Illegal Immigration debate on Fox

Tonight on the O’Reilly program, with Juan Williams as guest host (and a very loud host he was—most of the Fox News on-air personnel shout instead of speak), Heather Mac Donald debated the Arizona anti-illegal immigration law with Raul Hinojosa, a professor of Chicano Studies at a California college. Hinojosa was about as intelligent as the job description “professor of Chicano Studies” would lead you to expect. No, less. He was an embarrassment, rambling from point to point and unable to summon a coherent argument, though he was rather energetic and aggresssive about it. First he said that the law would have no chance to pass federal court muster, because it steps on areas of federal jurisdiction. A smiling Mac Donald replied that the bill was completely consistent with existing federal law and that based on a recent Ninth Circuit ruling it could very well be approved by the courts. Hinojosa then began saying that the bill will cause great economic harm to Arizona. In an unusual move for this type of show, Williams criticized Hinojosa for changing the subject, from the law’s constitutionality to its economic effect. (Also, if the law will never be put into operation because it will be overturned, why worry about its economic consequences?)

The discussion moved on. Mac Donald said that the opponents of the bill do not want to deport anyone. She asked Hinojosa: “Do you believe in deporting anyone?” He said animatedly, but unconvincingly, “Of course I do.” She said: “Under what circumstances do you think they should be deported?” He said, waving his arms around, “In all kinds of circumstances.” But he didn’t name one. After they went back and forth on this two or three times, with Hinojosa refusing to answer her question, Mac Donald, still calmly smiling, repeated that the real issue is that the opponents of the Arizona law do not want to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.

At the end of the segment, Hinojosa said that we should emulate Ronald Reagan who legalized illegals (in the 1986 amnesty). The poor fellow didn’t realize that by calling for the legalization of all illegals, he had proved Mac Donald’s point that he doesn’t want to deport anyone: after all, if the illegals were all legalized, who would there be to deport?

* * *

UPDATE, 5/1, 11:30 a.m.: Mac Donald writes at City Journal:

The Arizona law is not about race; it’s not an attack on Latinos or legal immigrants. It’s about one thing and one thing only: making immigration enforcement a reality. It is time for a national debate: Do we or don’t we want to enforce the country’s immigration laws? If the answer is yes, the Arizona law is a necessary and lawful tool for doing so. If the answer is no, we should end the charade of inadequate, half-hearted enforcement, enact an amnesty now, and remove future penalties for immigration violations.

— end of initial entry —

Carol Iannone writes:

True, Hinojosa wasn’t even able to say, when someone has been involved in illegal activity, or something like that, which might have been an easy way to do it. He was afraid to say even that much because it might theoretically concede some right to the U.S. over illegals.

Mark Jaws writes:

Just what type of career does a person pursue who has graduated with a BS degree (in this case BS does not stand for bachelors of science) in “Chicano Studies?” I wonder if there are only “cheecahnos” or “lateenos” taking these courses, and if so, why? How come no whites or blacks or Asians are taking courses in “cheekahno” studies? It would be interesting and, no doubt, somewhat humorous, to peruse the course descriptions.

It brings me back to my City College of New York days back in the 1970s and reading the course descriptions from the Puerto Rican Studies department—“The Puerto Rican Child in His Urban Environment” or “Psychological Impulses Behind Grafitti.” Very useful stuff, indeed, in closing the achievment gap between lateenos and the Gringo populace.

David B. writes:

Karl Rove is on Greta Van Susteren’s Fox show every night talking about how bad the Arizona law is.

Howard Sutherland writes:

Go, Heather! Now if she would only learn to believe in God…

Van Wijk writes:

Heather Mac Donald wrote: “The Arizona law is not about race; it’s not an attack on Latinos or legal immigrants. It’s about one thing and one thing only: making immigration enforcement a reality.”

She’s technically correct in that the Arizona law is not specifically about race. The Immigration Issue, however, is certainly about race. If non-white foreign aliens are establishing colonies on American soil, it ultimately does not matter whether they’re here legally or not. The end result is the same: conquest. I suppose these baby-steps toward the truth are necessary for the time being, but anyone who thinks this is strictly a rule-of-law issue is fooling himself.

LA replies:

What you say about the underlying racial nature of the issue is true, but needs to be qualified. At present the racial aspect of this is all on the other side. They are promoting a pro-browning-of-America, anti-white-America campaign. The left’s anti-whiteness is shown by the fact that white people by simply being white people are called racists. If they go to a Sarah Palin book signing, and all the people on line are white, that means that somehow they are excluding nonwhites and are racists. If they go to a tea party rally, and they are mostly or all white, that means that they are racists. The tea party has nothing to do with race, it has to do with power of government. So white conservatives are called racists simply by virtue of being white conservatives. To vilify as racists people whose agenda (anti-Obamacare) is not racial at all, and has nothing to do with race, is about as naked and vicious a racist attack on people that I have seen, because it comes down to saying that white people are evil simply by virtue of being white. .

By contrast, the white conservatives who support the Arizona law are not waging a racial campaign. This is shown by the fact that they do not oppose our legal immigration which by itself is steadily turning America into a nonwhite country. If white conservatives were racial, if they were remotely concerned about preserving a white America, they would be calling for a drastic reduction of nonwhite legal immigration, which they are not doing. Further, if we tell these white conservatives that they should be racial and should care about protecting whiteness, that will turn many or most of them off, because they really do not care about race and think it’s wrong to do so.

Therefore, the place where race needs to be injected into the debate is not in persuading pro-Arizona white conservatives to be pro-white and anti-nonwhite, but in getting them to recognize and expose and denounce the anti-whiteness of the nonwhites and the left.

Another example of the liberals’ and nonwhites’ anti whiteness is that they accuse Arizonans of vicious racism for passing a law which is not a fraction as stern as Mexico’s laws on illegal and legal immigration, which, among other things, prohibit legal resident non-citizens from participating in politics. Now THERE’S a country that believes in its sovereignty and identity. (see Michelle Malkin’s article spelling out Mexico’s tough laws), while they don’t criticize Mexico at all. This shows that the left does not believe the denunciations it pours on Arizona. If they believed in them, they would be attacking Mexico’s laws much more loudly than they are attacking Arizona’s law. So the fact is that the left does not believe in its withering moral attack on the “racism” and “xenophobia” and “profiling” and “apartheid” of Arizona. Rather they are using that attack to delegitimize and intimidate white conservatives, effectively prohibit conservatism, and create a new America ruled by the left and the nonwhites. This is what the mainstream white conservatives need to recognize and say. They don’t need to promote white racialism. They need to expose the racist anti-whiteness of the left and the Hispanic activists.

Mick writes:

Van Wijk wrote:

The Immigration Issue, however, is certainly about race. If non-white foreign aliens are establishing colonies on American soil, it ultimately does not matter whether they’re here legally or not. The end result is the same: conquest.

I’m not sure that if white foreign aliens were establishing colonies on American soil, Van Wijk would be happy. I certainly would not be.

White foreign colonies on U.S. territory existed in the past and the fact that, eventually, they fully dissolved into U.S. melting pot does not mean that we will continue to be as lucky in the future.

Right now only one side is happily, exuberantly racist—the left. It has to be exposed for that as frequently as possible.

James N. writes:

Regarding the true motives of pro-illegal people: Everything that has happened since the House passed a Cap and Trade bill in June 2009 (which failed in the Senate) has revealed the true motives of those who wield power now (including, by the way, the true motives of Karl Rove, his hand puppet W., and a lot of “moderates”)—and those motives are (1) not shared by a large majority of Americans and (2) require concealment, which is breaking down as they push forward.

The Arizona law simply mirrors federal statute. The federal statute embodies what the People want and expect from their government. Most people, ignorant of the day to day affairs of the state, probably actually believe that what the Border Patrol and associated courts, etc are doing is trying to enforce that simple concept—if not a citizen, you must have papers (visa or green card) and if you don’t, they kick you out.

I live about as far from the Tucson Sector as you can live without speaking French. Around here, the landscapers are all white, the nannies are all Mormons, and “Dora the Explorer” is all the Spanish anyone ever hears. The fact that the government DOESN’T enforce the simple federal statute is big news to a lot of people.

But the REAL big news is that those who wield legal authority, or those who would do so if elected, DESPISE the law of the land and are working, or have worked, to subvert it through deliberate non-performance of their sworn duty. THIS is new knowledge for many people, and it will act as a force multiplier for the already sky-high suspicion and distrust which are abroad in the land.

Unfortunately, on immigration enforcement, there is no opposition party. Electing Republicans, at least in 2010, will accomplish little on this front. But recapturing the Republic is not to be done in a day. Acquainting the People with the true nature of their overlords is a first step. As my grandma would say, “a watched pot never boils.” Bit by bit, awareness is growing about what has been going on. Keep the faith.

May 3

Van Wijk replies to LA:

You wrote: “Further, if we tell these white conservatives that they should be racial and should care about protecting whiteness, that will turn many or most of them off, because they really do not care about race and think it’s wrong to do so.”

This is what I meant when I said “I suppose these baby-steps toward the truth are necessary for the time being … ” I do not advocate making the immigration debate about race for exactly the reasons you mentioned: it is currently unpalatable to the majority of white Americans and would be a strategic blunder. Even so, the nature of the Immigration Issue doesn’t change just because it’s unpopular. All the anti-immigration measures of the past have had some (usually quite overt) racial aspect. Leaders in those days understood that the white majority had to be maintained in order for liberty to flourish.

When people do not explicitly recognize race as an issue but rather feel it, I think that is acceptable. The people of Arizona feel that they are being conquered by aliens, and that is why so many of them support the bill. Though they’d never come out and say it in polite company, they don’t want to walk down the street and be the only white person, and they’re tired of being babbled at in Spanish by little brown foreigners. If the border were to be sealed and legal immigration from Mexico drastically increased, the same problems would occur. So I think most of the talk about “rule of law” is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Likewise, I don’t have a problem with de facto white movements like the Tea Party, the NRA, or the Minutemen being non-racial as long as they don’t feel the need to reach out to non-whites in order to make themselves legitimate. For example, the preservation of the 2nd Amendment is widely (if unofficially) understood as being something that white people care about. An organization whose aim is to preserve the 2nd Amendment is going to be a de facto white organization, so explicitly stating that it is a white organization is a moot point at best and off-putting at worst.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 01, 2010 12:57 AM | Send