In my column on Wednesday I covered a little bit of the history of our immigration laws, and discussed the long-standing legal and common-sense concept that we have every right to decide who to allow to come into our country, and under what circumstances. And however much our rules about immigration have developed and evolved, they’ve always included one central idea: we should allow people in who can improve and benefit America.
Hence the five categories that I quoted from the 1891 Immigration Act. If you’re a foreigner who wants to come here, and you’re stupid, or mentally or physically ill, why would we want you here? If you’re a criminal, why would we want to be your victims? If you can’t or won’t support yourself financially, why would we want to work harder and tax ourselves more, just to take care of you?
On the one hand, it’s weird to even have to say all that, because rational self-interest seems so self-evident and obvious. If Americans don’t have the right to decide who comes into America, who does? And if you will predictably make us dumber, sicker, poorer and more preyed-upon, why would we allow you in?
On the other hand, over the last half-century or more, we’ve developed almost a sense of shame – at the very least, embarrassment – about our strength, successes, and wealth. It hits our ears wrong to say, to the millions who would want to immigrate to America, “What’s in it for us?” Many schools of thought have added to this unease, some of them good, and some very bad.
I’d include the Judeo-Christian world view that is entwined in our national DNA – and which formed the ethical and political architecture of our Founders’ minds, and the scaffolding of the constitution and democratic republic they built – as the most important factor on the good side. We were raised on stories of the Good Shepherd and the Good Samaritan, and our duty to care for the widow and the orphan, and for the poor. We’re a generous and a compassionate people, in no small part because of a wide-ranging body of teaching from Uncle Jesus and his predecessors that, “As you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done it unto Me.”
On the bad side, we shouldn’t underestimate how much damage has been done by leftist schools of thought, and the multitude of ways they have taught our children to hate our country and themselves.
Multiculturalism tells us that all cultures are equally valid, except that ours is somehow worse than the primitive and the non-capitalist ones. Socialism tells us that the wealthy are evil exploiters, rather than the creators of rising tides that can lift all boats. Critical race theory and post-colonial studies tell us that successful first-world countries and the lighter skinned are eternal victimizers, and the rest of the world their rightly aggrieved victims.
Put that all together and disseminate it through an insular and propagandizing educational system, and you get the modern West – wildly successful, and while flawed, the best available model for the world to follow – yet without the civilizational self-confidence to vigorously defend itself, let alone its borders.
Which brings us to today, with tens of millions of people here illegally. They’ve come here for good reasons and bad – some to work hard and make better lives for themselves, some to prey on a wealthy and vulnerable populace, some to take advantage of our idiotically generous and unpoliced welfare benefits.
This has been incredibly frustrating for most Americans. Clear majorities in all polls say they want less LEGAL immigration, and giant majorities want illegal immigration stopped, and illegals deported. And yet there have been a network of groups who have been able to engineer the recent waves of illegals coming in.
Self-interested businesses want cheaper labor. Foreign governments and cartels and their American partners want to enrich themselves through remittances, as well as smuggling and organized crime. Gullible and naïve church and “charitable” groups have allowed their misplaced compassion (and IMHO, often an intoxicating sense of their own virtue) to blind themselves to the damage they are doing to their own country.
But most of those people and groups have always been here, and together have always accounted for some illegal immigration into this country. But the driving force behind the recent flood of illegals has been the Democrat party. Dem politicians see illegals as an army of future voters who will secure their national political majority for many decades, thus allowing them to achieve their political goals of a more leftist/socialist, and less traditionally American, country.
And the fact that an entrenched network of NGOs and other Dem organizations (which DOGE is just beginning to uncover) can enrich themselves in the process is just icing on the cake for them.
To me, the best thing about the new Trump administration so far has been the way they’ve closed the border and started deportations. All of my usual hyperbolic mockery aside, I’ve been giddy watching the American people regain their self-confidence, to the point where they will openly support deporting illegals, unswayed by the usual accusations of racism and xenophobia.
I love watching the elite Left – lulled into an arrogant complacency by years of hectoring us, unopposed – get completely wrong-footed when their usual attacks no longer work. When AOC lectured Hulk Homan™ that “being in the country illegally isn’t a crime,” he rhetorically pantsed her (it’s not my fault that she has placed her juicy booty – her words, not mine – front and center in the public’s mind) by reciting from memory the relevant portions of US law that proved her wrong.
All she could do was pull up her pants, stammer, and change the subject. (Rumors that her panties were red, with a hammer and sickle on the seat have not been confirmed.)
The top Dems don’t know if they’re afoot or horseback on immigration, and it’s glorious to see! After they insisted for a full year that Biden couldn’t close the border without new legislation, Trump closed it 15 minutes after being inaugurated, and everyone started glaring at those Dems, while they looked at their feet or checked their watches.
When some immigration raids began catching run-of-the-mill illegals along with the violent TDA gangbangers who were being targeted, lefty talking heads got excited. They actually thought that it would turn the public against deportations! But every time they did some kind of “man on the street” interviews, the citizens said something like, “But the untargeted ones are here illegally too?”
And before the “journalist” could say, “Well yeah, but-“ the citizen would say, “Vamanos!” or “Adios!”
Hysterical Jamie Raskin actually gave a speech calling for the plane full of gang-bangers to be flown back here so they can have taxpayer-funded lawyers and years-long hearings to see if they get to stay!
Keep it up, Dems, and let us know how that works for you.
I’ve got a few more thoughts on how likely it is that we’ll be able to deport the vast majority of illegal immigrants, and also on the related controversies over deporting students who were here legally on student visas or green cards. But this column is long enough, so I’ll save those for next week.
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a joke I saw last week…
How badly has Snow Woke bombed? (Unexpectedly.)
Someone posted a pic from the opening night’s 8 o’clock showing… and labeled it “Snow White and the Seven Audience Members.”
Have a great weekend, and don’t forget…
Hamas delenda est!
Martin Simpson 