Immigration has again become a contentious topic in the United States. As the Dallas Morning News reported, the latest flare-up over the issue comes as Mexican President Vicente Fox lobbies the White House to grant legal status to millions of aliens from his country. Although supporting such a policy may benefit President George W. Bush in next year’s election, he would do so to the detriment of this nation’s principles and unity.
The push for this alien legalization measure comes during a time of unprecedented levels of immigration. As the non-partisan Center for Immigration Studies reveals, in the last 32 years more than 30 million immigrants have come to the United States, now comprising 11.5 percent of the national population. This represents an enormous spike. In fact, if current rates of immigration continue, the CIS estimates that the foreign-born percentage of the population will soon surpass the all-time high of 14.8 percent reached in 1890.
These numbers should alarm anyone who cares about the future of this country. Many Americans may simply brush these statistics off, saying the United States was founded by immigrants to begin with. In today’s political climate, one even runs the risk of being branded a racist for declaring this a problem. However, anyone not blinded by the left wing’s vacuous mantra of multiculturalism and tolerance should recognize a serious problem developing if immigration is not slowed to allow for assimilation.
Consider the following scenario recounted on National Review Online: When a 4-year-old Spanish-speaking immigrant was asked his favorite color, he referred to the red Power Ranger character because he did not know the word for “red,” in Spanish or English. A teacher quoted in the article says, “It’s as if they don’t have a dominant language. They’re not bilingual. They’re alingual.”
The enormous influx of immigrants in recent decades has clouded the definition of American. Because there are so many members of certain nationalities coming to the United States each year, there is less of a need for them to learn English and assimilate into the American culture. Rather, many cities are areas that are almost exclusively populated by members of a given minority group.
Despite all the rhetoric about the supposed values of multiculturalism, this situation will only lead to unrest and disunity. For a society to live peacefully, members must enjoy some sort of a common identity. That is why naturalization is an essential part of any immigration policy, as the name of the Immigration and Naturalization Service implies.
This fact was not lost on previous generations of policymakers and citizens. After the immigration boom of the late 1800s, which resulted in many of the same problems emerging now, the Great Depression, World War I and new laws from Congress all resulted in reduced immigration levels. In addition, as Mark Krekorian of the CIS says, a conscious effort of “Americanization” was undertaken by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers. For example, Henry Ford sponsored English language classes for his employees.
The result was that the immigrants came to a better understanding of American culture at the time and influenced its development themselves. In short, these new generations of Americans grew up together to form a cohesive society. Children of immigrants came to see themselves as Americans first and embraced the institutions that allowed them to prosper. However, this was only possible because immigration was slowed down.
While some of the Revolutionaries responsible for founding this nation may not have shared a common background, they did share something more fundamental. They struggled together against a tyrant to secure the basic rights of man and establish the democratic institutions they all so vehemently believed in.
To preserve this society and everything it stands for, Congress later passed the Immigration and Nationality Act. As the Heritage Foundation reports, this act stipulated that any naturalized citizen must understand English and demonstrate “a knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of the history, and the principles and form of government, of the United States.”
Granting immediate legal status to millions of Mexican aliens is inconsistent with this mission. To fulfill these requirements and preserve the principles and unity of the United States, immigration must be slowed, just as it was after the previous peak in the late 19th century.