Immigration This Time Around

Over and over again we are told by President Bush that "America is a nation of immigrants". While this statement is true as far as it goes, we must understand that this time it's a bit different. If we only stop and think about the various waves of immigration prior to the current time of debate we can easily see the following important differences that the supposed defenders of our American ideals and American way of life, for what ever reason, seem to miss (greed is my bet, what's yours?):

• Virtually all previous waves of immigration have been from distant shores. The original settlers of the late 17th century were mainly northern Europeans. The second wave of immigrants coming in the late 19th century and early 20th century were mainly southern Europeans, the Irish, the Poles, and the Asians. Coming here meant separation from your "mother country" to begin a new life. You really had to try to assimilate, and since the migration here was largely controlled (there are only so many steamers crossing the Atlantic and Pacific) it was, for the most part, successful. This is not the case with the current immigration problem with Mexico. Not only is it continuous, but with the United States sharing a border, there is no real reason to separate yourself from your place of origin. Let's face it, with our porous border illegal aliens can move back and forth pretty much as they wish. I would bet that if there was a large body of water separating the two countries rather than what currently exists (almost nothing), the assimilation issue would go away within a couple of generations. But what we have is a continuous influx of new Mexican arrivals which diminishes the need for assimilation into the culture. And let's face it, in their greed American businesses are not helping. As Victor Davis Hanson so bluntly puts it in his book Mexifornia

A Pole once accepted that she would perpetually stumble through the Cleveland phone book if she kept speaking Polish; a Mexican accepts as a given that Pacific Bell will double the size of its directory assistance just to accommodate her Spanish.


• According to various polls (such as this Zogby poll) and the expressed thoughts of organizations in this country such as The National Council of La Raza and Mecha, the majority Mexican citizens believe that the American Southwest "rightfully belongs to Mexico". Their attitude is, "This place is ours, not yours, so we have every right to come here when we want regardless of whatever laws you pass." Where in the other mass movements to the United States have we see this attitude so prevalent?



• The proximity of the United States plus the attitude of the majority of Mexicans give the Mexican government a great incentive to keep this up. After all, if the poorest people keep leaving the country then the government will have little incentive to deal with the problems of their countrymen (and lets not forget all the money that is sent back... that sum is supposedly the second largest source of revenue for Mexico). It's interesting that we have Latinos protesting here when our own government makes the slightest whisper of any inclination towards a desire of doing anything about the issue of illegal immigration, yet there seems to be no protests by Latinos in Mexico against how that government treats its poor. To see just how important it is to the Mexican government to keep this social pressure valve open you need only consider the recent rumblings within the Mexican government about using any means to prevent the United States from reinforcing its border protection. What we do on our side of the border is really none of their business, but they make it their business because of the benefits they gain.

So if I can figure this out without the aid of thousands of analysts and millions of dollars in strategic studies about the issue why can't Washington?