Thread: Fringes confiscate immigration debate

http://www2.sbsun.com/news/ci_3118464

Fringes confiscate immigration debate

Conor Fridersdorf, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun

0ften I pen commentary arguing that the United States must enforce its immigration laws, focusing on the damage done to society when rules established through the democratic process are flouted or ignored.
As often, I forcefully assert the need for significant immigration reform, noting the grave national security threat posed by a system in which illegal immigrants are so numerous that screening foreign citizens for ties to terrorist groups becomes impossible.

Meanwhile, I argue against President Bush's proposed guest worker program. Some call it an amnesty. My objection, however, stems from the temporary legal status it would give to foreign workers. Though I favor legal immigration, I believe that all immigrants ought to be allowed here on the condition that they find work, learn English, take civics classes and apply for citizenship.

Guest workers would understandably lack any loyalty toward the United States save thanks for the wages they earn. In contrast, those immigrants welcomed as future citizens would assimilate insofar as they learned our language and pledged loyalty to our political system.

(Why anyone would prefer an underclass of unassimilated noncitizens to a new generation of loyal U.S. citizens I cannot fathom.)

On the whole, these are rather conservative positions. Yet every day, in response to my posts on Beyond Borders Blog, I receive an e-mail or two assailing me for being soft on illegal immigration. These e-mails arrive in greater numbers after posts that defend immigrants in one way or another, or deviate somehow from anti-illegal-immigration-activist talking points as if absolute fealty to their positions and resentment of immigrants are necessary components of opposing illegal immigration.

A synopsis of posts that draw such reactions will nicely round out my history at the helm of Beyond Borders Blog.

Often I attack rhetoric that attempts to stereotype Mexicans or Latinos as dirty, uncultured and ill-motived. I forcefully argue that while we should deplore illegal immigration, there is no cause to deplore many individuals who engage in it, given their dire circumstances and U.S. complicity in their lawbreaking.

Though I believe English fluency and adherence to U.S. core values ought to be mandatory assimilative steps, I simultaneously argue that cultural pluralism is consistent with U.S. values and that immigrants who maintain some cultural traditions are adding to U.S. life, not threatening it.

Finally, while castigating multiculturalism for its stubborn refusal to denounce even the most horrific fringe cultural attributes the honor killings of young Muslim girls who have been raped, for example I've noted that many cultures celebrated by multiculturalism are worthy of preservation, including the Mexican and Latin American cultures and language that so many mischaracterize and attack.

Despite all that, I still get frequent e-mails from mostly liberal readers who call me insensitive, divisive and hurtful for daring to engage a difficult topic and advocating a position other than open borders and extreme multiculturalism. To these e-mailers, any concern raised about immigration constitutes scapegoating immigrants with divisive rhetoric.

As I monitor the immigration debate, reading countless news articles and op-eds each day, I observe my own experience writ large. Participants who think through their every position in good faith inevitably find their views do not fit squarely within the boxes constructed by the anti-illegal-immigration crowd or the open-borders crowd. Subsequently their arguments are ignored or dismissed as their motives and integrity are questioned.

Is it any wonder, then, that the immigration debate is disproportionately dominated by its fringes?

Sidelined are the thoughtful, intelligent people evidenced by the bulk of my correspondence with readers. They observe the degradation, wondering why even obvious aspects of the immigration debate are so hotly and dishonestly contested (and they share in the blame when they are too slow to condemn the flawed arguments of those who agree with them.)

Over decades, common-sense immigration reforms haven't happened. Can-do leaders have shied away from the immigration debate's toughest questions, assuming engagement is a political-suicide mission. Fringe hacks like Pat Buchanan and Gil Cedillo have filled the vacuum.

Thus the crisis worsens. Let's reverse that, creating the conditions that enable common-sense reforms if not a perfect, comprehensive solution to take place.

Take back your immigration debate.

The United States or any other nation can not intergrate an open ended and unlimited group of new immigrants. That is why there are immigration policies and limits to immigration under existing law. Having people who came in in violation of our policy simply change from illegal to legal just because they are here does not change that. America is a wealthy country but it's resources are not unlimited. America has goals besides welcoming immigrants. For instance electives which used to be common in public schools are being superceded in the budget by the demand for bilingual education.