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Them vs. Unz: A Debate on Immigration - PDF - / Send As Email
Response
by Ron K. Unz
In Policy Review, January 1995, pp. 93-98 - Previous Article / Next Article

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Uncorrected Raw Text
Ron Unz's diatribe against those arguing for less immigration
("Immigration or the Welfare State," Fall
1994), contains the same faulty reasoning that has
characterized Jack Kemp's view on this subject. It goes:
1) Immigrants are not a problem, rather it's welfare
and other disincentives to work. Without welfare, immigration
"is a blessing." The more immigration, the bigger
the blessing. The solution is to cut welfare and forget
immigration policy.
2) If we cut welfare, we get the support of conservative
ethnic groups who are naturally disinclined to support
welfare.
3) If the Republican Party gets into a discussion of
immigration policy, the difficulties of the issue will ensnare
the party in divisive issues that will prevent outreach
to "people of color."
If immigration were not moving swiftly up the issue
curve, such a "behind the curve" strategy mighf make
sense. But immigration will soon be one of the top five
issues in America. For those conservatives who see immigration
as only a tool to attack the welfare state, they are
fixating on too narrow a part of the picture. A huge issue
will be left unattended by an important wing of America's
intellectual field.
Immigration issues are dramatically affecting all
phases of American society, driving a deep self-analysis of
who and what we are — and want to be. The rapidly-growing
pressure on America's borders has created an altered
sense of our vulnerability to outside forces in controlling
our destiny, and in passing on to future generations a
nation with the same qualities as those we inherited from
our ancestors.
Rather than rely on outmoded myths of the past, or
create new ones out of the future, conservatives like Unz
should engage the issue directly on its own merits: Why
do we need immigration? If we do, how do current policies
reflect the need? If we don't need immigration, why
have it? This is the real debate on immigration. Let it
begin.
— Daniel A. Stein
Executive Director
Federation for American Immigration Reform
Washington, D.C.
Ron K. Unz Responds;
JL he basic thesis of my Policy Revieiu article was a simple
one: that immigration has generally been a good thing
for America over the years, but that the recent leftist
policies of multiculturalism, bilingualism, affirmative action,
and welfare dependency are severe threats to our
society, with or without immigration. My position probably
represented the widely accepted mainstream of conservative
thought just four or five years ago, and few facts
have changed since then. I suggest that the enormous
hostility this position provoked demonstrates the nearhysteria
gripping all too many anti-immigration intellectuals.
I will do my best to respond with as much common
sense as possible.
Although Lawrence Auster is free to indulge his hyperbolic
rhetoric — exemplified by the title of his 1990 book
on immigration, The Path to National Suicide—he should
be more careful of his facts. That a few political activists
in San Jose (peacefully) protested an allegedly "insensitive"
public statue in 1990 (not 1992) is hardly a sign of
significant ethnic conflict, and it was actually the Anglo
multiculturalist liberals controlling the city council who
chose to waste $500,000 on a statue of an Aztec pagan god.
This latter statue has actually aroused much criticism
among San Jose's large Hispanic immigrant community,
who are overwhelmingly pious Catholics or Evangelical
Protestants; they are as eager to worship Quetzalcoatl as
an American of Auster's (likely) German heritage worships
Thor or Odin. These immigrants might have preferred,
say, a Catholic Saint such as Our Lady of
Guadaloupe as the subject, but while the (Anglo) ACLU
"I STAND BY MY VIEW THAT
OUR WELFARE SYSTEM IS A
MAJOR CAUSE OF OUR SOCIAL
," - RON K, UNZ
has no problems with spending public money on statues
of pagan gods, it would obviously never permit religious
images in the town square. I belabor the point because
the story of the Quetzalcoatl statue has received much
national attention, and local nuances are often lost across
3,000 miles.
Similarly, the display of Mexican flags by the anti-187
marchers was a political blunder, but not all that different
from the display of Irish flags during St. Patrick's Day
marches, or various other forms of traditional ethnic
American pride. More than a few of the protesters were
proud Mexican-American veterans who attended the rally
with their U.S. Army medals, decrying what they (rightly)
perceived as the anti-Mexican rhetoric of many pro-187
activists. In fact, Los Angeles's Mexican-American community
has among the nation's highest rates of military
service, and is enormously patriotic on national defense
issues.
Prof. Briggs's criticisms are far more tempered, but I
believe that they are mistaken all the same. The decline
of European immigration datingfrom 1914was obviously
caused largely by the outbreak of war and its disruptive
aftermath, which were soon followed by the harsh Immigration
Restriction Act of 1924. The Great Depression
which began a few years later hardly proves that restrictionist
policies guarantee jobs and prosperity. Furthermore,
the enormous human capital of the German and
Eastern European Jews, who would have fled to America
in the 1930s, was certainly lost to our nation, with the
notable immigrant exceptions of Albert Einstein and
most of the other fathers of our A-Bomb program.
Turning to post-1965 immigration, a very substantial
fraction of these immigrants demonstrate exactly those
high cognitive abilities which Prof. Briggs argues are so
important to our economy. The great prevalence of these
immigrants and their children as winners of academic
and science competitions, as students and faculty members
at our finest universities, and as leading employees
Winter 1995 93

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