-arguments about illegal immigration turn
around its economic impact, which is almost impossible to gauge, the
real issue goes unmentioned, as it is cultural, and thus even harder
to assess in terms of dollars. It is politically incorrect even to
notice that America�s ability and willingness to assimilate millions
of Hispanics has limits, and those limits are being reached now.

Before the floodgates were opened in 1965, immigration to the United
States was mostly of Asian or European origin, and thus one ocean or
another lay between the new arrivals and their countries of origin.
But Rio Grande is no ocean. Eastern and southern Europe, or Ireland,
where previous waves of immigrants legally came from were not known
for deep rooted anti-Americanism and historical resentment against
the United States. Mexico is and not just at elite levels.

Then there is the willingness to integrate immigrants, and do so on a
timely basis. When the very idea of citizenship is under attack, openly
or not, and the will to defend one�s culture is in sharp decline,
absorbing millions of people who may not want to be integrated and who
have their family across a long border is a problematic proposition.

What does citizenship mean when California and Maryland, to give only
two examples, treat illegal immigrants and their �anchor kids� better
than they treat Virginian or Pennsylvania born, five-generation
citizens, by giving them access to state colleges at in-state resident
cost? �Affirmative action� includes �Hispanics,� whether legal or
not, as a privileged category, but not the descendants of legal
immigrants through the centuries.

The demonstrators in the street not just oppose the rule of law, but
openly claim that citizenship is a right. Since when? Worse still,
politicians also share that view, as demonstrated by the Senate and
its barely disguised amnesty to millions of lawbreakers. Indeed, it
seems, if you manage to break the law without being caught for long
enough time, �fairness� dictates that you are entitled to American
citizenship.

Whether most Senators are just trying to solve an inconvenient
immigration �problem� now, or actually believe their own rhetoric
about the mythical honest, hard working illegal, is perhaps
unimportant. What is important is that they refuse to learn from
past mistakes, like the Simpson-Mazzoli Act of 1986, which legalized
the previous generation of illegals, helping to create the present
and larger one.

For the likes of Mexican revanchists like MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil
Chicano de Aztlan at see www.panam.edu/orgs/mecha/nt_const.html) there
should be no limit. Indeed, MEChA would not tolerate Americans in the
southwestern United States and California. For Cardinal Roger Mahony
of Los Angeles there should no limit, either.

Now, Cardinal Mahony may just behave like any politician by
representing the views of his constituents (�flock�) while
ignoring the national interest. But why is the Senate avoiding
unpleasant facts, such as the reality that half of the population of
the Mexican state of Zacatecas lives in the United States, or that a
large majority of Hondurans intend to emigrate to the United States?
What is the legal, practical or moral argument for �legalizing� some
12 million illegal immigrants now, but not the millions who will come
in the near future?
 
We are told that we should be �realistic� and that closing the
Mexican border is impossible. That is a copout and sheer defeatism.
It could be done and, in some sectors, has been done and it works.
If Israel could stop much more motivated Islamist terrorists with its
wall, so could the United States stop illegal migrants. At the very
least, a well built and protected border obstacle will drastically
diminish the number of lawbreakers and make the cost of using polleros
for crossing � now some $1,200 per head for Mexicans, many times more
for non-Mexicans � prohibitive.

We are told that we should be �realistic� and that one cannot deport
12 million people. That, too, is a copout and sheer defeatism, as well
as a misstatement of the problem and solution. The point is not to have
12 million handcuffed people forced across the Rio Grande, but to deny
them the ill-gained advantages of illegal residence. If all benefits
are denied and employment and deportations are sped up, in a few years
the illegal population will diminish by attrition. Certainly, it will
take some time, but it also took time to allow the problem to fester.

Contrary to all-out opponents of any immigration, there is some need
for immigrants � highly skilled ones, as well as unskilled. But the
first group is already coming and the second could be included in an
honest guest-worker program. Honest means just that � temporary
working permits under regulated norms, with a share of the wages on
escrow, to be cashed only upon return home. And once the California
farmer now hiring illegals has to pay legal wages, and risks being
heavily penalized if he does not, his appetite for complicity in
lawbreaking will diminish, as will the number of unskilled immigrants.

 
The chances of any of this happening soon are minimal. We should see
what is happening now in Europe as a warning. There Muslim immigration
is out of control, with Islamist terrorism as an inevitable corollary,
and the mainstream politicians refused until recently even to mention
the problem. The result was the growth of anti-immigration populist
parties, some ideologically quite unsavory, inter-ethnic and religious
conflict, and cultural decline.

How long will it take until one, or more, of the Arizona ranchers whose
property and living are being destroyed on a daily basis by hordes from
across the border react violently? And what then? Are juries going to
jail an American whose government refused to protect him and his
property for defending himself against lawbreakers? We can already hear
the howls of �racism� thrown against all those defending law and
order and their country�s culture, but how long is this attempt to
stop the debate going to work?