The New Case Against Immigration


The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal
By Mark Krikorian
Sentinel, $25.95, 284 pp.


With The New Case Against Immigration, National Review's Mark Krikorian has
written one of the year's bravest books. In a political atmosphere where
proposing to crack down on even illegal immigration can get one labeled a
"nativist" or "xenophobe" in polite circles - and a racist in others -
Krikorian dares to question the level of legal immigration, a topic most
fear to explore.

For openers. it boggles the mind that an axis of political, media and
business elites favors illegal immigration. Nonetheless, stopping illegal
immigration is popular among voters. It's so popular, in fact, that
presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain forsook his mainstream
media constituency and its citizen-of-the-world mentality to give lip
service to what American citizens want - at least while the Republican
primaries lasted.

If Krikorian's name were Mark Running Bear, he'd probably get less flack for
questioning the practical effects of legal immigration. I'd bet a dollar
that the author hears retorts that Krikorian sure sounds like an immigrant
name, as he receives cheap shots about the Armenian Mob.

Everyone should have learned in grade school that one of the minimum
standards for being considered a real life nation-state is having a
definable border and the means to control it (though, no doubt, that's a
controversial topic in many public schools today).

Krikorian's premise is that America has a right to decide who comes here -
legally or not -and set a limit on newcomers. Period.

In fact, The New Case Against Immigration spends surprisingly little time on
illegal immigration; instead, Krikorian focuses on the effects of mass
immigration upon a modern welfare state infected by political correctness.

Unlike many who dare to broach this topic, Krikorian does not contend that
today's immigrants refuse to assimilate with American culture or have little
interest in it. Rather, he turns the argument on its head.

It's not that immigrants are much different than they were a hundred years
ago - it's that America is different in several important ways:

o The nation no longer is set up for mass assimilation. In recent decades,
we have set up a racial spoils system that is supposed to make up for past
American sins, but it applies to newcomers as well. The public schools - the
main engine of assimilation in past generations - don't even try to make
proud Americans out of Americans anymore.

o Those who come to the United States from many countries often encounter
a seismic shift in technology, traditions and mores. A century ago, the main
differences an immigrant faced when coming to America were life under
liberty and vastly improved opportunities.

o America no longer is a frontier country looking to populate vast empty
territories with a growing need to entice sturdy laborers to our shores.

o Most importantly, the U.S. is now a welfare state -- and minimum
income, health care and schooling are guaranteed for anyone who crosses our
border. This alone makes mass immigration impractical.

Perhaps the most compelling chapter in The New Case Against Immigration is
entitled "Mass Immigration vs. American Sovereignty." One expects the basic
argument about borders, but Krikorian makes a compelling case that the U.S.
legal system now makes mass immigration problematic - another way in which
we have changed more than the immigrants have.

Krikorian documents how the Mexican government, because of the huge numbers
of its citizens who live in the U.S., has claimed the right to lobby for and
against American legislation at the federal, state and even local levels -
and to involve itself in American elections.

Krikorian makes the compelling case that not only does the U.S. legal system
currently grant the Mexican government that right, but the egalitarian
impulse of American jurisprudence also apparently grants every other country
with citizens here the very same rights.

On the other hand, his assertion that mass immigration distorts labor
markets is less compelling. Such arguments always have a subjective base of
where the "true" market should be and rely on economic projections of
conditions that have never existed in real life - namely what wages would be
in a restrictive immigration environment.

It does, however, give one pause that in agricultural fields, where harvests
depend on cheap and often illegal labor, technical innovations have not
progressed for decades.

Krikorian also effectively argues that the large numbers of immigrants makes
security impossible, and terrorist watch lists a bad joke. That might be
true, but defensive security should always be a last resort, a screen to
catch those we have not been able to kill before they get here. It's hard
to see a time when so few people would ever be coming into the U.S. that
monitoring people and activities would be our primary security activity.

While libertarian-types who look at the world in purely economic terms tend
to support open borders, even they admit economist Milton Friedman was right
when he stated, "It's just obvious that you can't have free immigration and
a welfare state."

Libertarians - never the most practical of people politically - make this an
argument to dismantle the welfare state. While I tend to agree, Krikorian is
right when he says it is far more likely that U.S. politicians can be
persuaded to control our borders than to severely restrict the social safety
net, which most Americans support to one degree or another.

In this context, though, Krikorian makes another startling argument: There
is little difference, cost-wise, to the American taxpayer between an
unskilled legal immigrant and an illegal one. And the statistics he presents
are compelling.

Krikorian reveals the provisions of the 1994 Republican congressional
candidates' Contract with America that restricted government payouts to
immigrants have largely been ineffective. Since children's welfare was
involved in many cases (people who immigrate naturally tend to be of child
bearing age), cutting off benefits became problematic on the ground.

There is, however, one thing illegal immigration has definitely
overwhelmed - and that's the discussion. With an estimated 12 million
illegal aliens in the United States, most people think the discussion should
start there - and, for spineless politicians, it's a convenient place for
the discussion to end.

Ultimately, Krikorian proposes what he calls a "Pro-Immigrant Policy of Low
Immigration," which would include English instruction and other programs to
support assimilation.

Some careful conservative reviewers are tempering their reviews with a
backhanded compliment of "Agree or disagree, you have to give Krikorian
credit for starting the debate." Krikorian deserves much more credit than
that.

The New Case Against Immigration is a carefully written and intellectually
rigorous book capable of redefining the debate. At the very least,
Krikorian's arguments deserve real answers from those on the other side.


http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Art...9-0E973955834D






--
Give us back our countries: Stop the criminal multiculturalism ideology
enforced upon the white world against the will of its peoples, leading to
mass immigration from the third-world: Mul-cul + pol-corr = lethal mixture
for the white world. And give us back our freedom: Dismantle all
surveillance technology.