The odor of liberal name-calling, Part Two
Whenever you see the word “nativist” in a discussion of illegal immigration, you can be fairly confident that the author has opted to substitute name-calling for analysis, and that his or her discussion is worthless. That’s certainly the case with today’s lead editorial in the Washington Post, which attacks the stridency of the Republican presidential candidate’s criticism of illegal immigration.
As I argued here, nativism is a preference for the interests of long-time inhabitants as opposed to foreigners and those who arrived recently. The Republican candidates are merely expressing a preference for the rights of those who are in the U.S. legally or are trying to get here that way.
The Post is mindful of this argument, but attempts to address it in a less than honest way. It points to a survey in which 41 percent of all Hispanics in the U.S. (this seems to include illegal aliens, but it's not clear) say that they or someone close to them (including illegals?) have suffered from discrimination in the past five years, up from the percentage who said this in 2002. From this, the Post concludes that attacks on illegal immigration are causing damage to legal immigrants, and therefore that legal immigrants must be among the targets of Republicans.
Put aside the unreliablility of polls that ask people whether they or their friends have been discriminated against, and assume that discrimination against Hispanics lawfully in this country has increased. Then, indulge the Post’s assumption that this is due to criticism of illegal immigration. It still wouldn’t follow that those who want to enforce the immigration laws have anything against legal immigrants -- the Post has confused (alleged) consequence with intent.
Nor can those who want to enforce our immigration laws be blamed if their advocacy is leading to increased discrimination (and again, the Post offers no meaningful evidence that this is the case). It would be absurd to countenance one form of law-breaking – illegal immigration – on the off chance that doing so might reduce another form of illegal behavior – discrimination based on ethnicity – for which there are legal remedies. If lawful Hispanic immigrants actually believe that outrage at illegal immigration is resulting in discrimination against them, they should get behind measures designed to reduce the amount of illegal immigration.
I’ll conclude with these words from John Derbyshire:
The U.S.A. has an immigration system, under laws passed by the people's representatives in Congress. For twenty years the federal government, for reasons to do with ideology and "interest," has failed to enforce those laws. As a result, tens of millions of foreigners have settled in our country unlawfully, while other foreigners who wish to settle here but respect our laws, wait long years in their home countries for permission to enter.A great many Americans are very angry about this. If you were to poll those angry Americans on the topic of legal immigration, you'd get all sorts of answers, from severe-restrictionist to couldn't-care-less. The center of gravity of the answers would probably be somewhere like: "Sure we should have immigrants, but it should be done legally, properly."
The anger, the shouting, the jammed Congressional switchboards, the cable-news bloviating, is about the federal government's failure to enforce federal law. To glibly dismiss it all as "anti-immigrant" is gross propagandistic distortion. . .
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