| | |  Editorials | Opinions | January 2009 
Illegal, Legal Immigration Haunting US
 Harold Boyer - Daily Times
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 |  | Corporate America’s shortsighted policy of recruiting immigrants at the expense of American students and workers will only further antagonize society and produce an anti-business backlash. |  | | |
A spectre is haunting America — the spectre of immigration ... both legal and illegal! As a nation of immigrants Americans have generally prided themselves on welcoming successive waves of new immigrants to the shores of the new world. Even Native Americans came as immigrants across the land bridge from Asia before recorded time.
This pride is best expressed in the writing on the Statue of Liberty ... “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Each generation since Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth in 1612, has been faced with successive intrusions of immigrants from different parts of the world beginning with Europeans and the involuntary Black Diaspora from Africa.
Is there a difference between the immigrant experience of our grandparents and that of today? If one simply looks at the numbers there is no discernible change in the number of foreign-born Americans.
In 1861, out of a population of 31.4 million, approximately 4 million, or 12.9 percent, were foreign-born. In 2006, out of a population of approximately 300 million, 35,659,000, or 11.6 percent, were foreign-born. So the total number of foreign-born Americans has not changed appreciably.
One aspect that has changed is the country of origin. Latin America accounts for 54.2 percent now, while in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Europe accounted for much of the immigration to our shores.
Yet numbers do not tell the entire story. Many of us remember stories from our great-grandparents about how they struggled to get to America ... often arriving with nothing but the clothes on their backs, hoping to start a new life in a new world.
Once here, the struggle began in earnest in the face of hostility from those who had arrived before and from nativistic groups who had conveniently forgotten that they, too, had arrived from other lands. Economic and financial hardship awaited these newcomers and for many this was the impetus to “Go West” in search of new opportunities.
These immigrants shared a common desire to do two things. First, learn the English language because, by doing so, it would ease their entry into opportunity and erase their “distinctiveness.” Secondly, after an initial period of living amongst themselves, a desire to assimilate themselves into the larger American community. For some this would take a generation ... for others this would occur more quickly depending on individual situations and motivations. But generally these two goals were looked upon as positive developments that led to the realization of the American dream.
What has changed? While the numbers have not the rationale for encouraging more immigrants and the motivation of many recently arrived immigrants has in many ways. This country has a dual view of immigration.
Washington seeks to limit illegal immigration from Mexico (remember the infamous fence along the Rio Grande at a cost of $1 million a mile?) while encouraging corporate America to recruit foreign M.D.s, PhD.s, engineers and scientists due to a supposed “shortage” of qualified American job applicants.
The view seems to be that the latter category of immigrants are more valuable than some poor Mexican struggling to achieve what generations of immigrants did earlier. Additionally, once our Mexican immigrant makes it across the border small businesses across the land line up to benefit from illegally hiring said immigrants because, supposedly, no one else will do physical labor in this country.
While many recently arrived immigrants share the values of earlier immigrants in terms of learning English and assimilating into American society, a growing number choose not to do so and this development is troubling to say the least.
One only has to read about developments in Denmark, Great Britain and France to see the deleterious effects of unrestricted Muslim immigration and their refusal to assimilate into those societies. In his book “Mexifornia,” Victor David Hansen describes a similar occurrence in California.
He claims Mexico has an agenda that includes reclaiming the American southwest and that many Hispanics in that area share this agenda.
This agenda is to be accomplished by an ever-increasing birthrate amongst Hispanics that will eventually displace other groups.
Closer to home, one only has to see bilingual education at work in some area high schools to realize that, where once immigrants learned English at home and in schools, now they are taught in their native tongues, which militates against the learning of English.
These two main differences between the immigrant experience of old and the recent experience do not bode well for American society. Both are divisive, pitting one group against the other.
This has serious consequences now and, with the economy circling the bowl, will have even more consequences in the future.
Corporate America’s shortsighted policy of recruiting immigrants at the expense of American students and workers will only further antagonize society and produce an anti-business backlash.
Perhaps Pat Buchanan is correct when he suggests that we should enact a temporary moratorium on further immigration in order to construct an immigration policy that is equitable to all groups and aspirants to American citizenship ... and that is of benefit to the country as a whole.
Harold N. Boyer is public services manager, Springfield Township Library and adjunct professor of history, Delaware County Community College. |
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