Illegal Immigrants
Will they ever assimilate?
The key question about illegal immigration has finally been answered, said Michelle Malkin in The Washington Times. In the current debate over whether to grant this country's illegal aliens amnesty, the focus has been on jobs, the economy, and national security. What's missing is any serious discussion of whether these 11 million people, most of them Latinos, are assimilating into our population. Do the people who've crossed our borders truly want to be Americans—or do they simply want to set up a separate, Spanish-speaking nation in our midst? Let's ask the hundreds of thousands of Latino separatists who staged angry protests last week in Los Angeles and other cities, waving Mexican flags. 'œBrown is beautiful,' they chanted, and 'œChicano Power.' Some brandished signs saying, 'œThis is a stolen land,' arguing that the American Southwest rightly belongs to Mexico. In portraying the demonstrators as aggrieved minorities, the liberal media, of course, tried to ignore these obvious displays of racism and 'œvirulent anti-American hatred.' But how can the rest of us?
We can't, said Victor Davis Hanson in the Chicago Tribune. The U.S. can absorb hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants every year if they are 'œintegrated throughout the nation in multiethnic neighborhoods.' But illegal aliens, forced to live shadowy lives in 'œapartheid communities' are another story. When you have millions of people who can't speak English and have virtually no education or job skills, the result is the bitter and potentially dangerous underclass on display in California last week. Immigration used to be a process of turning out 'œAmerican patriots,' said John O'Sullivan in National Review. Now, it seems that all we produce is 'œresentful expatriates.'
That's a canard, said Linda Chavez in The New York Times. Evidence that Latinos are assimilating is overwhelming. Census Bureau statistics show that Mexican-born men 'œare more likely to be in the labor force than any other racial or ethnic group.' Almost 50 percent of Latino immigrants are homeowners. Eighty percent of second-generation Hispanics graduate from high school. Like all previous generations of immigrants, 'œLatinos start out on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, but they don't stay there.' And thanks largely to their Catholic upbringing, said David Brooks, also in the Times, they bring their moral values with them. As immigration has surged, violent crime in the U.S. has fallen 57 percent. Teen pregnancies and abortion are declining. If anything, 'œthe recent rise in immigration hasn't been accompanied by social breakdown, but by social repair.' It sounds like the basis of good citizenship.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Consider the alternative, said Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek. In Europe, immigrants face 'œpenalties, sanctions, and deportation,' and the native populations treat them with outright contempt. The result is that immigrant communities in France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and other nations are isolated and alienated, ripe for radicalism and violence. Let this be a lesson to us. We may tighten our borders, but it would be disastrous to tell the 11 million people already living here that they 'œare somehow unfit to become citizens.'
Leonard Pitts
The Miami Herald
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Will California's EV mandate survive Trump, SCOTUS challenge?
Today's Big Question The Golden State's climate goal faces big obstacles
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
'Underneath the noise, however, there’s an existential crisis'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
2024: the year of distrust in science
In the Spotlight Science and politics do not seem to mix
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Voting: Should ex-felons regain the right to cast ballots?
feature Attorney General Eric Holder denounced state laws that restrict convicted felons from voting after they’re released from jail.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Gun control: Has Newtown already been forgotten?
feature Three months after Newtown, meaningful gun-control legislation seems doomed to failure.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Gay marriage: How will the Supreme Court rule?
feature In March, the court will consider challenges to the constitutionality of both the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
The Supreme Court: Did Obama try to bully the justices?
feature The president's public caution to the Supreme Court unleashed a flurry of opinion.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Health care: Will the Supreme Court judge fairly?
feature Before last week’s Supreme Court hearings, most legal experts assumed the health-care law would be upheld.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Obama: Did his appointments violate the Constitution?
feature The President's recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board have raised the ire of Republicans, who say the Senate was not really in recess.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
The death penalty: Was an innocent man executed?
feature In Georgia, Troy Davis was executed for the 1989 shooting of an off-duty policeman, Mark MacPhail, in spite of recanted testimony.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Guns: Would tougher laws have prevented a massacre?
feature Since Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were gunned down in 1968, more than a million Americans have died of gunshots, in crimes, accidents, and suicides.
By The Week Staff Last updated