Immigration
posted in General |IMMIGRATION
With the Iraqi War, political campaigning, economic worries, same sex marriage, etc., it is easy to lose track of other issues, such as immigration. I readily concede that an element of immigration is a positive thing for our growing and expanding country. But there is the distinct possibility of too much of a good thing. I am personally concerned over immigration in this day and age — for 2 reasons.
The common cliche is that we are a nation of immigrants. I suppose that is true if you assume that the forbearers of all of us came from somewhere else — including the Indians. But in days of global terrorism, massive immigration has a significant downside. It is currently esimated that there are about 12 MILLION illegal immigrants in the US right now. Think of it — 12 MILLION. The bleeding heart do-gooders prefer to call them ”undocumented” because they just can't bear calling illegals illegal. Not only that, we don't know where these people are, when they got here, who they are or what they are doing. And while some folks register concern over this state of affairs, others on the left keep creating benefits that inevitably attract more and more illegals. Doesn't make much sense, does it?
We are spending millions to tighten security at our Ports of entry, airline terminals, bridges, etc, yet the illegals continue to pour in. To observe that our borders are porous is like concluding the the Pope is Catholic. While we fear the actions of terrorists who have mass murder on their minds, it is not very comforting to know that there are millions of foreigners running around loose — totally anonymous to our law enforcement authorities. And of course, the denizens of the left want to gut the Patriot Act so that it will be more difficult for our law enforcement agencies to track both legals and illegals. When a country cannot control its own borders, it is asking for trouble — possibly very big trouble.
My second concern is over the breakdown in assimilating immigrants. I was born and raised in the ethnic melting pot of western Pennsylvania. Fully 50% of the population of our town was made up of non-english speaking Czechs, Slovaks, Polacks, Germans, Russians, Italians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Croats, Serbs, Yugoslavs, Macedonians, Bulgars – and the list goes on. I went to grade school and high school with their kids. Those people WANTED to be in America, WANTED to become citizens, and WANTED their kids to speak english. No bi-lingual nonsense. The first generation of American born kids were assimilated fully within 20 years. I still correspond with some of them.
But nowadays, our social architects encourage the different ethnic enclaves — groups that live together, keep their own dress and customs, retain their own religions and speak their own language. And our do-gooders are encouraging this separatism rather than inclusion into the mainstream of US life. These immigrants — many illegals — really aren't Americans – they are ethnic identities who just happen to be living in the US. The breakdown of the assimilation of these people into our society should a major concern to all of us. Divided loyalties can have devastating effects in days of global terrorism. Balkanization is the term used by most political scientists, and just look at the awful ethnic environment in the Balkans. And it hasn't changed much in 100 years.
To me is is utterly insane that we should adopt an umbrella of benefits over illegals and make it easier and more attractive for them to defy our laws. I don't know which is worse — to take advantage of the rest of us or to endanger the rest of us. Looks like lose-lose to me.
What ever became of that old saying, “When in Rome……….?