Immigration — 'It's The Economy, Stupid'
By JOHN REINIERS

Special to Hernando Today
Published: January 22, 2008

Not surprisingly, Democrats have switched the pitch from Iraq to the economy, because the administration's latest Iraq strategy may actually be working.

An analysis of the economy consists of countless pieces, not the least of which is the issue of "foreigners" — either those who are taking our jobs as we export them to other countries (globalization) or those foreigners who take our jobs at this end as we "import" them — not the jobs — but the foreigners. It's a bit of a double whammy. Democrats are, of course, railing over the globalized economy as though we can do something to stop it, but some of their strategists believe they are making a mistake to concede the immigrant issue to the Republicans. Democrats never want to concede a negative or populist issue. This is their meat and potatoes — attack anybody and anything — corporations, big oil, anyone who provides a job, drug companies, and the rich — but offer nothing constructive as a solution, other than government. While their support of either illegal or legal immigration insures them of the Latino vote, the concern of the Democratic intelligentsia is that the majority of voting Americans may see this as an economic issue wrapped up in a patriotic cultural package. Both traditional blue collar and elitist Democrats see their jobs evaporating by being exported, or by being taken both at the low end and the high end by immigrants, both illegal and legal. According to the World Bank, 36 percent of immigrants to first world countries have college degrees. So the intelligenzia too have cause for concern. This exceeds the percentage of Americans who have college degrees!

And these Democratic strategists are observing a serious immigration backlash in England ("British jobs for British workers"), France, Italy, Denmark, Norway (keep out the "far foreigners").The list is endless. The ethnically homogeneous societies of Scandinavia started panicking with the influx of asylum seeking refugees as far back as the 1980s.

And talk about fences in the U.S., India has completed a 2,500 mile fence along their border with Bangladesh to keep out their great unwashed neighbors. (Reminiscent of the Rabbit-proof or "vermin" fence in Australia which took six years to complete, but is "only" a little more than 2000 miles long.)

With a slowing economy, American voters too are going to worry about foreigners taking their jobs, welfare checks and public services, such as schools and hospitals, which we can't even afford to fund for ourselves.
The last wave of immigration ended in about 1920. Ironically that was the year my father came over. He was a skilled European chef and was responsible for training many U.S. workers. He brought over his brother and my grandfather who started a painting company.

Those were different times. Since there were no social programs, half of the immigrants returned to their native country. The immigrant educational level was about equal with ours. Not much to brag about. A worker with a high school diploma in those days was a high end employee. Nowadays, there is a worker living in 78 percent of immigrant households using at least one welfare program. So they remain, and account for virtually all of the national increase in public school enrollment. The primary reason for their poverty is their low education levels – not their work ethic. Thirty-one percent haven't completed high school compared to 8 percent of our native born. So while they make an ideal constituency for the Democratic Party, the poorest 10 percent of Americans — a Democrat constituency — are competing with immigrants for jobs and seeing their wages cut by this competition.

But where history shows us that in the early 20th century immigrant assimilation was rapid, but causing a voter backlash even back then, there is anecdotal evidence today both here and in Europe (particularly with the Muslim immigrant) that immigrants are rejecting the culture of the host country. This mindset is of interest to me. As a first generation American, and when a young grade-schooler, I naively thought when studying American history, that I was immersing myself in my cultural past. But I never thought that way when studying European history. Thinking about it today, many years later, it seems a bit strange – and on top of that, we lived in ethnically European neighborhoods.

And all of this is occurring as the immigrant population here has reached a record of close to 40 million, with about one in three illegal. To appreciate the cultural and economic implications — consider this: Our percentage of immigrants has quadrupled since 1970 from 9.6 million. Many Americans have seen this happen before their very eyes. This surge is unprecedented in American history. We feel it in our bones.

Public hostility to immigration internationally — much less in the U.S. — cannot be overstated and needs to be addressed by our legislators. Apart from addressing the illegal immigration issue, we need to address the economic implications of legal immigration. At the very least it seems silly to import another welfare constituency, which resists assimilation, and keeps ties with, and dollars flowing back to the mother country.

Political investigations are the only legislative business of interest to the old Democratic warhorses in Congress since the 2006 election. These septuagenarians get up every morning with one thought in mind: Which Republican can we subpoena today?

These are times when America needs a forward looking legislative body in Washington to resolve our immigration and economic issues. Yet we see Democrats governing as in the past by their subpoena power; the latest being the investigation into the CIA destruction of the Abu Zubaydah tapes in 2002 which allegedly show him giving valuable intelligence information after being water boarded. Apparently the CIA saw the wisdom of destroying these tapes before they saw the light of day and gave the Middle East another "Abu Ghraib" moment. Makes sense to me. Is this the most constructive fact finding effort the House can do to either protect America or move our economy forward?

John Reiniers, a regular columnist for Hernando Today, lives in Spring Hill.

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