06/22/2013
Re: Steve Sailer’s Blog Post Victor Davis Hanson: "The elite charm of comprehensive immigration reform"
From: Virginia Paleoconservative
Although Victor Davis Hanson’s recent NRO article "Illegal Immigration: Elite Illberality" has garnered praise from immigration patriots including VDARE.com’s Steve Sailer, I am still ambivalent about it.
Specifically, Hanson performs a skillful, wide-ranging analysis of the elitist “class warfare” aspects of the current immigration debate, yet he ends the article with this mollycoddling solution to the issue:
Most Americans do not object to providing a green card to those who came to work, stayed off public assistance, did not commit crimes, and did not recently arrive in search of amnesty. They do not even object to offering a pathway to eventual citizenship to immigrants who pay a fine for their illegal entry, learned English, and go to the back of the legal-immigration line. But all this is a hypothetical if the border is not first secured — if we cannot guarantee that 2013 does not become another 1986, meaning that some future date will be a replay of 2013.
If we are to offer a second chance to the majority of illegal immigrants who, apart from their illegal entry, otherwise played by the rules, there must not be a second chance for the minority who broke all of them. [Emphases added].
What VDH proposes is legalization status for the “majority” of (good?!) illegal aliens — to be defined as such through loophole-filled legislation, legions of immigration lawyers, fraudulent document mills, and a federal bureaucracy that will push the legalization applications with amazing speed.
Furthermore, he links all of this to the “securing the border” contingency that is sure to be gamed by the powers-that-be.
He also ignores the mathematical certainty of eventual chain migration and “anchor” babies resulting in hordes of new Democrat voters who will not be booking spaces on the National Review cruises.
It is obvious that Realpolitik is not Hanson’s strong suit.
In many ways VDH’s article is typical of National Review’s orientation on the immigration issue. They protest the excesses of proposed Democratic legislation, yet always keep the door open for legalization and more legal labor type (e.g. H-1B) immigration that will not estrange their Republican and Conservative Establishment backers.
The net result of their proposed actions will be little different than those of the groups they expediently attack.
See previous letters from Virginia Paleoconservative.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.