November 09, 2004, 7:59 a.m.
Arizona Calling
The brewing immigration backlash.
Slate recently featured an article on the "unteachable ignorance" of the Bush red states, in light of the dismaying (from its perspective) election results. On immigration, we should talk about the "unteachable ignorance" of America's political and media elites. Nothing will convince them to take the issue seriously.
The latest sign that the public wants the kind of immigration enforcement that politicians simply won't give them comes out of Arizona. Proposition 200, a measure to tighten up enforcement of existing laws relating to illegal immigration, passed with 56 percent of the vote. It requires that someone provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and valid ID when voting or applying for public benefits. Since it is already against the law for illegals to register and vote, and illegal for them to receive welfare, it is astonishing that Proposition 200 became — as the media always puts it — "controversial."
What Proposition 200 exposed is this: Our elites have very little intention of enforcing immigration-related laws, and they are outraged at the notion that they should. All the great and good in Arizona lined up against the proposition. Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, Republican Sen. John McCain, the Service Employees International Union, the Catholic bishops and the Chamber of Commerce all opposed it.
They were universally outraged at an initiative aimed at getting the public officials among them to do their jobs. "We haven't changed any law," says state Rep. Russell Pearce, a supporter of Proposition 200. "We're changing the verification process to make sure that the current laws are enforced."
Opponents took to complaining that the proposition would unfairly burden state and local workers with verifying the citizenship of the people they deal with. But is asking for an ID really such a burden? The clerks at Blockbuster somehow manage to do it. Proposition 200 backer Rusty Childress recalls that within an hour of publicly announcing the initiative, opponents held a rival press conference denouncing it as — what else? — racist. "All they can do is name-call on this issue," says Childress, "because we are on the right side of the law." And the racist argument didn't wash. Childress explains: "Most people said: 'Showing ID? That's not racist. I show ID all the time.'" According to exit polls, 47 percent of Hispanics voted for the initiative.
Thanks to tightened enforcement elsewhere along the border, most illegal immigrants now come across the Arizona-Mexico border. Proposition 200 won't have much effect on that flow, but might have a mild deterrent effect if illegals were to realize that the laws on the books won't be ignored, according to Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies. Proposition 200 gets at an enormous part of the illegal-immigrant problem, which is the welcoming environment created for illegal immigrants by lax enforcement. So long as illegals know they can live as quasi-citizens here, they have every incentive to keep coming.
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nationalreview.com
You know, what's really baffling --from a European perspective-- is that the US's immigrant-bashing is mainly aimed at... Hispanics and, among them, Mexicans. I mean, compare that situation with Europe's: over here, Mexicans wouldn't even be considered "alien" or "illegal"!! Hey, Spain and Portugal are full-fledged EU members since 1986...
While we in Europe must deal with immigrants from Africa and from the Middle East, let alone Asia (more and more Chinese are coming in) with mores and persuasions (Islam) very much different, if not at odds, with Europe's traditions, you Yanks can't even stomach fellow white Christians from Latin America?!? Oh, damned! I should have known better... those swarthy wetbacks are not REALLY white, are they?
All that fuss about illegal immigration somehow underscores a basic, if ignored, truth: Americans can stand a multiracial society, not a multicultural one... You Americans actually don't know what it's like to get along in a multicultural environment... You welcome people of every hue and shade, provided they cast off their mores, languages, accoutrements and religions and turn into "barbies and kens"....
Gus |
