OCALA, Fla., May 1, 2014 — Illegal immigration is turning into a top political issue this year.
With midterm elections around the corner and an enraged pro-amnesty base firmly out of the shadows, unlawful immigration presents a dangerous potential quagmire for Republican politicos.
The amnesty debate rarely hits the heart of the matter, focusing instead on the politics of race. Opposition to temporary legal status or citizenship for illegal aliens is often perceived as anti-Hispanic bigotry.
“This ‘perception’ is false and pernicious,” says Dr. Stephen Steinlight of the Center for Immigration Studies. “No solid data or body of empirical evidence suggest, let alone prove bigotry motivates the great majority that opposes amnesty. It is a smear disseminated by amnesty advocates to advance their cause.
“‘Immigrant advocates’ lack compelling arguments to support their position. By labeling opponents ‘bigots,’ they rationalize refusal to debate them and camouflage fear of responding to opponents’ ideas with a fraudulent moral justification. ‘One Nation, After All,’ an exhaustive study of American attitudes towards Third-Rail issues by Alan Wolfe, finds no evidence that bigotry plays a role in opposition to Hispanic immigration. Americans oppose illegal immigration, not immigrant ethnicity.”
“Amnesty and the resultant increase in immigration would be highly injurious to America’s Hispanic community,” Dr. Steinlight explains. “Most are working poor with a high percentage of families on two major welfare programs. They’re clinging to the bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder in the loosest labor market since the Great Depression. A tsunami in immigration would greatly intensify competition for scarce jobs, increase unemployment, drive down wages, and make upward mobility even harder for second and third-generation Hispanics whose socio-economic advancement has stagnated. For reasons previously cited, it would also slow assimilation.”
Some claim that Hispanics are “natural conservatives” due to their family-oriented culture. This allegedly makes them Republicans in all but formal registration. Election results say the exact opposite, though.
“The premise and stereotype are equally false,” Dr. Steinlight says. “There’s no correlation between ‘strong family values’ and conservatism. Cultures perceived as possessing them (i.e. Asian Americans and Jewish Americans) are predominantly liberal. Moreover, whether understood generically or as socially conservative code language, Hispanics don’t exemplify ‘strong family values.’”
Looking beyond the shenanigans of Capitol Hill GOPers, what should America expect in the event of illegal alien amnesty?
“We can expect disaster. In sum, we’ll witness the unmaking of America,” Dr. Stephen Steinlight of the Center for Immigration Studies told me late last year. “It would subvert our political life by destroying the Republican Party. The Hispanic vote will make the Democrats the PRI of America. A GOP relic might survive regionally, but could never successfully contest a national election.
“America would turn into a One Party State which, like all others, would be tyrannical and corrupt. The political center would lurch to the left. Political liberty, the freedom to choose among authentically different alternatives, would be lost.
“A population transfer from one nation with a different language and political culture which will become the predominant future demographic will destroy social cohesion. The diversity of previous immigration safeguarded against this. Dual language/dual culture countries are plagued by Balkanizing social strife.”
