January 27, 2007
[This
is the question and answer session following the speech
posted
January 6, 2007: “Is Immigration a Problem? Are the
Minute Men the Answer?”, by Peter Brimelow.
We’ve cleaned up the text a
bit.]
[Multimedia Available
Here]
Questioner #1:
You might have a moratorium on immigration, but then
how do you control the immigrants’
high birthrate,
which will certainly shift the ethnic balance, even if
you were to stop immigration entirely?
Brimelow:
It’s
certainly true that the
higher birthrates will continue to shift the ethnic
balance. It’s actually a technical question you’re
asking, what are the numbers, what do the numbers
suggest? And we spend a certain amount of time thinking
about that question. The
evidence seems to be that, over time, all American
ethnic groups get their
birthrates down surprisingly quickly, so these high
birthrates may not persist as long as we think.
The other point I guess I’d make: there’s
somewhere between
ten and twenty million illegals in this country
right now. Maybe they should just
go home. Maybe that would resolve the problem.
And, their children, when they’re born right here now,
are American citizens, because of a perverse, because of
the
Birthright Citizenship interpretation of the 14th
amendment. Maybe that
should be solved. Maybe that should be changed one
way or another, by
litigation or legislation. And then they could take
their children with them.
I have
a dream!
[laughter]
Questioner
#2: I’m
delighted that you’re here and speaking out on this
issue, which, as you said, most Americans are avoiding,
for fear of offending people. I don’t know if you ever
see
Lou Dobbs on CNN,
but he’s the one news
reporter that I’m aware of who deals with this nightly.
He’s not a ranting raving lunatic, the man has
statistics. If I were living in some of the
conditions that these
illegals live in Mexico, I would do exactly what they’re
doing. I’m not angry at them. I’m angry at the people at
the top—George
Bush,
all through
Congress—who are allowing
this to happen. They are doing us wrong. If I were
invited to the buffet of the United States and all I had
was
corn tortillas,
yes, I would do everything to help my family. Directing
our anger, if you will, must be at our politicians, not
at these immigrants.
George Gilliam, Director of the Miller Center Forum,
moderator:
I would ask that you could put that in the form of a
question. [laughter]
Questioner #2:
I would like to know what you feel about our
congressional people, why they do not see this, what is
causing it—is it votes, is it money, I don’t know!
Brimelow:
Of course, you’re
quite right. There are 6 billion people in the world—6
billion people in the world—so there’s a limit to
the
amount of people who can reasonably expect to have
their lives improved by coming here, although they’re
doing their best to get here.
Why Congress is the way it is? I think there are a
number of reasons.
I
think immigration is one of these classic political
science problems that disadvantages a large number of
people a little and benefits
a small number of people a lot. That means you get
donors, and that’s
very influential.
I
genuinely think that a lot of the difficulty is that
immigration is a new problem. Most people don’t have new
ideas after they’re 21. The current generation of
politicians and
pundits came to maturity when immigration simply
wasn’t an issue. It wasn’t an issue until about 1968
when the 1965 Act kicked in. I mean, I remember
1968 very clearly! [laughter].
It’s like academic life—George, I’m sure you'll confirm
this! It isn’t true in academic life that one school of
thought refutes another school of thought, and convinces
it of its position. What happens is the
older guys die off, and they’re replaced by younger
people. And so there’s a generational effect. And I
think we will see a generational effect as politicians
come forward who are younger, basically, and are
prepared to meet the new generation of problems.
And finally, in
Alien Nation I opened it up by saying there’s a
sense in which this can be viewed as
Hitler’s revenge. The American political class was
so traumatized by the fight against Nazism that it
simply
cannot handle any discussion of race. And that’s why
the immigration enthusiasts, as I call them, are so
quick to
accuse everybody in sight of racism whenever the
issue is raised—because it
works for them, it frightens people away.
Unless of course, you’re an
insensitive immigrant like me! Thank you.
Questioner #3:
We used to have a quota
system in this country, I believe until the fifties and
sixties of last century. Why was it abolished, what
happened to it, and couldn’t it be reintroduced?
Brimelow:
You mean the
National Origins system.
Questioner #3:
Yes. Yes, indeed.
Brimelow:
That was the principle
behind the
legislation of the 1920s. They wanted to stop what
they saw as the
rapid shift of the American population, and to do it
they decided they were going to allow immigration
primarily from the traditional founding groups. And that
was undone in the 1960s . The rationale was that it
was discriminatory.
Of course, it was discriminatory. Immigration
policies are inherently discriminatory. Even if you let
everybody in, the ones who are closest to the southern
border are going to be getting in faster than the
others. You know, you’ve got to choose in
immigration policy.
That was really the rationale—that it was part of the
Civil Rights revolution and “discrimination”
was Wrong.
Of course, any law produces individual hardship cases,
and there were certainly individual hardship cases under
the National Origins system. But they could have been
rectified by minor changes.
One of the things that abolishing the National Origins
system has done, however, has been to create a great
social science experiment. It’s shown us that national
origins do matter—exactly as the people who put
through the legislation in the 1920
argued. Generally speaking, immigrants from Europe
go onto welfare at a rate that’s about a tenth of
immigrants from the Third World. In other words,
welfare participation by Third World immigrants in
ten times that of European immigrants.
And there are a bunch of reasons for that. One of which
is that functioning in a sophisticated society requires
some sophistication, and it may be that people from
First World societies understand that better. But
there’s no doubt, based on the evidence of the last
forty years, that national origins do matter. And they
matter for a very long time—they
matter for the second, third and fourth generation.
And that’s why the current flow is so disturbing.
Because these people who are coming in and going on
welfare and
going into the underclass—they’re not going to get
out of that quickly. It takes three or four generations
before people assimilate economically—if they ever do.
Questioner #4:
There’s an estimated 34 million immigrants,
approximately 1/3 are illegal. Our national population
is 294 million of which Hispanics make up 41 million.
That Harvard study that you alluded to—Borjas-Katz–[PDF]
put out the word that in the
men’s labor force, one out of 20 are
Mexican laborers—illegals—and
that in 1970 it was less that 1 out of 100. For today’s
Mexican immigrants, whether legal or illegal, their
closest competitors for jobs are tomorrow’s Mexican
immigrants, either legal or illegal. The more who
arrive, the harder it will be for them follow
low-skilled Mexican laborers already in the work force.
So what do you think about Bush’s immigration
legislation that he’s proposing to resolve this dilemma?
Brimelow:
What do I think about
Bush’s immigration proposals? I think they’re
nuts. I think they’re extraordinary.
For one thing, in effect there’s an amnesty for the
illegals already here. They
deny this, but it’s just
Orwellian use of language, there is
clearly an amnesty.
But the thing that amazes me even more is that
apparently Bush wants to match “willing
workers” with “willing
employers”. That is to say, if an American
employer can’t find a worker, he can go and get
immigrants in, as temporary worker, from overseas. Now,
there’s no mention of price in this. In other words,
employers can say they’ll pay 5 cents an hour and when
they don’t get any Americans, they can find somebody—and
they will be able to find people—who are willing to work
for five cents an hour. It’s a profoundly uneconomic way
of looking at immigration, in spite of the free market
rhetoric that surrounds the proposal.
Plus, of course, Bush is apparently prepared to allow
these “temporary workers” to bring in their
families. Well, of course, right there that destroys any
macroeconomic benefit—because the transfer costs to
their families are substantial.
So you can only view this, frankly, as a way of
benefiting employer groups. The employer groups are
in a situation where they get to privatize the profits
of immigration—the work of the immigrant—and they
socialize the costs. Because
education,
healthcare and so on, and even things like
mortgages, are handled by the
public purse.
So my answer to your question is—it’s one of the
wildest
things I’ve ever seen. I don’t think people realize how
crazy it is, frankly.
Now,
that doesn’t mean it’s not going to go through, by
the way, because they are very determined on this
question, the President is extremely determined. He’s
beyond the reach of reason. So there’s going to be a big
fight over it.
Questioner #5:
What do you think the Mexican government could do to
give incentive to its citizens to stay in Mexico, and,
given that, do you think that President Fox or whoever
the new President will be, do you think they will
actually follow up on those? Do you think they think
they have anything to gain by giving incentive for their
citizens to stay?
Brimelow:
Well that’s actually a
great question. And it’s particularly a disturbing
question because, you know, Fox, when he was elected,
was greeted
with great Hosannas by the Republicans because they
thought they had a free-market president elected and
that things were going to change.
I’m very much afraid there is no solution in Mexico.
It’s obviously a
profoundly corrupt society. The unspoken issue there
is
drug money, which is very substantial, and
must corrupt the entire political class.
They have
no incentive whatever to change. The Americans are
putting no pressure on them to change. No, there’s going
to be no solution coming from Mexico short of actually
invading it and ruling it as a colony, in which case
you probably would get economic growth and the
Mexicans would stay there.
Mexico is
going to blow up. It’s obvious to everybody that
Mexico is unstable. Sooner or later it’s going to blow
up and we’re going to have to bring those troops home
from
Iraq and try and restore order in Mexico. Maybe
that’s would be the ultimate solution.
Questioner #6:
Is there any other country in the world that has an
immigration policy that’s as wide open as ours?
Brimelow:
Well, immigration a
problem throughout the First World, and particularly in
what we call the
Anglosphere, the English-speaking countries.
Actually just in terms of numbers, the
Canadians get more immigrants relative to population
than the Americans do. They get about 200,000 legal
immigrants a year, and their population is about a tenth
of the U.S. population, so if you multiply it by ten
you’re looking at 2 million legal immigrants a year
here. And they are
changing their society very rapidly as a result of
that.
The difference is, though, that the Canadians actually
have an interesting system which actually does
discriminate among immigrants
on the basis of skill level. You get points for a
bunch of things if you want to immigrate to Canada:
skill levels and whether or not you speak the national
languages. It’s a very logical thing, actually, when you
think about it. I mean wouldn’t you prefer to have
immigrants who
speak English? Then you wouldn’t have
all these problems with bilingualism and so on. And
there are a lot of people in the world who speak
English. There are forty or fifty million Indians who
speak English in their homes. So it’s not a
racially-based policy. But right now, because American
immigration policy is frozen by statute, we can’t do it.
So the answer is, immigration is a problem throughout
the English-speaking world, and the First World. It’s a
problem throughout Europe. They’re reacting to it more
violently because they’re less used to it, and that’s
why you see the
rise of these third parties, like
in Denmark and so on.
But, you know, the Americans matter most. Because this
is Rome in the time of the
Twelve Caesars. Everybody in the world looks to the
U.S. I can’t exaggerate how important the example
Americans set is worldwide. It’s a unipolar world right
now. The whole world is dependent on the U.S. So if the
Americans have problems, the world has problems. The
U.S. is where it really matters.
Questioner #7:
Just a quick background before I get to my question. I
was born, raised and went to school in South Texas, and
in my lifetime I have seen places change in south Texas
so that I wasn’t sure which side of the border I was on.
But there
seems to be a difference between the immigrants that I
grew up with and what’s coming in now—in that they don’t
want to become part of America. There’s some different
thought process in the immigrants that are coming
through now. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s changed
dramatically from
San Antonio south. What
is the difference?
Brimelow:
That’s very
interesting, and it’s a comment often made by Texans.
The
Tejanos are a fairly historic community. They’re
not totally historic, because Texas was absolutely empty
when
the Anglos got control of it, but they stem
basically out of the immigration that came out of
the Mexican revolution. They did seem to assimilate
better. You can think of a bunch of reasons. One of them
is just simply a question of numbers. I mean, the flow
from Mexico after the revolution stopped, and the
assimilative process got to work. And right now we don’t
see any stopping of the flow. And the result of that is
that
assimilation is actually going to reverse. There are
people who used to speak the language who are now
speaking Spanish. It’s just a function of numbers.
The second reason, I think, is that the political class
is much less willing now to tell people that they ought
to assimilate and speak English than it used to be.
Profoundly less. If you go to Ellis Island, you’ll see
all these displays about the “Americanization”
programs, how people were expected to learn to become
Americans and so on. There is nothing like that now. If
you become an American citizen, you know, you are
supposed to “abjure
foreign potentates” but there’s no attempt to
enforce that.
When I became a citizen, I was
with a group of about 300 people who were openly
discussing the fact that they were intending to keep
their own passports. One woman said, of course if there
was a war she would send her children back to—well, she
was a Central American—immediately. Officers of the
courts were standing around! And they can hear all this!
But they don’t do anything. And why would they? There’s
simply no attempt made to require people to assimilate
now in the way that there was 50-60 years ago.
Question
#8:
I lived in
Switzerland for a year, in Geneva, a few years ago,
and I was always impressed by the control the Swiss have
over their small country. They speak four different
languages, maybe more. They have a huge control over
immigration. They bring a lot of workers in, and if
there is any unemployment or economic stress, they send
them home. In other words, they traffic people. And I
thought in a way it was awful. And yet, there was peace
and quiet, it was an idyllic country. Everybody wants to
go there and get to the mountains, have a great time.
They haven’t had a war in hundreds of years. I’d like
your view on that kind of a society and what we can do?
I realize it’s a small country and there are many, many
differences from a huge country like ours.
Brimelow:
You know, actually,
through the 30s through the 50s there was a system in
place, the
bracero system,
which brought in temporary workers into the U.S. And
I’ve always liked the idea of temporary workers, guest
workers. People who are interested in immigration reform
typically don’t like temporary workers because they do
have a tendency to stay. And, of course, under current
U.S. law, their children are citizens, so then they
never leave. So that’s why it’s
so important to get rid of this birthright
citizenship interpretation of the 14th
amendment.
But in general, I’m sympathetic to the idea of guest
workers. One of the reasons, quite frankly, is that it
gets the business lobbies out of the debate. They’re
just totally committed right now to mass immigration.
They’re prepared to have a million unskilled immigrants,
as long as they can get 15,000 computer programmers.
They don’t look at the interests of society in general.
So maybe if we can get them those computer programmers
as guest workers—I
don’t think they need them, actually, but that’s a
different argument—they
would go away and stop bothering us and let us get
this problem solved.
Questioner #9:
You’ve presented your views to make them look very
objective, and based on statistics. And I was wondering,
if that’s the case, why you give so much space and
exposure on your VDARE.COM website to people like
Sam Francis,
Jared Taylor
and
Kevin MacDonald,
who can only be classified as white supremacists and
anti-Semites, and maybe
white nationalists.
So I wonder what difference you see between yourself and
some of those people.
Brimelow:
Well, I think that
what I say speaks for itself. If it is logical and
factual, then the insinuation that you’re making is
clearly unfounded.
As far as VDARE.COM goes, it is true that we ran Sam
Francis, who
recently died, and Taylor, and who was the other
one? Kevin MacDonald. None of these people I would
regard as white supremacists. Sam was a
white nationalist. He was
a Southerner and he wanted to articulate and defend
the interests of whites. In a multiracial society,
you’ve got to accept that whites have interests, and
they can speak up for them in the same way that
blacks do and the
same way that Hispanics do.
It may not be something that you want to accept—because
of course, because it shatters the myth that the
multicultural society is harmonious. Multiracial and
multicultural societies are not harmonious—they are
intensely competitive. And it’s in that respect that I
think Sam, and also Jared Taylor, are the wave of the
future. If we have this kind of immigration, we are
going to have
those kinds of politics.
Let me just say, on VDARE.COM we publish stuff that is
not going to appear in
National Review or
The Wall Street Journal.
Our object there is to push the envelope, to get issues
discussed that are not going to be discussed otherwise.
Because that is how this immigration problem has gotten
so bad. Because people are afraid to discuss it.
So our mission is to discuss it. And we do take risks.
We are prepared to say things and to get into subjects
which no timeserving journalist is prepared to get into.
I don’t say it is going to be good for our careers. But
our defense is truth: truth is an absolute defense.
Questioner #9:
Thank you for coming out
this evening and speaking. As an editor of
National Vanguard and one of those evil white
nationalists, I’m curious as to what, in your opinion,
is behind the immigration debate—why racial identity or
consciousness is encouraged among ethnic minorities, and
the destruction of racial consciousness among white
Americans? Who’s behind that? Is it ourselves? Do we do
this as white American, in the sense that we’re on a
guilt trip. Or are there other forces at work to prevent
us from thinking collectively? Every other minority
group thinks in terms of group dynamics, and we’re
encouraged to think as individuals.
Brimelow:
You know, I have had
until recently two small children in the public schools
in New England, in Connecticut—an area that is a hundred
percent white. And they raised a regiment of Connecticut
farm boys, the
2nd Connecticut heavy artillery, which
was
shot to pieces at Cold Harbor. They were all ardent
abolitionists. Notwithstanding this, my little boy has,
from kindergarten, has been
exposed to stuff about
Martin Luther King and the evils of segregation.
Now, there never was segregation in Connecticut. They
were opposed to slavery. And this is an area where—well,
America is more stable than people think if they live in
New York. There are a lot of blue-collar workers in my
area who are colonial stock, whose families bought the
land from the Indians. The woman who cuts my hair, the
fellow who delivers my mail, has ancestors
who died or were injured with the 2nd
Connecticut Heavy artillery at Cold Harbor. But I’ve
never heard a public school teacher who knows anything
at all about this. But it would support the
message—that’s the interesting, the fascinating thing
about this—it would support the message that
slavery is evil and all this kind of thing, to tell the
children that their ancestors fought in this war to
abolish it. But you never see it.
Which speaks to several things. First, it’s the
nationalization of American education, which is not such
a good thing because of the divorce from local
communities. And secondly, I have to say that the object
is simply not to teach kids about segregation or
anything like that—it is to inculcate white guilt, it is
to make them feel bad. You know, Alexander has done
these exercises where everybody who has
blue eyes is discriminated against and all that kind
of thing. There is something pretty weird going on.
Thank you.
Questioner #10:
My question addresses the issue of law. We talked
about illegal immigrants. I think if they’re illegal,
that means they’re breaking the law. And the question is
one of enforcement. What do you suggest be done to
ensure that laws we have on the books—we don’t have
enact a lot more—are followed through. And I think one
of the key matters would be to require individuals to
carry ID. And a case of falsified ID would certainly be
sufficient cause for deportation.
Brimelow:
Yes, there are a ton
of things that could be done. We have a chap who writes
for us called
Ed Rubenstein who is a number hound, he does a
statistical column for us. He used to do The Right Data
for
National Review. He recently did an
article on interior, workplace enforcement—how many
times do the feds go into a workplace and arrest people,
how many people are deported as a result of this, how
many employers have been fined? And these are laws that
are on the books, it’s a question of how they’re being
enforced.
The answer is, they’re not being enforced. Workplace
enforcement has collapsed since 2000. It’s
fallen by a factor of more than 97%. You’re right,
the laws are on the books. Apparently, it’s just not a
priority of either Congress or the Administration to
enforce them.
This creates what economists call a “moral
hazard”. Because we’ve got people here who are
here illegally and got here illegally. What do they
think about the rest of the country’s laws? How much do
they respect the society that did this? It’s a
profound problem.
Questioner #11:
I admire your intentions
in addressing the issue for the children—since I’m one
of them who will be around in 2050, hopefully. But I
have to say that your views on what the problem is and
how to fix it seem a little simplistic. It seems like
it’s putting a Band-Aid on a broken neck. Have you
looked into why people are coming from Latin American
into the U.S.? Like, what conditions are in their
countries and what is our responsibility in that? First
off, by overthrowing their governments…also that the
problem with immigration seems like you’re kicking the
little people when they’re down for something that’s not
their fault. I
mean, Mexican immigrants are
born into these conditions
and they come to the United States because they have no
other options in their life if they want to survive, and
they want their children to see another day. But it is
American corporations and American gluttony that is
allowing this to happen. The inability of America to
observe itself and to acknowledge the fact that it’s not
the great country that it thinks it is, and secondly
that it’s actually quite hypocritical and fairly close
to a fascist state
[VDARE.com note: This
is true—it is close, right there
across the Rio Grande!]
[muttering from audience]
Uh? You’re
white,
you guys can say that it’s
not—So, I feel like you’re targeting the wrong people
and—I can hear you over there, just so you know.
[laughter]
I do
respect your work a lot, and I admire your intentions,
and this is not like a personal attack or anything
because I realize that that’s fruitless–
Brimelow:
That’s OK, I’m
used to personal attacks!
Questioner #11:
[laughing] I know, I saw the
Firing Line debate with
you and
Ira Glasser!
However,
it just seems naïve and simplistic. You’re just running
in place and you’re not getting anything done by not
focusing on the true culprits—like American imperialism.
Brimelow:
Well, as I said, you
know, I do think this is a situation that is susceptible
to a very simple
Marxist analysis. It benefits the upper classes and
disadvantages the
working classes. The American little people are
really being hurt by this policy. Doesn’t that make you
feel good? [laughter]
I
mean, that’s exactly what you think, isn’t it? That it’s
a class-based policy? I completely agree that the
behavior of the American corporations is irresponsible
in this area. It was in the 1920s too, but what happened
in the 1920s was there was a point at which they became
so
disturbed by the societal unrest and the
anarchist bombings and so on, that they became
convinced that the society itself was being threatened.
And if you talk to individual business men, you’ll find
they’re aware of this. They live in these cities; their
children go to these schools, so they are aware of the
problem. So I don’t think that the business lobbies are
set in stone. But right now they are a problem; they
just won’t think about this question.
As far as the American responsibility to the situation
in the rest of the world, you know, short of actually
conquering the rest of the world and ruling it, I don’t
see how Americans can really assume responsibility for
what goes on there. [applause]
Questioner #11:
[inaudible]
Brimelow:
No, I’m not kidding,
no. What else can you do? You know, I was born in the
year that
India became independent. When was that? [laughs]
It’s not that long ago, actually, that the British did
control a lot of the world and they took responsibility
for it. But Americans can’t do that. I don’t think they
can even stay in Iraq forever. And if you don’t have the
power, you don’t have the responsibility for the rest of
the world. So the question is not why these people come
here, but why they’re let in. Why aren’t they stopped at
the border? And that is the responsibility of the
American ruling class. And it’s not meeting that
responsibility right now.
Questioner #12:
On the
policing of the southern border, it seems to me that
the tradeoff is between the desire to keep illegal
immigrants out, and the standards of ordinary civil
rights. Do you think that our standards for civil rights
are obsolete?
Brimelow:
I don’t think
there is a civil right to immigrate. It doesn’t seem
to me to be a civil rights issue. You simply don’t let
them in, that’s all it comes down to. And it’s not a
difficult thing to do.
Gilliam:
This has been and
interesting and provocative discussion of an interesting
and contentious idea. I thank all of you for being here,
and I especially thank Peter Brimelow for presenting his
argument.
Peter Brimelow is editor of
VDARE.COM and author of the much-denounced
Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration
Disaster (Random House -
1995) and
The Worm in the Apple (HarperCollins - 2003)
