Posted by
Cary Wesberry on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 3:08:43 PM
For the past several years pro-illegal immigration groups have rallied at the beginning of May to demand citizenship opportunities for the estimated twelve million illegal immigrants in the United States and an end to raids on and deportations of these immigrants. This year was no different. There were protests in California, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Illinois and other places. One slight change, however, was the attendance: this year the protests were markedly smaller than before. In 2006, the first these immigration rallies were held, the attendance was around one million people. This year crowds were down to between 300 and 500 per rally.
Many activists were quoted as saying that the drop in attendance was due to fear of government reprisal and deportation among the illegal immigrants themselves. This is highly implausible. Since 2006 the Federal Government has made little progress in enforcing our borders and deporting illegal immigrants.
What worries me is that all three of the remaining presidential candidates – Senators John S. McCain III (R-AZ), Barack H. Obama (D-IL) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) – support a general amnesty for illegal immigrants. And this amnesty is without any prior successful closure of the U.S.-Mexican Border that would halt further waves of immigrants. McCain pays lip-service to border security and assimilation on his campaign website. He states, “A secure border will contribute to addressing our immigration problem most effectively if we also: recognize the importance of a flexible labor market to keep employers in business and our economy on top, and recognize the importance of assimilation of our immigrant population, which includes learning English, American history and civics, and respecting the values of a democratic society.” Obama’s website is similar, listing border security as his main priority, followed by “bring[ing] people out of the shadows” to become citizens. Clinton uses much more flowery language but essentially posits the same message.
It should be noted that illegal immigrants do not live in the shadows. They attend American schools, use our hospital emergency rooms as though they were a general practitioner’s office and work in specific businesses. If the federal government wanted to enforce our current immigration laws, which are sufficient to solve the problem, it could. But there is no willpower to do so.
I suspect that the reason for the drop in attendance at the rallies is not a new burst of patriotism for America among prior attendees but because the issue is not as pressing. What we need to do is return the debate to the topic of assimilation, of learning to speak English, of the value of becoming a citizen, and of pride in a country that provides immigrants from around the world with more opportunities for success than any other country on earth. The latter will be the most difficult. Immigrants need to assimilate to American culture but if we are to demand that they do we must first restore a proper sense of patriotism among American citizens. How can we demand that foreigners respect our country when our own elites so vehemently criticize and disdain everything connected to American history, culture, ideals, governance and traditions?
A return to assimilation and a coherent culture will not begin until we put our own house in order. We cannot expect others to respect us when many Americans themselves are ashamed of their country.
Some good points from Paul M. Weyrich writing at Front Page Magazine. While I am ashamed of many policies currently being employed in our country, I'm not ashamed of the country itself. I still believe in conservative American values, along with the Judeo-Christian morals which make us better than all the rest. Weyrich's statements on assimilation are accurate, and his reasoning behind the drop in attendance at the illegal alien rallies as well. They didn't slink back into the shadows because they never were in the shadows. Illegal aliens are in our schools and our workplaces and on the streets every day. The rallies aren't important because the issue is no longer important. Regardless of who gets elected; we get amnesty for unassimilated criminals. That is the cold hard fact.
If illegal immigration was such a huge issue for conservatives; why do we have John McCain as our nominee? Before you say, "people have short memories"; stop. Conservatives haven't forgotten McCain/Kennedy nor have we forgotten all of their insulting and offensive statements. Conservatives didn't forget, they got fead-up and gave up. The best we could do was stop an anti-security immigration horror from occurring. That's not a victory, it's just stopping the other side from winning. We got nothing put in place of the other side's attempt... all we got was a return to the status quo which was a bad place to be to begin with. Conservatives apparently don't rally and show their numbers unless something terrible is soon about to happen. The Conservative Coalition is dead in the water, if not drowning.
Anyone who is not lying will tell you the Democrats are going to control more of Congress after 2008. What do you think is going to happen when any of the three candidates we have today make it to the White House?