I took a walk this morning across the county line into New York City (Queens) – I live in adjacent Nassau County, Long Island. It only took me a few minutes to experience the “open Biden border” crisis first hand.
As you know, the millions of illegals being directed into the country by the Mexican cartels with the cooperation of both the Mexican and U.S. governments are taking a toll on border states and “sanctuary cities” like New York and Chicago. A reported 50% of New York City hotels are being utilized to house newly arrived illegals who are “fleeing violence” – 53,000 to date. I passed one of these hotels on my way to CVS and saw a large family speaking Spanish and pushing two baby carriages. In CVS, I encountered a small group of adults chatting in Spanish. They all seem like nice people – middle class, if you will. In any other context, these folks would be as welcome as any of our immigrant forebears coming through Ellis Island.
I took four years of Spanish in college and like most Americans interact positively with Hispanics, citizens and illegals, on a daily basis. The problem is in the uncontrolled numbers – by some accounts 12 to 20 million illegals have skirted U.S. law to live among us. And they are not all Hispanics.
The old argument for allowing the country to be flooded with millions of illegals is that Italians, Irish, Germans, Jews, and millions of other ethnic Europeans also flooded the country decades ago. Of course, those folks were invited in by the U.S. government to populate the interior and build our economy and infrastructure. The Mafia didn’t control Ellis Island the way Mexican cartels control our southern border. The Italian government at the time screened its departing citizens for health issues so the Ellis Island officials wouldn’t bounce rejects back to Italy.
Once arrived, there were no safety nets for the European immigrants: no bi-lingual privileges, no housing allowances, no food stamps, no medical care, no Workman’s Comp, no free phones or bus tickets, no welfare checks. Charity came from extended families and religious/ethnic organizations. But Italians came with skills in farming, construction, music, winemaking, cooking, shoe-repair, barbering, tailoring, and quarry work; if not, as a last resort ditch-digging. And when they got a little comfortable, they were drafted by the millions to pay the country back.
Today’s immigration crisis doesn’t appear to have any permanent solution. One side demands the flow must stop before the country can deal with the illegals already here. The other wants an easy “path to citizenship” for the resident illegals before the border is closed. (With that logic, plumbers would be able to fix pipes without shutting off the water.)
Whatever the solution, it must affirm that illegal entry is punishable no matter how daunting the numbers to be punished. It must establish a penalty that no one can avoid and be adequately severe to discourage future border violators. And most importantly, resident illegals must assimilate.
Right now, federal law requires all males between the ages of 18-25 to register for the draft, even though we don’t have one. The penalties are 5 years in jail and up to $25,000 in fines. Of course, no such enforcement has taken place. But, it’s still on the books – a possible tool in corralling illegals.
How about making English the official language of the U.S.? The idea has been around awhile, but this year two U.S. senators – JD Vance (R-OH) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Representative Bob Good (R-VA) are pushing for such a bill, named The English Language Unity Act. In exchange for such a law maybe we could find that so-called “path” to citizenship. This would also hasten assimilation. The act would require federal functions to be conducted in English and would introduce an English language test for immigrants to become naturalized citizens. The legislation would apply to all federal laws, public proceedings, regulations, publications, orders, actions, programs, and policies. Thirty-one states have already mandated English as their official language. Half the countries in the world, including Italy, have an official language.
The bill has loads of exceptions to protect the teaching of foreign languages and their use in courts and during emergencies; but having an official language would put icing on the American cake. The act would also protect English meanings and definitions, a boon in these days of language tampering. Give it a try?
¿Por qué no? … I mean, Why not? -JLM
There are two major proponents of “Open Borders” in the USA. One is the Democratic party, which hopes to increase its voting base once these illegals become citizens. The other is the Catholic Church, which follows the Vatican position on the issue of immigration. The goal is to support citizenship for these illegals and “asylum seekers” so that the Catholic portion of the U.S. population will increase, given that most of these people are from Catholic Latin America. This would greatly increase the political power of the Catholic church in the USA. Catholic churches in states along the border with Mexico offer sanctuary and assistance to illegals.
Anti-birth control and caring for the unfortunate are basic Catholic doctrine. Of course, the Church needs help accomplishing such altruism. I recall Pope Francis bringing refugees to Rome from the Middle East and walking them from the Vatican to Italian soil. Lots of nimbyism.
Its not just the Catholic Church, … it is the significant rise in religious fundamentalism in South and Central America, and they are even more rigid on family planning and support many of the juntas in the region than the Catholic church. The “alleluias” what they are called, also seem to migrate towards the military so for example in Guatemala and Brazil they are a powerful minority….Its a kind of political schizophrenia..because the same factions in the 3rd world that are creating many of the issues are also alive and well in the USA and have supported bans on US Aid for Family Planning throughout the world!!!!Also its not or should not be a Democratic issue since so many of the immigrants are Alleluias and tend to vote Republican……… Ironically they also tend to be anti-immigrant too……so it is hard to expect any consistency in this matter. ..and because of our own ambivalence in foreign policy, all we can do is build walls, which is really not a solution. This discussion does not even touch on the mess in Europe where so much of the migration is caused by the same dynamics but different religions and types of corruption…
I think there needs to be a regional summit to deal with this mess, there is also the bottom line that the countries of origin are using migration as a pressure value to avoid dealing with their own problems, and economic inequalities.
Not to mention just one issue no one can agree upon, “family planning”. We have a cultural lag and by that I mean when our ancestors migrated, there was no family planning but in today’s world these are meaningful options…you would think, and that’s where the cultural lag kicks in….and the major concerns about funding international family planning by the religious right, a power in the developing nations too( Las “Alleluias’)…and so it goes.
This is not to simplify the issue but it is low-hanging fruit to support birth control in developing countries. Tackling the oligarchies in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America is a lot more complicated and brings with it all sorts of ideological issues…..The bottom line is immigration issues are not going away unless there is some major changes and ways to deal with the underlying causes of unresponsive governments, including segments in our own government too.
All true! Regional summit? Every region on Earth wants to come here. Too many regions want these masses to pass through so middlemen can shake them down each step of the way – it’s an industry for every country in the path to the USA. The countries that produce these migrants receive an economic jolt as the illegals here send money back to relatives or pay off cartel debts – how many national budgets count on this gelt? I would love a global media blitz to shame Red China for not taking in the masses fleeing “violence”. With so many factories, a nice orderly police state, and nary a White supremacist, China should be the destination of choice for all races of humanity.
In all the rhetoric regarding Immigration that I review, across the board, there is so little innovation to note, its no wonder we get to basic push backs, and simplistic solutions (perhaps they are the only ones left???)…it goes the same for Western Europe as a refugee destination. Yet people are going to flee despotic governments, and as u note, these governments are on the take , to promote migration for a price, so it all gets convoluted.
Ironically too that was one of the reasons cited for Brit exit..from the European Union…not realizing so many immigrants are coming from British Commonwealth Countries, that it was a mute point anyways. There is always the underpopulated land mass and badly managed Russia as an immigration destination……but who in their right mind would go there…It goes back to trying to stem the tide of surplus populations fleeing for whatever reason, certain countries of origin…and religions play a large part in many of these countries, in their attempts at suppression in general, and especially family planning and reproduction issues. We can dust of these comments in a couple of years and nothing will have changed so it does not auger well for the subject matter…It would be refreshing to examine what seems to work, but I am not aware of much happening in that area, yet there are some 3rd world countries that don’t ship off their surplus populations.
As an aside….at our annual Italian festa, I have a map of origins of where Italians migrated from…..visitors pin the area where their families originated from….what is interesting is not where the pins dot the map, but where there are hardly any pins and large areas in the Italian map where there are no pins….Umbria is one of those areas and after visiting the province its understandable.