No society can withstand the unconditional mass migration of aliens from every corner of the earth. The preservation of the nation’s territorial sovereignty, and the culture, language, mores, traditions, and customs that make possible a harmonious community of citizens, dictate that citizenship be granted only by the consent of the governed—not by the unilateral actions or demands of the alien—and then only to aliens who will throw off their allegiance to their former nation and society and pledge their allegiance to America.
Claremont Institute senior fellow and California State University professor Edward J. Erler, reflecting Aristotle’s observation, writes, “A radical change in the character of the citizens would be tantamount to a regime change just as surely as a revolution in its political principles.”1 The government, therefore, is not only justified but obligated to qualify immigration to those most likely to contribute to the well-being of the civil society, and to create the conditions in which aliens of differing backgrounds can be absorbed into the American culture.
In 1965, as part of the Great Society, the Statist did, in fact, lay the foundation for radically altering the character of American society and the relationship of the governed to their government. When he signed the Hart-Celler Act, President Lyndon Johnson said, “This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives, or really add importantly to either our wealth or our power.”2 And during the debate over the bill on the floor of the Senate, Senator Ted Kennedy claimed, “First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same…. Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset…. Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and economically deprived nations of Africa and Asia.”3
Johnson, Kennedy, and the other Statists were wrong, and it is hard to believe they were not intentionally deceiving the public. In 1964, Republican vice presidential candidate Representative William Miller well understood the overall increase in immigration that would result from the 1965 act: “We estimate that if the President gets his way, and the current immigration laws are repealed,” he said, “the number of immigrants next year will increase threefold and in subsequent years will increase even more.”4
The bill abolished the decades-old policy of national quotas, which was said to be discriminatory because it favored immigrants from Europe (especially the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany) over the Third World. Thus it increased immigration levels from each hemisphere, setting in motion a substantial increase in immigration from Latin America, Asia, and Africa—to the detriment of previously favored aliens from Europe. The bill also introduced, for the first time, a system of chain migration, which, as the Center for Immigration Studies notes, “gave higher preference to the relatives of American citizens and permanent resident aliens than to applicants with special job skills.”5 Those who receive preference for admission include unmarried adult sons and daughters of United States citizens, spouses and children and unmarried sons and daughters of permanent resident aliens, married children of United States citizens, and brothers and sisters of United States citizens over the age of twenty-one.6
Consequently, the historical basis for making immigration decisions was radically altered. The emphasis would no longer be on the preservation of American society and the consent of the governed; now aliens themselves would decide who comes to the United States through family reunification. With the elimination of national quotas and the imposition of chain migration, aliens immigrating to the United States were poorer, less educated, and less skilled than those who had preceded them—a pattern that continues to this day. The Manhattan Institute’s Steven Malanga writes that the first great migration a hundred years ago attracted “Jewish tailors and seamstresses who helped create New York’s garment industry, Italian stonemasons and bricklayers who helped build some of our greatest buildings, German merchants, shopkeepers, and artisans—all [of whom] brought important skills with them that fit easily into the American economy. Those waves of immigrants…helped supercharge the workforce at a time when the country was going through a transformative economic expansion that craved new workers, especially in cities.” Moreover, as a result of the 1965 law, “[l]egal immigration…soared from 2.5 million in the 1950s to 4.5 million in the 1970s to 7.3 million in the 1980s to about 10 million in the 1990s.”7
Furthermore, as political and economic circumstances in the Third World deteriorated, particularly in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, the egalitarian nature of the 1965 law and the growing American welfare state also encouraged the unprecedented and illegal migration of millions of additional destitute and uneducated aliens to the United States. So, too, did the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act’s grant of one-time amnesty to about 3 million illegal aliens, which was conditioned on border security and immigration enforcement that never materialized under subsequent administrations.8
The late author Theodore White, who was no conservative, wrote that “the immigration Act of 1965 changed all previous patterns, and in so doing, probably changed the future of America…. [It] was noble, revolutionary—and probably the most thoughtless of the many acts of the Great Society.”9
In the 1960s, Cesar Chavez, one of the founders of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union, vehemently opposed illegal immigration, arguing it undermined his efforts to unionize farm workers and improve working conditions and wages for American citizen workers. The UFW even reported illegal immigrants to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.10 In 1969, Chavez led a march, accompanied by Ralph Abernathy, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Senator Walter Mondale, along the border with Mexico, protesting the farmers’ use of illegal immigrants.11
But most unions soon changed course and today they lobby to confer amnesty and ultimately citizenship on illegal aliens. These include: American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Farm Labor Organizing Committee; Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union; Laborers’ International Union of North America; Service Employees International Union; Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees; United Farm Workers; and United Food and Commercial Workers.
The unions view the large influx of both legal and illegal immigrants as a new source of political clout that favors their allies in the Democratic Party and potentially adds membership to their own dwindling numbers. They came to the same realization as historian Samuel Lubell, who noted that the voting-age children of the first great migration constituted “the big-city masses [who] furnished the votes which re-elected [Franklin] Roosevelt again and again—and, in the process, ended the traditional Republican majority in this country.”12 And there can be no doubt, as a practical matter, that the Statist’s benefits-for-votes promises is an attractive albeit destructive enticement. Despite President George W. Bush’s and Senator John McCain’s long record of advocacy for more legal immigration and amnesty for illegal aliens, it was not enough to compete with the Statist’s agenda. In 2004, 44 percent of Hispanics, for example, voted for Bush for president and 53 percent voted for John Kerry. In 2008, 31 percent of Hispanics voted for McCain for president and 67 percent voted for Barack Obama.13
The Statist tolerates the illegal alien’s violations of working, wage, and environmental standards, because the alien’s babies born in America are, under the current interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, treated as United States citizens. And under the Hart-Celler Act, upon turning twenty-one years of age, the child can sponsor additional family members for citizenship. From the Statist’s perspective, the pool of future administrative state constituents and sympathetic voters is potentially bottomless.
But does the
Fourteenth Amendment grant automatic citizenship to the children of illegal aliens? The relevant part of the amendment reads that “all persons, born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”14 This language requires more than birth within the United States. The amendment’s purpose was to grant citizenship to the emancipated slaves, who were born in the United States and owed sole allegiance to it. Native Americans who were also subject to tribal jurisdiction were excluded from citizenship. There is no legislative history supporting the absurd proposition that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to empower illegal alien parents to confer American citizenship on their own babies merely as a result of their birth in the United States. Foreign visitors and diplomats are not subject to American jurisdiction. Illegal aliens are subject to the jurisdiction of their home country, as are their children, whether they are born in their home country or the United States.
The combination of intended and unintended consequences, and legal and illegal immigration, is transforming American society. Using the U.S. Census Bureau’s data collected in March 2007, the Center for Immigration Studies reported, in part:
The nation’s immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007.
Immigrants account for 1 in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in eighty years. In 1970 it was 1 in 21; in 1980 it was 1 in 16; and in 1990 it was 1 in 13.
Overall, nearly one in three immigrants is an illegal alien. Half of Mexican and Central American immigrants and one-third of South American immigrants are illegal.
Of adult immigrants, 31 percent have not completed high school, compared to 8 percent of natives. Since 2000, immigration increased the number of workers without a high school diploma by 14 percent, and all other workers by 3 percent.
The proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 33 percent, compared to 19 percent for native households.
The poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is 17 percent, nearly 50 percent higher than the rate for natives and their children.
34 percent of immigrants lack health insurance, compared to 13 percent of natives. Immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 71 percent of the increase in the uninsured since 1989.
Immigration accounts for virtually all of the national increase in public school enrollment over the last two decades. In 2007, there were 10.8 million school-age children from immigrant families in the United States.15
The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 9 percent of the population of Mexico was living in the United States in 2004. Fifty-seven percent of all illegal immigrants are Mexican. Another 24 percent are from other Latin American countries. Fifty-five percent of all Mexicans in the United States are here illegally.16 By 2050, Hispanics will be between 29 percent and 32 percent of the nation’s population.17
Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson analyzed the Census Bureau’s annual statistical report on poverty and household income for 2006 and found, among other things, that “there were 36.5 million people in poverty. That’s the figure that translates into the 12.3 percent poverty rate. In 1990, the population was smaller, and there were 33.6 million people in poverty, a rate of 13.5 percent. The increase from 1990 to 2006 was 2.9 million people (36.5 million minus 33.6 million). Hispanics accounted for all of the gain.”18
Samuelson explained that “from 1990 to 2006, the number of poor Hispanics increased 3.2 million, from 6 million to 9.2 million. Meanwhile, the number of non-Hispanic whites in poverty fell from 16.6 million (poverty rate: 8.8 percent) in 1990 to 16 million (8.2 percent) in 2006. Among blacks, there was a decline from 9.8 million in 1990 (poverty rate: 31.9 percent) to 9 million (24.3 percent) in 2006. White and black poverty has risen somewhat since 2000 but is down over longer periods.” He added, “Only an act of willful denial can separate immigration and poverty. The increase among Hispanics must be concentrated among immigrants, legal and illegal, as well as their American-born children. Yet, this story goes largely untold.”19
The Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald points to another problem with the mass Hispanic migration to the United States—the “fertility surge” among unwed Hispanic women, particularly teenage girls. “Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the country—over three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly one and a half times that of black women.” Moreover, “the rate of childbirth for Mexican teenagers, who come from by far the largest and fastest-growing immigration population, greatly outstrips every other group.”20
Education is another problem as immigrants bring different cultural attitudes and their sheer numbers overwhelm many school systems. In Mexico, a child is legally required to attend school up through the eighth grade. In part, this is why 32 percent of all illegal immigrants and 15 percent of legal immigrants have not completed the ninth grade. Only 2 percent of natives of the United States have not. Nearly 31 percent of adult immigrants do not have a high school diploma. Eight percent of United States natives do not.21
Local public school systems are struggling with the consequences of the federal government’s policies. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, one out of every five students in 2006 was Hispanic. Between 1990 and 2006, Hispanic students accounted for nearly 60 percent of the total increase in students attending public schools. And by 2050, Pew predicts that the Hispanic school-aged population will increase by 166 percent. Hispanic children are expected to make up the majority of public school students by 2050.22
The enormity of migration to the United States also discourages the use of English and encourages the establishment of ethnic enclaves. The 2007 Census Bureau’s American Community Survey found that more than 55 million individuals in the United States speak a language other than English at home. Of these people, more than 34 million speak Spanish at home. More than 16 million of the Spanish-speaking individuals speak English “less than very well.”23 Furthermore, in 2000, 43 percent of Hispanics lived in neighborhoods with Hispanic majorities, up from 39 percent in 1990.24
Of course, the administrative state has prospered hugely from the immigration anarchy the Statist has unleashed. The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector writes that “historically, Hispanics in America have had very high levels of welfare use…. [In recent years], Hispanics were almost three times more likely to receive welfare than non-Hispanic whites. Putting together the greater probability of receiving welfare with the greater cost of welfare per family means that, on average, Hispanic families received four times more welfare per family than white non-Hispanics…. Welfare use can also be measured by immigration status. In general, immigrant households are about 50 percent more likely to use welfare than native-born households. Immigrants with less education are more likely to use welfare.”25
In 2008, a Manhattan Institute study, “Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in the United States,” found that the current level of assimilation of all recent immigrant groups is lower than at any time during the first great migration early in the twentieth century. While some ethnic groups assimilated better than others, and for different reasons, Mexicans were the least assimilated overall and were assimilating at the slowest rate. Even those Mexicans who came to the United States as children (aged five and younger) show discouraging trends. They are more likely than other ethnic immigrant groups to be teen mothers or incarcerated: “Mexican adolescents are imprisoned at rates approximately 80 percent greater than immigrant adolescents generally.”26
Unlike past waves of migration to the United States, which had identifiable beginnings and ends, the current influx is not a wave but an ongoing tsunami that began more than forty years ago and, apart from temporary slowdowns resulting mostly from a cooling American economy and haphazard enforcement of immigration laws, is likely to continue in the decades ahead.
The citizenry was assured that the 1965 act would not produce what it in fact has now produced. Yet, there is no serio
us effort to repeal chain migration or even call a temporary halt to it. The Statist does not allow the nation time to try to absorb the aliens who are already here before encouraging more to follow. Federal and state laws and policies that grant de facto citizenship to illegal aliens—the lax enforcement of employer sanctions and the granting of driver’s licenses, in-state college tuition, hospital care, mortgages, and public education—send a signal to aliens around the world that America is not serious about immigration enforcement. And when numerous cities and towns designate themselves “sanctuary cities” and order their employees and local law enforcement officers not to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, the rule of law is flouted by public officials and illegal aliens alike. America has never experienced or tolerated anything like this.
Moreover, rather than Americanize aliens and use public and private institutions to inculcate them with the virtues of American culture, language, mores, history, traditions, and customs, the Statist is cultivating a cultural relativism in which the cultures from which the aliens fled are given equal accord with the American culture. But all cultures are not equal, as evidenced, in part, by the alien fleeing his own country for the American culture and the American citizen staying put. It is normal and healthy for ethnic groups to celebrate their diverse heritages—Columbus Day, St. Patrick’s Day, etc.—and they have since the nation’s founding. Most large cities have a Chinatown, Little Italy, and Germantown. In many of these ethnic neighborhoods, the “old language” is still spoken, especially among the older generations. But neither the heritage nor home language of the individual has ever competed with the American culture for dominance. The history of immigration in the United States up to now has been of assimilation.