Sauron’s forces gathering in the East—sorry, I mean Bush and allies pushing for open borders

John O’Sullivan has a useful article in National Review (available online for subscribers only) summing up the current, churning state of the immigration issue, with President Bush, Sen. McCain and others mobilizing more furiously than ever to open America’s borders, despite the desire of a large majority of Americans that immigration be reduced rather than increased. It’s worth underscoring that Bush and his allies of both parties are still working to pass the most extreme plank of his January 7, 2004 proposal, which I have called the most radical proposal ever made by a U.S. president, to admit to the United States anyone who can underbid an American for a job. Since I recently had a lively e-mail exchange with John Fund who strenuously objected to my calling him an open-borders advocate (I listened to his objections, then gave him my reasons why I still considered him such), my interest was especially piqued by this paragraph which hits the nail on the head:

Finally, writers previously known for their fervent enthusiasm for more or less open immigration—Tamar Jacoby in The Weekly Standard, John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, and David Brooks in the New York Times—have suddenly reinvented themselves as “realistic” immigration reformers. They are worried that immigration laws are routinely flouted and call for a balanced response to this illegality. This balance turns out to be legalizing illegals already here (maybe with fines and waiting periods to show we mean business), having a guest-worker program that would admit new immigrants in line with business demand, and then cracking down on border security. Exactly why we would need a border crackdown when almost anyone could come here quite legally is an unanswered question; presumably this measure is included to soothe the American people into going along with a program that is otherwise simply a program for more immigration.

The next paragraph perfectly captures how Bush through his own religious fanaticism for open borders triggered the current, unprecedented debate:

Why has the sleeping dog of immigration suddenly woken up? To be sure, public concern over the social costs of illegal immigration is rising, especially in border states. But both the costs and the concern have been rising for two decades. Democrats can see that the GOP is vulnerable, especially in its core southern-white-male vote, over the low-wage competition posed by illegal immigration. Again, however, the GOP has been vulnerable in this way for several decades. Indeed, all the risks and dangers of uncontrolled immigration have been visible for some time. What has changed is that whereas previously the political elites were content to do nothing about it — in effect, to legalize it by stealth — the president has decided to legalize it openly and above board.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 31, 2005 06:18 PM | Send