CAL THOMAS: IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WON’T COME
Salisbury Post
Monday, June 30, 2008 5:02 PM
NC
Last Monday, the Supreme Court refused to take up the appeal lodged
by environmental groups that focused on a two-mile stretch of border
fence in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area near Naco,
Ariz. The fence, which has been built since the petition was filed,
is a vital part of the Bush administration’s drive to secure the border
between the United States and Mexico. The Supreme Court’s decision is
a welcome and needed victory in the war against illegal immigration
and efforts to preserve the unique character that is America.
The environmentalists based part of their challenge on claims the
fence would harm the mating habits of two types of wildcats. To them,
it is more important to allow wildcats to procreate than to control
our borders and demand that everyone who comes here obey our laws. We
must obey their laws. Google "Driving in Mexico" and see all of the
paperwork that is required to enter that country. An illegal stopped
in America often goes free because too many in law enforcement either
can’t or won’t enforce federal law.
Time magazine’s June 30 cover story is titled "The Great Wall of
America: A billion-dollar barrier between the U.S. and Mexico. It’s
reducing illegal immigration — but does America really need to wall
itself off?"
This isn’t about walling ourselves off. This isn’t a Berlin Wall
erected to keep people in. It is a fence designed to keep illegals
out. Anyone who doesn’t understand the difference will not be persuaded
by facts.
This fence and other inhibitors to illegal immigration should have been
built long ago. But politicians — Republicans and Democrats — have
been reluctant to offend Hispanic voters, so they have dragged their
feet. Democrats, especially, wish to import votes and so they welcome
illegals and seek to help them become citizens. Their message: vote for
Democrats, or your relatives won’t be able to come and mean Republicans
will try to throw you out. It’s a twist on their demagoguery about
Social Security, which has worked for them over many election cycles.
In a book to be published July 7 titled "The New Case Against
Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal," Mark Krikorian argues that
the real problem with all immigrants is not them, but us. Unlike
immigrants who have come before and were expected to assimilate,
learn English and embrace American history and culture, today’s
immigrants come to an America characterized by identity politics,
political correctness and Great Society programs. As a result, he
writes, too many are encouraged — through the Internet and cheap
international phone service — to lead "transnational lives," thus
foiling the best efforts to make them part of us, rather than half
and hyphenated Americans who remain strongly tied to their countries
of origin.
Krikorian wants a lengthy pause in all immigration, legal and illegal,
in order to focus on making Americans out of those already here. "As
the politicians debate various kinds of amnesty for illegal aliens,"
he writes, "they are missing the bigger picture: the harmful impact
of large-scale settlement of all kinds of immigrants, whether legal
or illegal, skilled or unskilled, European or Latin or Asian or
African. Modern America has simply outgrown immigration and we must
end it before it cripples us."
Krikorian is a grandson of Armenian immigrants and he says America
is not the country it was when his grandfather arrived. If we don’t
change, he says, it won’t be a country worth handing over to future
generations.
No nation can preserve itself, its identity and nature, if it refuses
to control its borders. The recent Supreme Court decision is a good
first step, but it should not be the last. Few politicians have
the courage to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be
done. President Bush waited until his last year in office to begin to
get serious about stopping illegals, and Republicans generally seek
to avoid controversy so it doesn’t appear the GOP will be much help.
As for Democrats, why should they stop importing their best hope for
future electoral victories? The public is going to have to rise up
and demand that more be done.