Hispanic culture, photo by Al HikesAZ via flickr commons
OCALA, Fla., April 30, 2014 — Many influential U.S. House Republicans want to pass some form of illegal alien amnesty this summer. They are working hard toward their goal despite the fact that GOP party faithful thoroughly despise such a move.
Republican congressional leaders would be wise to remember that turnout among anti-illegal immigration voters will be key in November’s midterm elections.
Looking beyond the shenanigans of Capitol Hill GOPers, what should America expect in the event of illegal alien amnesty?
8 hours ago
By Joseph Cotto, Communities Digital News
“We can expect disaster. In sum, we’ll witness the unmaking of America,” Dr. Stephen Steinlight of the Center for Immigration Studies told me late last year. “It would subvert our political life by destroying the Republican Party. The Hispanic vote will make the Democrats the PRI of America. A GOP relic might survive regionally, but could never successfully contest a national election.
“America would turn into a One Party State which, like all others, would be tyrannical and corrupt. The political center would lurch to the left. Political liberty, the freedom to choose among authentically different alternatives, would be lost.
“A population transfer from one nation with a different language and political culture which will become the predominant future demographic will destroy social cohesion. The diversity of previous immigration safeguarded against this. Dual language/dual culture countries are plagued by Balkanizing social strife.
“Amnesty will weaken national security, making America an easier target for Jihadist terrorism. Background checks on millions of illegal aliens will be cursory, just ‘rubber stamps.’ S.744 [The U.S. Senate’s amnesty bill] doesn’t even require applicants to verify identities in person. The CBO finds the Bill’s border security so ineffectual it would stop, at best, 30 percent of illegal entrants. DHS estimates some 30,000 border crossers annually come from countries on the Terrorist Watch List.
“Amnesty will have brutal consequences for the most vulnerable Americans. Unfair competition with cheap immigrant labor already devastates America’s working poor and working Americans. The net fiscal effect of immigration is to transfer wealth from the poorest Americans to immigrants.
“The most authoritative study ever undertaken showed 44 percent of the decline in wages for the poorest Americans results from competition with cheap foreign labor. That was in 1995. Increased competition will yield more devastating results.
“Amnesty will also destroy forever the dream that most African-Americans will find a secure place in America’s economy by having jobs with social dignity.
“‘Cheap immigrant labor’ is a bargain only for employers. The huge gulf between minimal taxes paid by immigrants and the huge welfare benefits they receive is a multi-trillion dollar drain on the economy.
“The law of supply and demand is immutable. This means more unemployment and part-time employment, and fiercer competition for lower pay and jobs. If S.744 passes, the CBO estimates these conditions will prevail for at least a quarter century, making the rise of an enormous permanent underclass a distinct reality.”
Certain voices claim that in order to capture the hearts of Hispanics — 65 percent of which, according to Pew, are Mexican in heritage — Republicans must support amnesty. For generations, the GOP has been trying to win over the Hispanic vote. It has never come close to succeeding.
What keeps going wrong?
“The GOP cannot turn Hispanics into Republicans and ignores campaign history that shows efforts based on supporting amnesty and increased immigration fail,” Dr. Steinlight said.
“GOP support for these positions doesn’t cause Hispanics to vote Republican,” he continued. “The largest amnesty took place under President Reagan, yet Hispanics gave his successor, George H.W. Bush, only 30 percent of their vote. Despite strong support for amnesty, neither George W. Bush nor John McCain came close to carrying the Hispanic vote. George W. Bush received an historical high of 40 percent and John McCain just 31 percent.
“Republicans seem incapable of learning immigration isn’t decisive. Hispanic hostility to the GOP reflects an unbridgeable divide over economic policy and the role of government. Hispanics are anti-capitalist and want a bigger federal government dispensing larger entitlement. These views are anathema to Republicans, and compromise is impossible.”
Remember that millions of self-described Hispanics vigorously support free enterprise. At the same time, Hispanic voting trends show this community running away from the concept. The Democratic Party has come to rely on a solid Hispanic majority in most states to bolster support for wide-ranging entitlement programs.
Aside from economic matters, Hispanic immigrants often have trouble assimilating to American life. This sort of issue has arisen with various groups throughout U.S. history. However, contemporary Hispanic immigrants tend to place extreme emphasis on their birth country. This can come at the direct expense of familiarizing with American sociocultural norms and values.
“Unique factors impede assimilation, Mexico’s geographic contiguity most,” Dr. Steinlight explained. “The Great Waves travelled thousands of miles. Their infinitely more difficult and costly immigration was a powerful incentive to assimilate. Most undertook a one-way journey to a nation that demanded one-sided adaptation.
“America made no linguistic accommodation, enforcing comparatively speedy acquisition of English, key to assimilation. Slow English acquisition fosters Hispanic separateness. Another factor is the continuous nature of Hispanic immigration. The Great Waves stopped in 1924, giving immigrants 40 years to assimilate.
“Also sui generis, many Mexicans live simultaneously in two societies connected by cheap phone calls, the internet and inexpensive travel. They move back and forth — the border is porous and Green Card holders can travel legally — maintaining strong cultural ties to the homeland, reinforcing loyalty to the Mexican state and ethnos — La Raza.
“The scale of Hispanic immigration has created a second Mexican nation within the U.S. A high percentage spends their lives within a cultural ghetto, a Hispanic archipelago that stretches nationwide. Impeding assimilation, most reside in Mexican neighborhoods in informal apartheid.
“The anti-or-post American multiculturalism of the media, educational, academic, and religious elite stalls assimilation. Their worldview regards patriotism as atavistic, denies the existence of a distinct American culture, and views America as a collection of Diaspora communities oppressed by a White capitalist power structure.
“Since assimilation is surrender to dominant culture supremacism, they’ve worked to destroy what promoted it. ‘Americanization’ classes are unthinkable; public schools no longer teach civics; American history is articulated as an apologia for alleged crimes. They’ve also banished the normative pluralism that taught immigrants to take pride in their roots but understand that a broader sense of patriotic belonging must be paramount.”
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