Thread: Too many immigrants

Too many immigrants
Latinos who fail to assimilate are undermining American values
By Lawrence Harrison
June 1, 2009

Palo Alto, Calif. - President Barack Obama has encouraged Americans to start laying a new foundation for the country - on a number of fronts. He has stressed that we'll need to have the courage to make some hard choices. One of those hard choices is how to handle immigration. The U.S. must get serious about the tide of legal and illegal immigrants, above all from Latin America.

It's not just a short-run issue of immigrants competing with citizens for jobs as unemployment approaches 10 percent, or the number of uninsured straining the quality of healthcare. Heavy immigration from Latin America threatens our cohesiveness as a nation.

Do I sound like a right-wing "nativist"? I'm not. I'm a lifelong Democrat, an early and avid supporter of Mr. Obama. I'm gratified by his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. I'm also the grandson of Eastern European Jewish immigrants and a member, along with several other Democrats, of the advisory boards of the Federation for American Immigration Reform and Pro English.

The principal beneficiaries of our current immigration policy are affluent Americans who hire immigrants at substandard wages for low-end work. Harvard economist George Borjas estimates that American workers lose $190 billion annually in depressed wages caused by the constant flooding of the labor market at the low-wage end.

The health-care cost of the illegal work force is especially burdensome and is subsidized by taxpayers. To claim Medicaid, you must be legal, but as the Health and Human Services inspector general found, 47 states allow self-declaration of status for Medicaid. Many hospitals and clinics are going broke because of the constant stream of uninsured, many of whom are among the estimated 12 million to 15 million illegal immigrants. This translates into reduced services, particularly for lower-income citizens.

The U.S. population totaled 281 million in 2000. About 35 million, or 12.5 percent, were Latino. The Census Bureau projects that our population will reach 439 million in 2050. The Hispanic population in 2050 is projected at 133 million - 30 percent of the total and almost quadruple the 2000 level.

Latinos have contributed some positive cultural attributes to U.S. society, such as multigenerational family bonds. But the same traditional values that lie behind Latin America's difficulties in achieving democratic stability, social justice and prosperity are being substantially perpetuated among Hispanic-Americans.

Prominent Latin Americans have concluded that traditional values are at the root of the region's development problems. Among those expressing that opinion: Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa; Nobelist author Octavio Paz, a Mexican; Teodoro Moscoso, a Puerto Rican politician and U.S. ambassador to Venezuela; and Ecuador's former president, Osvaldo Hurtado.

Latin America's cultural problem is apparent in the persistent Latino high school dropout rate - 40 percent in California, according to a recent study - and the high incidence of teenage pregnancy, single mothers and crime. The perpetuation of Latino culture is facilitated by the Spanish language's growing challenge to English as our national language. It makes it easier for Latinos to avoid the melting pot and for education to remain a low priority, as it is in Latin America - a problem highlighted in recent books by former New York City deputy mayor Herman Badillo, a Puerto Rican, and Mexican-Americans Lionel Sosa and Ernesto Caravantes.

Mr. Obama should confront the challenges by enforcing immigration laws on employment to help end illegal immigration. We should calibrate legal immigration annually to (1) the needs of the economy, and (2) past performance of immigrant groups with respect to acculturation.

We must declare our national language to be English and discourage the proliferation of Spanish-language media. We should limit citizenship by birth to the offspring of citizens. And we should provide immigrants with easy-to-access educational services that facilitate acculturation, including English language, citizenship and American values.

Lawrence Harrison directs the Cultural Change Institute at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He is the author of "The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change A Culture And Save It From Itself." This article originally appeared in The Christian Science Monitor.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinio ... 5059.story

HEAR HEAR!!!

I was SHOCKED to find this in a "MSM" publication.

But everything in it is undeniable, and irrefutable. Go figure?

...I hope this is just another example of what I've seen as a turning point on this issue. There are many, many people I know who are "coming around" to this viewpoint. Again, because it's just common sense, really.

Bravo!

Originally Posted by edstate

I was SHOCKED to find this in a "MSM" publication.

I think the MSM lets an article like this through every now and then so that they can still claim to be reporting 'both' sides of the debate. The Slant is still definitely there though.