When my family came to the United States from Cuba, my father took my sister and me aside.
“We are now guests in this country which was generous enough to invite us,” he said. “Act in consequence.” We got the message. Not only did we have to respect American laws and customs, but we also had to behave with the kind of courtesy and respect that one would show when visiting someone else’s home.
Several years later, I watched a televised conversation between President Barack Obama and a group of young people who referred to themselves as “dreamers” – a term I had never heard before.
The Dreamers, I learned, were undocumented aliens who had been brought to the United States as minors and had certain protections from deportation. On television, they didn’t behave like guests. They were full of grievances and accusations, making insistent demands of the president. For his part, Obama was defensive and apologetic.
Ten years later, we watch as another president, Joe Biden, issues an abject public apology for using the words “illegal migrant” about someone who entered the country in defiance of the law. This person, I see, wasted no time in courtesy or respect. He was a cruel criminal who, once inside our borders, committed rape and murder. Yet he still possessed the moral authority to force the president to apologize.
Something fundamental has changed since I received my father’s reprimand.
We are a nation of immigrants. It has always been so. When I arrived here, I was surprised to find that my best friend’s mother was Welsh and his grandfather was German. My second best friend’s mother was a cockney from London who barely spoke English. Everyone had family from elsewhere.
But what is an immigrant? I can offer a personal perspective. An immigrant, above all, is someone who forever abandons their home and voluntarily becomes a stranger in a foreign land.
It is a painful decision, made for only the most powerful reasons: tyranny, in the case of my family, or scarcity, in the case of so many arriving today.
There is grief and loss, of course, but the immigrant is not a desperate creature. Having made a traumatic break with the past, he is transported into the realm of hope and faith, a child of adventure, a full-time settler in the future.
The immigrant cannot avoid the shock of novelty: new language, new culture, new climate. (I remember the thrill of watching snow fall for the first time.) Every moment poses the question of how far the old ways should be preserved. Much depends on each individual. My younger sister seemed to have just stepped off the plane, already speaking perfect English and acting totally American. It took me a little longer to figure things out.
It depends much more on the host country. Many governments today favor the Jewish ghetto approach to immigrants. Newcomers are essentially told, “You are free to be yourself – as long as you do it away from us.” »
Huge enclaves of refugees from destroyed countries, with their children and grandchildren, have been carved out in certain regions of Europe, for example in the suburbs of Paris, in entire neighborhoods of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and in a large part of the city of Malmö, Sweden. .
Retrospective approach
Everywhere, old ways have been dissolved by crime and violence — and residents are united only by their implacable hostility to the new ways of the host country. The modern ghetto produces nihilism.
Europe’s immigration failures highlight the brilliance of the traditional American approach.
Here, historically, immigrants have been faced with a different proposition: “You can be like the Amish, you can fit into the mainstream, or you can be anything in between.” Your choice.” The way forward is wide open.
Most of us are evolving into this variable-geometry organism: the hyphenated human. To be Cuban-American is not to be one thing or the other, but to feel both very intensely. It’s twice as fun.
The traditional message implicitly contained an invitation: work hard and succeed. When the Cubans arrived in Miami during the Cold War, they were expected to become another success story.
The virtue or merit of being a “victim group” was given no consideration. Immigrants to this country are granted citizenship in a solemn swearing-in ceremony. As at a wedding, the participants are often moved to tears.
The oath itself imposes a heavy responsibility: the new citizen pledges to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” I think this responsibility is assumed with enthusiasm. Between the immigrant and American society, a protective bond is forged. Whenever the United States is criticized, or compared unfavorably to other countries, or accused of injustice and racism, you will find immigrants, who know better, in the front ranks of defenders.
It is a process perverted by illegality. When you come in violation of the “laws of the United States of America,” you can have no other relationship with the society you live in than one of fear and lies.
As we learned during Prohibition, any illegal sourcing system, by its very nature, will be controlled, exploited and abused by criminals. The same goes for illegal immigration. Criminal “mules” transport people and drugs into the country. Criminal “influencers” spread information about America’s weak spots, where the profits are greatest and easiest to obtain. In cities like San Francisco, criminal traffickers operate the open market fentanyl trade.
Operating situation
And make no mistake: it is the ordinary migrant, desperate and unprotected, who suffers, sometimes to the point of death, at the hands of these hardened cases.
But isn’t it true – as the sign in my neighbor’s yard says – that “no humans are illegal”? This question can only be answered with another: what is a country, anyway? If, as some brilliant minds have suggested, a country is nothing more than an “imagined community,” then we can easily forget questions of borders, status and legality.
But if a country is a specific territory subject to a single constitution and legal system, with a shared memory and a common plan for the future, then the concepts of legality and illegality are not so difficult to understand.
If your first act upon arriving in the United States is to violate our immigration laws, then you are here illegally. It’s that simple. Joe Biden may find the term too offensive, even for a murderer – but my father, if he were still alive, would insist on its use, as would countless numbers of law-abiding immigrants on our shores. Yet we rarely hear about it.
The illegal immigration business is rotten by hypocrisy. Politicians like Biden, who believe in and promote open borders, impose strict demands for perfect “fairness” in American society – and then allow millions of people into the country whose Life is controlled by necessity, in a way reminiscent of the medieval serf.
Once again, let me state the obvious: the illegal migrant is a totally dependent soul – dependent on the criminal class, dependent on underpaid bosses, but above all dependent on the arbitrary power and largesse of the federal government. Each of these entities benefits from dominating the powerless peasantry. Everyone is conspiring to perpetuate this cruel and undemocratic relationship.
So the flood of humanity continues to flow – the exact number is unknown, but no one disputes that it is in the millions and is unprecedented in our lifetime. Interestingly, this disaster initially sparked celebration in progressive circles, as it seemed to be the final defeat of Donald Trump’s restrictive policies.
Then progressive cities like New York and Chicago were overwhelmed by the tide of migration.
Where should the arriving hordes be housed – and who should pay? What about the benefits in terms of health and schooling for their children? What is their employment status – and should they be allowed to accept jobs from local residents?
Responses were ad hoc and inadequate. At great cost, large populations of migrants, without settled status, have been deposited within our urban centers, but outside the framework of American life. These arrangements resemble European ghettos and are likely to breed the same type of resentment, alienation and criminality.
Mismanagement
This is a remarkable example of political stupidity on the part of the Biden administration to open the migrant floodgates without thinking about how to deal with the consequences. The blowback was severe. Immigration has gone from a boring talking point for Republicans to one of the most pressing issues for the American public in the 2024 elections.
Voters hold Biden responsible for the mess, and rightly so. This has nothing to do with a progressive triumph — in fact, one can hardly imagine a policy more conducive to boosting Trump’s chances of returning to the White House.
How then to proceed? I think the first step is to once again distinguish between legal and illegal migrants. It should not be easier or faster to cross the Mexican border than to acquire legal residency.
Given our history, the approach to legal immigration must be generous in both numbers and diversity of national origin. As a country, however, we have an interest in ensuring that migrants are integrated into the different layers of American society.
Author Reihan Salam has assembled compelling evidence demonstrating that educated migrants have little difficulty assimilating into what he calls the “middle-class melting pot.” The legal system should therefore prioritize educated migrants, who also bring the necessary skills and expertise.
The goal should be to enshrine the trajectory many of us have traditionally followed: from foreigner to citizen and from indifference to loyalty and love of country. This won’t happen until illegal flooding is stopped.
With the current senseless drift, we are massively importing poverty. Ordinary migrants suffer; so do marginalized Americans. The cohesion of Salam’s “middle-class melting pot” is under threat. Only criminals and exploiters benefit.
We are busy sowing chaos and misery and we are likely to reap as our reward a permanently alienated underclass.
Why on earth would we do this to ourselves?
New York Post
