[BretLudwig]

€œTriple€� Legal Immigration? Say It Ain't So, Lou Dobbs!

By Brenda Walker

"Regular viewers of Lou Dobbs Tonight (LDT) who have a critical eye
(like me) have long noticed certain glaring omissions in the weekday news
hour shows almost daily coverage of the immigration issue. While
admirably strong on Washington's malfeasance regarding law and borders,
LDTs reports about the cultural and environmental effects of an
unrelenting tide of foreigners are rare indeed.

A brand new book (The Uprising by David Sirota) quotes Lou Dobbs as saying
that tripling the number of legal immigrants would be a fine thing. Dobbs
has stated more than once that he supports increased legal immigration, so
the quote is entirely believable.

Here's the quote, from page 196:

" €˜If we are to have a national debate and a national dialogue and a
decision about national policy and we make a judgment that we're going to
raise immigration levels€”let's say that we double them, let's say that
we triple them€”sign me up, he says. €˜There's nothing in me that is
a restrictionist whatsoever, and I realize that separates me from others
who are against illegal immigration on the basis that there is too much
immigration. I don't believe that. I do believe that we're not in control
of our immigration policies or what's happening in this country. And that
leaves me in despair.

Dobbs has made similar statements on his show. But the "triple" is
specific and new.

Curiously for an alleged populist, Dobbs idea is completely out of
touch with the American people's desire that immigration not be increased.
His own show reported that sentiment May 29, 2007:

€œ[CASEY] WIAN: A CBS-New York Times poll released Friday shows only 20
percent of U.S. residents believe legal immigration should be increased;
74 percent say it should be decreased or stay the same.€�

Does Dobbs believe that professing support for vastly increased numbers
would take some of the heat off? If so, he severely underestimates the
savagery of his critics. His repeated efforts to reasonably debate the
issue with Raza boss Janet Murguia merely gave her a lot of air time on
LDT before she lobbed the dreaded hate speech accusation that finally
killed attempts at friendliness.

Lou Dobbs has avoided discussing cultural issues. Other than warning of
the social consequences resulting from half of Hispanic males dropping out
of high school, he has not explored the cultural dissonance of Mexico as a
major immigrant supplier.

The southerly narco-state is one of the least attractive contributors of
new immigrants one can imagine€”with its social norms of negativity
toward education, admiration for crime, corruption throughout various
levels of society, crude sexism and strong Marxican tendencies. But Dobbs
won't go there.

As usual, ordinary Americans understand the largely negative effect of
immigration better than the media elite. Most of the problems incurred
with chaotic illegal immigration would continue and worsen if Washington
were to vastly increase legal immigration, even if illegal entry were
completely ended. Some of the worst criminals and public health risks
might be kept out€¦.or maybe not. Given the backlog, inefficiency and
corruption that exist now in processing legal immigrants, the
bureaucratic overload alone should be seen as prohibitive.

More importantly, how many and which immigrants are accepted should not be
determined by the would-be immigrants themselves€”a common assumption
among open-borders liberals. Nor should it be decided by the business
owners, for whom workers can never be too cheap or too exploitable.

The decision of who and how many belongs in the hands of the American
people.

And Americans don't want to live in Mexifornia or anything like it, as
they have tried to make clear to Washington.

Assimilation is under attack as never before. And that process has to do
with two factors: the number of immigrants and the political will that
immigrants should become part of the national community.

Polls show that Americans still have traditional expectations of
newcomers. A 2005 Rasmussen poll found 67 percent believed immigrants
should "adopt America's culture, language, and heritage." A Fox News poll
from last winter reported that 61 percent of voters surveyed would choose
a President who represents the "shared values of Americans" rather than
one who "celebrates the wide diversity" (32 percent).

What's different is the escalating number of immigrants. And when, for
example, the majority of kids in a classroom are Spanish-speaking Mexicans
with a Hispanic teacher, how do the children learn to become Americans?

As the Center for Immigration Studies Steve Camarota observed,
"Traditionally you had in the US an immigrant child learning to swim in a
sea of native children, but increasingly it is the children of natives
lost in a sea of children of immigrants." [How Well Are Muslims Fitting
In, By Howard LaFranch, Christian Science Monitor, July 19, 2005]

For a description of how kids learned American history and culture in an
earlier time, see Victor Davis Hanson's excellent remembrance of his own
education in California's Central Valley: The Civic Education America
Needs [City Journal Summer 2002].

A bad development: the central place of English as a cultural glue is fast
being eroded. Democrat Presidential candidate Barack H. Obama recently
declared his support for a bilingual America:

" €˜When it comes to second-language learners, the most important thing
is not to get bogged down in ideology, but figure out what works, Obama
says. €˜Everybody should be bilingual, or everybody should be
trilingual. The comments drew loud applause. [...]

€œHe says he thinks everyone should get a bilingual education in the
United States, not just English as a first language learners.€� [Obama
blog: 'Everybody should be bilingual', Boulder Daily Camera, May 28,
2008]

Sen Obama claims to speak "Indonesian and a little Spanish." His website
has a page for Spanish-speaking teachers to profess their admiration and
well-founded hope for job security under a BHO presidency: Bilingual
Educators for Obama.

It looks like utopian bilingualism€”the requirement that every American
will speak Spanish€”is part of the blurry "change" Obama is peddling. But
the candidate is responding to a demographic transformation accumulating
since 1965.

Most of the 30 million Mexicans who reside here did not come to become
Americans and join our national community: they came for the money only,
and harbor resentment against this country for imagined theft of
territory.

The expanded numbers Lou Dobbs recommends will have cultural and political
consequences. Toxic levels of diversity are tearing the cultural fabric of
this nation apart. Yet Dobbs wants more of same. So why then does he think
immigration is as an important issue at all?

If the tens of millions of unassimilated foreigners using America as their
ATM come under a misguided scheme of lawful immigration on steroids, how is
that an improvement?

Isn't the idea of immigration restriction to preserve a recognizable
America now and for future generations?

Can Dobbs not see the problem here?

Say it aint so, Lou!"

Brenda Walker (email her) lives in Northern California and publishes two
websites, LimitsToGrowth.org and ImmigrationsHumanCost.org. She assures
readers that thoughts of Mexico are foremost in her mind every time she
turns on the tap under the mandatory water restrictions of Alameda County.


http://www.vdare.com/walker/080605_dobbs.htm

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