Phony immigration reform rears its head

What are Republicans going to do about immigration in the aftermath of Sept. 11? Probably not much, except to mute for a while the open borders special interests and ideology that control Republican votes and (snicker) the Republican mind. This week a splashy conference on immigration and national security at the GOP's Beltway watering hole, the Capitol Hill Club, tried to help the party do just that.

The conference was the creature of neo-conservative David Horowitz, who to his great credit has written and spoken out courageously against anti-white racism when most on the right were afraid to do so. Mr. Horowitz' Center for the Study of Popular Culture sponsored the conference, which featured several of the lesser lights that twinkle in the conservative firmament. Unfortunately, the major stars on the immigration issue were strangely absent.

Where, for example, was Peter Brimelow, author of Alien Nation, the major book advocating sizeable reductions in immigration, and whose website, Vdare.com, is now the leading location on the Internet for immigration control? [Peter Brimelow writes: well, I was finishing my book on the teacher union anyway!] Where was Roy Beck, whose Case against Immigration is not far behind Mr. Brimelow's book? Where was immigration critic and syndicated columnist Paul Craig Roberts? Where was Dan Stein of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the major lobbying group for immigration control? Where was anyone who for the last decade or more has been thinking, writing, speaking and debating in support of less immigration and the need for drastic reform of our immigration laws and policies? They weren't welcome at Mr. Horowitz' little bash.

Who was welcome? Well, there was Ed Meese, an amiable but largely forgotten soul who explained the theme of the conference. After Sept. 11, you see, we have to have some control of immigration but we also need to avoid "the somewhat warped idea" of using immigration policy to determine "what this country should look like." Mr. Meese, nice guy that he is, had nothing of any interest to say, and why should he, since he's never had much to do with immigration anyway?

Instead of Mr. Meese, why not invite Pat Buchanan, whose new book, The Death of the West , is now the best recent case against mass immigration in print and is quickly clambering up the New York Times best seller list? Mr. Buchanan was mentioned only briefly, and then sarcastically by probably the most lightweight twinkler at the conference, journalist Michael Barone.

Mr. Barone never offered much evidence for his bland assertions that immigration today is "more of an opportunity than a problem," that immigrants can all be assimilated, that immigration is too big to be stopped anyway and any other generalization that popped into his noggin. His claims about assimilation were skillfully sliced apart by immigration scholar John Fonte of the Hudson Institute, who turned out to be the real star of the show. Most of the other participants and their messages simply fizzled.

Immigration has always been a good thing; we're a nation of immigrants; America is based on a creed; immigration brings a valuable mix of different peoples, though there is no difference among different peoples; diversity is a good thing, though immigrants need to assimilate. Assimilation is happening, though left-wing multiculturalist élites won't let it happen, even though immigrants want to assimilate. This is the fodder of clichés, platitudes, banalities, contradictions, and unsupported generalities that most of speakers served up to a large audience of Hill staffers and policy wonks.

One of the few men who spoke anything like the truth was Rep. Tom Tancredo, who bluntly told the audience it was all an "illusion." There will be no immigration reform because the open borders lobby is still there, still powerful and still doesn't want immigration reduced.

And that brings us back to the real purpose of this half-day immersion in phony reform. The real purpose was to co-opt the immigration control issue by outflanking and ignoring the real experts on immigration, serve up a squadron of lightweights, has-beens and never-weres as the politically acceptable experts, and confine immigration reform to fiddling with expired visas and more money for the Border Patrol.

But as far as serious rethinking of the whole concept of immigration and its meaning for American culture and national identity and for nationality itself, don't bet your national ID card you'll hear about it from this crowd.

Americans today are frightened and angry -- and rightly so -- over the mass bloodshed that uncontrolled immigration has already helped spill in New York and Washington and at what it might cause in the future.

If they want real enlightenment on immigration and its dangers, they should ignore this useless gabfest and start listening to the people who know something about the issue and have been trying to tell us for years.

Sam Francis webpage

January 31, 2002