By David Robb ——Bio and Archives--July 2, 2024
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In Part 1 we looked into a bit of immigration history, and why the current situation is a concern. The proportion of illegal immigrants as a fraction of all the people in America is far beyond anything we have seen before in our history. There are limits to that proportion that determine whether a host nation can retain its own culture or whether it will devolve into chaos and conflict. At present we are far beyond the limits and beginning to experience the chaos.
The first question to ask is who are these invaders. Are there some among them we want to keep -- some who will assimilate well into our culture?
Are there ones we clearly want to expel -- criminals, terrorists, people from hostile cultures?
From interviews with some, reports from investigations, and other sources, we have a list:
It is worth looking at each of these reasons. Please excuse the occasional sarcasm, even if the supporters of unrestricted immigration deserve it.
For families, the reason is rather obvious, and much the same as what brought many previous immigrants to these shores. As people who are unfamiliar with this country, may not speak the language well or at all, and who likely have few resources, they are vulnerable to exploitation. The Left has always had a particular fondness for slavery, and what better candidates than vulnerable immigrants.
Families make ideal domestic servants—they can cook, clean, mind children, do maintenance tasks, and provide many other services in exchange for room and board. It is so hard to find good help these days, after all, and some states are even willing to provide monthly support to those who take in families. Have a guest house, a mother-in-law apartment, or even a couple of extra rooms? If they don't do as you say, then a short call to ICE and they are gone. No pressure.
The world is, in too many places, not friendly. Especially in the Middle East and Africa, religious persecution, particularly of Christians, is commonplace. Even in China, religious belief is discouraged, and those who do not hold approved beliefs are punished. Wherever anyone differs from the prevailing norms and beliefs, they run the risk of persecution. The tolerance of America is a powerful attraction.
As for children, an appalling number of "unaccompanied minors" cross the borders each day. It is hard to imagine the desperation of a parent who would send their child alone to a strange land, but from many reports, they do so under the assurances that their children will be protected and cared for. After all, pedophiles need their product in good shape, and several reports indicate that many of these children are funneled into networks of child prostitution and even worse circumstances. Some years ago, I knew an Irish woman who, when she turned 14, was given a suitcase for her belongings and a one-way ticket to London. Her experiences marked her for life. What stories will these children, those who survive, have to share?
Some days it seems as though the whole world is afire. Ukraine, Israel, Africa, Latin America, the Koreas, the Balkan states—all seem either embroiled in war or on the brink of war. Conflicts have consistently been a source of immigrants for centuries and have brought many to this land. Almost eighty years of Pax Americana has provided stability for many in their own lands, but that seems to be fading now, especially with the policies of a corrupt administration.
Our own government has flown over 300,000 "refugees" into the country on special airlifts. Where are they going? What do they do when they get there?
These are not actual immigrants in that many of them expect or hope to return to their home countries after they have made their fortune in this land of opportunity and abundance. Remittances to families in the home countries from workers here approach over three-quarters of a Trillion dollars annually. For many countries, remittances form the bulk of national income. This is not a healthy situation for either the source or the destination countries. It removes money from one country, taking it out of a productive economy, and injects it into another country in a way that supports consumption without promoting local production and economic growth.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) stated earlier this year that illegal immigrants are necessary to pick vegetables and keep them from rotting. How many do we actually see working the fields? Are millions of people coming to this country to do manual labor in agriculture? That might have been true 60 years ago, but modern agriculture has been extensively mechanized, reducing the need for unskilled labor.
It would seem that many of the migrants are finding employment in construction, trades, and various service occupations, competing with citizens for lower end jobs. Why pay a citizen $20 per hour with overhead for Social Security and employment expenses when you can pay an illegal $15 per hour or less with no overhead?
The Center for Immigration Studies, has stated, “There were still 183,000 fewer U.S.-born Americans working in the fourth quarter of 2023 than in the fourth quarter of 2019, before Covid. The number of immigrants (legal and illegal) working is up 2.9 million over 2019.” Yes, they are taking our jobs with full complicity of a corrupt administration.
Those on the Left often claim that illegals are here to do the jobs Americans won't. What jobs might those be? Domestic servants/slaves, prostitution, below minimum wage labor, racketeering, resale of stolen goods, and others come to mind. Illegal migrants have been found doing all those in quantity. Are those the jobs the Left has in mind? Perhaps most don't want to do those things, but people will do desperate things to survive.
This covers the first five categories in the list. Most of these come to America because they see us as supporting values they share or believe that our culture provides opportunities lacking in their own countries. Many of these people, though, arrive with little ability to read, write, and speak English. Some bring useful skills, but many do not. What most have in common, however, is a willingness to learn and become valuable citizens in this country.
By and large, it is these immigrants who are addressed in Emma Lazarus' poem "The New Colossus", a portion of which reads:
" Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
The only questionable group among these is the economic migrants. While they often provide useful services here, they also export significant amounts of money to family and others abroad —to the extent that their funds provide a great deal of the total income of several countries.
All in all, the total numbers of individuals in these first categories are a reasonably small percentage of the total number of invaders, especially since many of the economic migrants do not intend to remain here.
As for the rest of the list, we must ask ourselves: does any value they provide outweigh the harm they bring? We will explore this question further in Part 3.
Stay with us as we delve deeper in Part 3 - Stranger Danger!
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David Robb is a practicing scientist and CTO of a small firm developing new security technologies for detection of drugs and other contraband. Dave has published extensively in TheBlueStateConservative, and occasionally in American Thinker.