By Paul Nachman
08/13/2018
Saritha Prabhu, columnist at the The Tennessean in Nashville and self-described liberal, has been doing some re-thinking on immigration (she’s an immigrant, presumably from India) and related topics. As a result, what she writes can make for refreshing reading.
Recently, referring to something she'd read by another immigrant about all the benefits of chain migration — for that other immigrant’s family — Ms. Prabhu had a different take:
Broadly speaking, barring an eccentric uncle or two, I too, as a long-time immigrant would like to import 40 of my closest relatives here.
At least, that would’ve been my thinking in the first five years of immigrating here. But after 26 years here, I’m an assimilated American, and this country has given me much by way of self-fulfillment and prosperity.
So, in a spirit of gratitude and patriotism to this country, I prefer to think of immigration policy in terms of what is beneficial overall to America and its citizens, rather than the more selfish view of what’s good for my family and for immigrants in general.
[On immigration, the GOP is the grown-up party, August 3, 2018]
Yes, Virginia, there’s at least one immigrant who doesn’t think that immigration is a gift to us native-born citizens!
In that same op-ed, she makes other points that will have most VDARE.com readers nodding in agreement. For example, meaningful penalties for illegal immigration should be levied on the scofflaw employers, too, not just the illegal aliens swept up in workplace-enforcement actions.
(However, I emailed Ms. Prabhu to point out that many employers who hire illegal labor, even knowingly, don’t really want to: They're forced to, in order to compete with the original, cynical scofflaws. It’s the immigration equivalent of Gresham’s Law in action.)
That August 3rd column was seemingly no one-off. A few months ago, musing more generally about today’s liberals (Liberalism today — in Donald Trump’s presidency — has lost its way, The Tennessean, May 4, 2018), Ms. Prabhu wrote, "[The left] discusses issues — especially immigration — using emotions, feelings and personal stories, not reason, facts, the big picture or the common good."
Bingo!
She was making similar points in an immigration-focused op-ed early last year, too.
But in the recent piece, she ventured into deeper waters, finishing with this flourish:
[O]verall the GOP articulates what feels intuitive to most of us who deal in rationality and common sense: That America, even though it welcomes legal immigrants, is a sovereign country that has the right to determine the number, composition and skill level of the immigrants it allows in to suit the current needs of its economy, and for optimal social cohesion.
The Democratic Party needs to lose election after election until it learns these vital points. And here’s a newsflash to party leaders: It’s only the far-left that favors these radical ideas on immigration; the rest of the party has been cowed into silence because voicing thoughts on any immigration restriction in today’s Democratic Party will get you labeled a racist, nativist or worse — Hitler.
Simply put, today’s Democratic Party and its media supporters has gone stark raving mad on immigration and have to be brought to heel through more electoral losses.
Wowser! "Optimal social cohesion"! How long can it be before Saritha Prabhu is outed as a white supremacist??
Or Hitlerina?
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