Thread: Immigration lessons U.S. can learn from France

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3187698

Immigration lessons U.S. can learn from France

Conor Friedersdorf, Staff Writer
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

(Editor's note: This is a twice weekly column written by Conor Friedersdorf, who is managing the Daily Bulletin's blog, or special Web site, on immigration issues. The blog is designed to provide a forum for opinions and information on immigration. The blog is at www.beyondbordersblog.com
).

In Paris, the suburbs are being burned and looted by Arab and North African immigrant youths. The French police seem helpless to stop them.

As America faces its own immigration problem it is tempting to note the French spectacle before retuning one's attention to the immigrants dying in our deserts, or the violent gangs swelling their ranks through illegal entry, or the impact of mass immigration on native wages.

But it is equally important that we discern and learn from France's mistakes. The United States need never suffer through rioting from disaffected immigrants if we heed them. Repeat them, however, and civil unrest will be a matter of when, not if.

The Paris riots are particularly frightening because the French have firmly insisted on assimilation for the mostly Muslim immigrants participants. The law considers them to be Frenchmen -- often race statistics aren't even kept for that reason -- and the primacy of the secular state is underscored by laws such as the ban on head scarves in schools (as opposed to the multiculturalism practiced in the Netherlands and Denmark, where Muslim youth have also rioted despite subsidies for Islamic culture).

Yet France is discovering that assimilating immigrants is easier said than done.

French attitudes are partly to blame -- many native French people conceive of citizenship in ethnic terms even if official policy doesn't reflect their prejudices. Thankfully most Americans view citizenship as a statement of shared values, a boon that we must protect vociferously to avoid France's fate.

More troubling is the French bureaucracy, particularly its welfare programs and constant interference in the economy. Overly generous welfare diminishes the need for immigrants to adopt the native language, skills to support themselves and behavior amenable to a workplace environment. There is also less need to leave immigrant enclaves for economic opportunity -- a job in another region, which would be attractive if not for monthly welfare checks, suddenly isn't worth the effort of moving away from one's cultural ghetto.

High unemployment caused by France's highly regulated economy exacerbates the problem, particularly laws that make it difficult to fire employees. A Frenchman who is somewhat distrustful of immigrants -- and many Frenchmen unfortunately are -- will be less likely to give them a shot at a job if once hired they cannot be dismissed. Meanwhile public housing projects and zoning laws segregate Muslim immigrants into the very immigrant enclaves that stunt their assimilation, particularly among the second and third generation immigrants who are now rioting. France has abandoned these suburbs to lawlessness, tolerating crime and violence there that would draw outrage if it occurred amid the broad boulevards near the Eiffel Tower or the quaint lanes of the Latin Quarter.

Immigrants in America are different from France's immigrants, both culturally and circumstantially. Yet the seeds of France's mistakes are planted here and growing.

American bilingual education and social welfare with insufficient work requirements undermine the assimilative effects that economic necessity has historically imposed on immigrants. A guest worker program would only exacerbate our problems, giving rise to an institutionalized underclass of citizens who lack any loyalty to America save the paycheck it provides them. As guest workers have children -- born as American citizens to parents who are expected to leave the country -- it isn't hard to anticipate the very crisis in identity fueling some misbehavior among rioting Parisians.

In America today, the most problematic enclaves are those where crime has been allowed to run rampant. American blacks and immigrants suffer through crime that wouldn't ever be tolerated in white neighborhoods, a phenomenon that can be blamed partly on black and immigrant leaders whose sometimes understandable mistrust for the police has undermined support for law enforcement beyond what is deserved, and partly on the leftist stereotype that casts criminal gangs and rioters as understandable reactions among minorities to discrimination. Instead we must lay blame on criminals themselves, casting lawlessness as unacceptable behavior that hurts immigrants and minorities most by subjecting the honest majority to the lawlessness of a few.

The French are correct that assimilation, not multiculturalism, makes for domestic tranquillity. Their subsequent failure to assimilate immigrants should teach Americans that European-style economic programs and social attitudes -- though seemingly tolerant and compassionate -- ultimately prove incompatible with treating immigrants as equals who will integrate into society.

QUOTE:
The French are correct that assimilation, not multiculturalism, makes for domestic tranquillity.

The U.S. , in terms of "leadership", if you can them that, almost always instantly forgets the lessons learned from any event.



Our leaders will and would continue to use the French model to deal with the immigrant problem.


Except, our population is not completely dis-armed and helpless like the French. So rioting or insurrection or anarchy would be "taken on" by the general public , in spite of the governments' "fiddling" (see "Rome burning").