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Friday, March 29, 2024 - 11:02 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

Impending Disaster and the Need for Real, Not Phony Reform

Recent estimates by a major investment firm and two research firms have placed the number of illegal immigrants in the U. S. at between ten and twenty million. All the estimate revisions seem to move constantly upward. Obviously, our immigration problem is so enormous and out of control that it is very difficult even to measure.  Some have very appropriately termed the immigration tsunami an invasion.

The massive tidal wave of illegal immigration and unprecedented levels of legal immigration now occurring in the United States portend an impending demographic disaster.  These demographic changes are already having enormous and substantial impacts on our lives.  Jobs, wages, taxes, and every aspect of our economy are being adversely affected.  The quality and costs of education and healthcare are also being adversely affected.  Public safety and national security are being weakened or jeopardized.  Out of control immigration portends a political, social, and cultural future very different from the ideals of the Founding Fathers of our Republic.

The immigration tsunami, if not stopped, will change the political balance of power in our country. As can be seen in the last two presidential elections, that balance is already close.  The massive immigration tsunami is creating a new electorate tilted to the left.  Within a decade, if not much sooner, we will be playing with political dice loaded to come out liberal.  Thus these immense and unprecedented demographic changes we are undergoing will have a profound effect on politics.  Immigration will determine the outcome of every political issue.

A strong leftward tilt can be seen in the socio-ethnic groups that comprise the vast majority of recent immigrants legal and illegal. The largest share of illegal immigrants and new legal immigrants are Hispanic. George W. Bush and his political aides have talked big about capturing the Hispanic vote, but it has been a failure that could have been easily foreseen.  Bush only got 35% of the Hispanic vote in the 2000 election, which included Cubans, who usually vote majority Republican.  It is likely he got far less than 35% among new immigrant voters.  It is even further unlikely that he would do well among predominantly unskilled and poorly educated Mexican and Central American illegals should there be an amnesty.  Bush political aides claimed to have received 44% of the Hispanic vote in 2004, but that has been completely debunked by several pollsters and analysts.  In fact, of the 15 counties that Bush lost in Texas in 2004, 13 were predominantly Mexican.  Most analysts estimate Bush got from 33% to 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004 despite enormous effort and hispandering.  It is unlikely for Republicans to do better than 35% to 40% in a voter group that is poorly educated, low-skilled and not at all oriented to conservative economic and social issues.

A  Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) study released in August 2001 confirmed that Hispanic immigrants are most interested in social welfare programs and tend to vote heavily for more liberal political candidates.  Furthermore their voting patterns do not become more conservative over time or with new generations.  Only higher income Hispanics have any leaning at all to the Republican Party, and that is not strong. This is quite evident in recent and past elections analysis.

Asians make up the second largest recent and illegal immigrant block.  Although Bush and his political aides were optimistic about these “natural Republicans,” according to an 11,000 voter exit poll done by the Asian American Defense and Education Fund following the 2004 election, Kerry badly drubbed Bush by a 74% to 24% margin.

The political bottom line is that the new immigrants that have been flooding into the United States for the last decade mean two or three Democrat votes for every Republican vote.  It is highly unlikely that an amnesty would break this pattern.  In fact, given some sort of amnesty, current illegal immigrants would probably vote even more overwhelmingly Democrat and liberal.

By refusing to enforce U. S. immigration laws and constantly flirting with thinly disguised amnesty, George W. Bush and his political advisors are on the path of electoral suicide.  Every month that we maintain a near de facto open border immigration policy, the remaining viability of the Republican Party is being undermined.  Amnesty, by whatever clever subterfuge, or phony reform like the Kennedy-McCain Bill would finish the Republican Party as anything but a me-too liberal party and turn the nation down the path of leftish chaos.

If the massive immigration tsunami is not soon checked, a new electorate far more interested in social welfare programs than free enterprise, limited government, or preserving traditional social and religious values, will dominate our elections. Then politically overwhelmed and displaced conservatives can kiss their guns and tax cuts goodbye.  They can for all practical purposes kiss constitutional and limited government goodbye.  Within a decade or less they can forget any possibility of conservative judges being appointed to federal courts.  Abortion on demand will be here to stay and at tax-payer expense.  They can forget the Ten Commandments, prayer is schools, or anything else that does not meet the multiculturalist agenda.  Affirmative Action, that hypocritical euphemism for blatant racial preferences, will be here to stay.  Not only will job opportunities be fewer and wages lower, but unless you are a member of a “protected” group you will be discriminated against as well.  Your children will get the full brunt of the new multiculturalist regime. Conservatives will have lost the culture war to new voters who do not identify with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry, much less Ronald Reagan.

Most Americans are complacently unaware that immigration will determine the outcome of all other political and social issues.  They have not quite grasped that out of control immigration will very soon have an enormous impact on the balance of political power in the United States. Unless the massive wave of immigration can be drastically reduced, political power will shift significantly to the left and stay there.

Most of the new immigrants, especially illegal immigrants are either non-Christian or unchurched.  The past common wisdom that most Hispanic immigrants are good, socially conservative Catholics is about two generations out-of-date.  The new immigrants are predominantly unchurched.  It is not the individual immigrant that threatens the nation’s values.  It is their immense numbers that threaten to overwhelm both the political arena and the culture.  This will further marginalize Christian influence and values in society.  Christians will become a smaller minority with less and less cultural and political impact.  This by no means denies the duty of Christians to show kindness and evangelical concern for both legal and illegal immigrants, but they should recognize the sheer numbers of this unprecedented invasion threaten to displace or marginalize their values and influence on society and future generations. They should also be wary of the anti-Christian multiculturalist agendas that support the current massive wave of immigration.  Christians should not support flagrant violation of U. S. immigration laws by employers or illegal immigrants, especially since such lawlessness is clearly hurting other Americans.

National security is also being jeopardized.  How many potential terrorists and criminals are in these millions of illegal immigrants?  According to CIS, there are over 150,000 illegal immigrants from the radicalized Muslim Near East in this country.  That is a force as large as the United States Marine Corp.

If we have 10 to 20 million illegal immigrants here now, what will the effect of amnesty be?  In the past amnesties and even hopes of a new amnesty program have always resulted in a huge new influx of illegals.  The CIS estimates that amnesty would triple the federal cost of illegal immigration.  Will it triple state and local costs as well?  Will it have an equally dramatic effect on job opportunities and wages for non-immigrants?  Will it make the U. S. a third world nation politically and economically?

The cheap labor we are selling out our country for is actually not so cheap.  It is only cheap to the big corporations and smaller businesses that recruit and use illegal immigrant labor.  The rest of America pays the education, medical, and welfare bills and the higher taxes.  And for this favor they get for themselves reduced wages and fewer job opportunities.

American society is being put at risk for the sake of cheap foreign labor and multiculturalist ideology.

Cheap foreign labor is enriching some, but lowering the living standard and quality of life for most Americans. The multi-culturalist agenda is subtly and quietly displacing and marginal-izing Christianity, the political ideas of the Founding Fathers, and our American and European cultural heritage. As Patrick Henry once said, “why stand we idly by?”

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Mike Scruggs is a retired financial consultant and corporate business executive. He holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BS from the University of Georgia.  He is a USAF combat veteran of the Vietnam War, holding a Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart.  He was recently Chairman of the Board of a Classical Christian School and is a former Republican County Chairman.  He writes and lives in Hendersonville, NC.

 

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