02/07/2009
The New York Times has now posted 142 responses to its blog The Nativists are Restless, Continued. The majority continue to be fine, well-reasoned statements of opposition to the NYT line. I was particularly taken with #129 (link) signed by David Seminara, "former immigration officer"Yet another misleading piece on immigration by the Times. Several points the NYT’s obscures. 1. Providing a path to citizenship to the 12 million plus illegal immigrants currently in the country doesn’t bring a conclusion to the problem- it only opens the door for even wider scale immigration from the developing world. The average legal immigrant files 3 petitions for relatives back home to join them in the US, so once these 12 million have citizenship, they will file petitions for their spouses, children, parents, and siblings to join them here. So that 12 million will become 36 million in just a few years, and then that group will, in turn, file more petitions for their relatives. Its an endless cycle, the more you legalize here, the more you import from abroad….3. The NYT’s makes it out as though the only options are amnesty- which has been tried before and did not work, but only served to encourage more illegal immigration, or the mass expulsion of 12 million people. The truth is that we don’t need mass expulsions- we simply need to enforce the workforce labor laws already on the books…. Over a period of several years, we can easily reduce the illegal population in half by attrition and stopping new arrivals.
4. Being a “nativist” and wanting to reduce immigration from its current unprecedented high levels are not one in the same.
Also #129 (link) from Charles Roland:
The NYT apparent stance on immigration is ignorant. The NYT continually harps on the extreme opposites in the illegal immigration emergency. According to the NYT, either you are a pro amnesty liberal or a nativists racist. As a left-leaning “liberal” I am against amnesty for illegal aliens and I feel that the boarders need strong protection. All illegals should be sent back and the practice of having anchor babies should be banned… I have never spoken with anyone born in this country who is for open boarders or total amnesty. I just can’t figure out where all these amnesty supporters are hiding. The NYT sure seems to know…. This is not the liberals vs. conservatives issue that the NYT and other big media makes it out to be. I would love to see the writer of this pro illegal alien article to live in or near one of the many neighborhoods overrun and devastated by illegal aliens.
The (quite infrequent) supporters of the NYT generally take a moral position: All who question mass immigration are evil, and native-born Americans have no right to influence immigration policy.
It has been a valuable thread.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.