In a recent confrontation between protesters
against the illegal flood of unaccompanied children into the United States and
counter-protests by some Hispanic group, one man from the latter group said
angrily, "We are as good as you are!"
One of the things that make the history of
clashes over race or ethnicity such a history of tragedies around the world is
that -- regardless of whatever particular issue sets off these clashes -- many
people see the ultimate stakes as their worth as human beings. On that, there
is no room for compromise, but only polarization. That is why playing "the
race card" is such an irresponsible and dangerous political game.
The real issue when it comes to immigration is
not simply what particular immigration policy America should have, but whether
America can have any immigration policy at all.
A country that does not control its own borders
does not have any immigration policy. There may be laws on the books, but such
laws are just meaningless words if people from other countries can cross the
borders whenever they choose.
One of the reasons why many Americans are
reluctant to keep out illegal immigrants -- or even to call them "illegal
immigrants," instead of using the mealy-mouthed word
"undocumented" -- is that most Hispanics they encounter seem to be
decent, hard-working people.
This column has pointed out, more than once,
that I have never seen Mexicans standing on a street corner begging, though I
have seen both whites and blacks doing so.
But such impressions are no basis for deciding
serious issues about immigration and citizenship. When we do not control our
own borders, we have no way of knowing how many of those coming across those
borders are criminals or even terrorists.
We have no way of knowing how many of those
children are carrying what diseases that will spread to our children. And we
already know, from studies of American children, that those who are raised
without fathers in the home have a high probability of becoming huge, expensive
problems for taxpayers in the years ahead, and a mortal danger to others.
A hundred years ago, when there was a huge
influx of immigrants from Europe, there were extensive government studies of
what those immigrants did in the United States. There were data on how many,
from what countries, ended up in jail, diseased or on the dole. There were data
on how well their children did in school.
As with most things, some immigrant groups did
very well and others did not do nearly as well. But today, even to ask such
questions is to be considered mean-spirited.
Such information as we have today shows that
immigrants from some countries have far more education than immigrants from
some other countries, and do not end up being supported by the taxpayers nearly
as often as immigrants from other countries. But such information is seldom
mentioned in discussions of immigrants, as if they were abstract people in an
abstract world.
Questions about immigration and citizenship are
questions about irreversible decisions that can permanently change the
composition of the American population and the very culture of the country --
perhaps in the direction of the cultures of the countries from which illegal
immigrants have fled.
During the era of epidemics that swept across
Europe in centuries past, people fleeing from those epidemics often spread the
diseases to the places to which they fled. Counterproductive and dangerous
cultures can be spread to America the same way.
Willful ignorance is not the way to make
immigration decisions or any other decisions. Yet the Obama administration is
keeping secret even where they are dumping illegal immigrants by the thousands,
in communities far from the border states.
Looking before we leap is not racism -- except
in the sense that anything the Obama administration doesn't like is subject to
being called racist.
Americans who gather to protest the high-handed
way this administration has sneaked illegal immigrants into their communities
can expect the race card to be played against them. The time is long overdue to
stop being intimidated by such cheap -- and dangerous -- political tactics.
Thomas Sowell, GOP USA Eagle, July 22, 2014
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover
Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas
Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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