02/26/2010
Even Spain’s socialist government is cutting back on immigration to protect its people. Why can’t Washington be as sensible as Spanish socialists?
[The mounting cost of Spain’s new illegal underclass, Reuters, February 22, 2010]
The Socialist government held an amnesty for 600,000 illegal immigrants in 2005, granting them visas if they could show proof of employment. And like left-of-center politicians elsewhere in Europe, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero welcomed immigration as a way to both to make Spain more tolerant and diverse, and to ensure an aging population would be able to continue to afford its social security system.
The government once spoke of how immigration could increase Spain’s population by 50 percent to 66 million.
Now unemployment is around 18 percent — and 10 percentage points higher among foreign workers — it is changing its tune.
It has drastically cut back on working visas, tightened rules on family reunification and offered money to migrants wanting to leave Spain. In a stark departure from its previous talk of diversity, the government put up billboards featuring dark-skinned people and the question "Thinking of going home?"
Remember there are seven to eight million jobs held by illegal aliens, the liberation of which would free up that employment for citizens. Plus, Washington’s legal immigration on auto-pilot continues to welcome more than one million additional workers annually. Why?
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.