The Amnesty Fraud: Part II
By Thomas Sowell
May 23, 2007
Every aspect of the current immigration bill, and of the arguments made for it, has Fraud written all over it.
The first, and perhaps biggest, fraud is the argument that illegal aliens are "doing jobs Americans won't do." There are no such jobs.
Even in the sector of the economy in which illegal immigrants have the highest representation -- agriculture -- they are just 24 percent of the workers. Where did the other 76 percent come from, if these are jobs that Americans won't do?
The argument that illegal agricultural workers are "making a contribution to the economy" is likewise misleading.
For well over half a century, this country has had chronic agricultural surpluses which have cost the taxpayers billions of dollars a year to buy, store, and try to get rid of on the world market at money-losing prices.
If there were fewer agricultural workers and smaller agricultural surpluses, the taxpayers would save money.
What about illegal immigrants working outside of agriculture? They are a great bargain for their employers, because they are usually hard-working people who accept low pay and don't cause any trouble on the job.
But they are no bargain for the taxpayers who cover their medical bills, the education of their children and the costs of imprisoning those who commit a disproportionate share of crime.
Analogies with immigrants who came to this country in the 19th century and early 20th century are hollow, and those who make such analogies must know how different the situation is today.
People who crossed an ocean to get here, many generations ago, usually came here to become Americans. There were organized efforts within their communities, as well as in the larger society around them, to help them assimilate.
Today, there are activists working in just the opposite direction, to keep foreigners foreign, to demand that society adjust to them by making everything accessible to them in their own language, minimizing their need to learn English.
As activists are working hard to keep alive a foreign subculture in so-called "bilingual" and other programs, they are also feeding the young especially with a steady diet of historic grievances about things that happened before the immigrants got here -- and before they were born.
These Balkanization efforts are joined by other Americans as part of the "multicultural" ideology that pervades the education system, the media, and politics.
The ease with which people can move back and forth between the United States and Mexico -- as contrasted with those who made a one-way trip across the Atlantic in earlier times -- reduces still further the likelihood that these new immigrants will assimilate and become an integral part of the American society as readily as many earlier immigrants did.
Claims that the new immigration bill will have "tough" requirements, including learning English, have little credibility in view of the way existing laws are not being enforced.
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