03/17/2010
This Sunday, March 21, 2010, the Treason Lobby is staging a march in Washington, DC. One hundred thousand protestors are reportedly being bused there to demand amnesty for the 12-plus million illegal aliens in the US now taking jobs from Americans and sopping up tax-supported services.
Many in the patriotic immigration reform movement, for example VDARE.com’s Joe Guzzardi, have opined that "comprehensive immigration reform" a.k.a. amnesty will not be on the agenda this year. How can it be, when millions of Americans are unemployed, or underemployed?
And when I first heard about this proposed march, my reaction was "Great! When Americans see their arrogance and selfish disdain for our unemployment crisis, they will be outraged and let their Congress know their feelings."
I still think I am correct about American citizen anger. But I have just heard from a California friend who has a strongly different opinion.
A legal immigrant and naturalized American citizen, Yeh Ling Ling, Executive Director of Alliance for a Sustainable USA, has shown excellent political instincts about this issue in past. I respect greatly her opinions.
She just sent me the following email message, which I quote in part:
"As you have seen from many recent reports from different news networks, Obama is ready for a big push for amnesty after his healthcare reform is settled. Polls show that most Americans support the 'comprehensive' reform because they don’t realize that this is amnesty and will lead to an explosion of legal and illegal immigration. [VDARE.COM note: Joe Guzzardi strongly disagrees, citing for example this, although he acknowledges polls have sometimes been tortured into apparent acquiescence.]The pressure from amnesty advocates all over the U.S. is very intense. Some supporters who were confident that amnesty will not pass this year are now realizing that there is a good chance that Congress will go for it because of the support for 'comprehensive reform' and because of the millions of voters this 'reform' will bring. This is what I have been saying all along."
As an ethnic minority, Ling Ling has been able to tell the truth about our immigration invasion without being called a racist. Even one key person at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has wildly smeared immigration patriots, has "responded well to my arguments", she says. Many media and academic voices on the other side, when given facts by Ling Ling, have admitted she makes powerful points for not allowing this invasion, either legal or illegal to continue.
She said in this latest email: "Time really is running out and we have so many arguments/facts in our favor!"
So what is she doing to help?
"I am contacting a number of web masters for estimates to redo our website in response to the big amnesty battle: I will use simple but persuasive ways to show people the connection between immigration-driven population growth and overwhelming problems concerning voters."
Being a small 501(c)(3), Yeh has limited funding. She wants to do more, such as "produce professional videos and hire the PR Newswire to send out press releases." Why? Because she argues that the main stream voices for immigration reform are regarded by too many moderate Americans as view them as "nativist" and "anti-immigrant".
Ling Ling sees the correct messenger as vital. She argues:
"We cannot fight people’s perception. What we can and must do, in my view, is to work to gain support, converting people who are convertible. I have done that. It really is very easy for me to sway most people when I can talk to them one on one. (I don’t mean the closed-minded activists working for ACLU, MALDEF, etc.)
… … ..Our side must change our strategy, arguments and delivery, and apply the art of mass campaigning to win this war."
It should be noted here that her argument about the proper messenger has not gone unaddressed. A new voice for real immigration reform, Washington, DC based, Progressives for Immigration Reform, sponsored a national poll of 600 progressives and liberals, conducted by Pulse Opinion Research in April, 2009 which showed that these Americans were deeply concerned about all immigration as being "much too high"–46%–or "too high"–60%.
Of those polled, 69% thought between 800,000 and 3 million immigrants, were coming here legally and illegally every year, so they have some idea of the orders of magnitude. A majority of these "moderates" thought excess immigration badly affected our environment, our ability to provide health care, and took jobs from US citizens. (To take a detailed look at this well done poll go here.)
One can persuasively argue that we are not winning the reform battle at present. Our laws are going unenforced, we are not picking up and deporting illegals on any really systematic basis, we are caught in a political bramble patch of politics, greed, and incompetence.
Whether the economic situation will keep the Treason Lobby from winning amnesty remains uncertain, but we know that the actions of the present Administration have been de facto "open border", as reported by VDARE.com and others.
Above all, there is no discussion in Washington of an immigration moratorium. The continuing liberal use of various employment visas keeps the level of new legal immigrants very high indeed. Ling Ling’s view on that aspect is equally negative: "It is my belief that if by 2013 Congress does not start discussing the need to reduce LEGALS, the war will be over."
Donald A. Collins is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.