More Misinformation from the Media:
The Trump Administration likes to justify its multi-front crusade against immigration and immigrants a revival of the rule of law or . . . to favor disadvantaged American workers. In fact, it is largely a resurrection of xenophobia that coincides with a spike, nearly 50 years in the making, of the number of foreign-born residents living in the United States. . . .
Most Americans opposed open borders; so do we. At a moment when immigrants are at their highest share of the population in a century—they now represent more than 13 percent of residents—it is legitimate to debate the numbers and types of people we should welcome to our shores.
Unfortunately, Mr. Trump has poisoned the debate on immigration so thoroughly that he has twisted the frame through which many Americans see the issue. His slurs – labeling Mexican immigrants as rapists . . . . are affronts to U.S. tradition and values.
In some places, local government budgets have strained to provide services for immigrants, particularly public education, and the economic dislocation felt by many working-class Americans is a fact. But that dislocation is not mostly caused by immigrants. The United States is a more prosperous place today than it was before the surge in immigration, and immigrants have fed that prosperity. – Trump’s Crusade against Immigrants Is an Attack on America, Editorial Board, Washington Post, 12/3/17 [Link]
Fact Check: The president’s proposals are not a “crusade” against immigrants and immigration. He simply proposes to enforce immigration laws and reduce the level of legal immigration, now at the highest sustained level in our history. It’s a move which could help immigrants already here by sparing them competition for jobs and other opportunities. A “resurrection of xenophobia,” to say the least, is rhetorical overkill.
The Post’s claim that it’s against open borders rings somewhat hollow in light of its strident support of mass amnesty for illegal immigration. If you reward illegal immigration, as the past shows, then you will attract more illegal border crossers in hope that they too can be so rewarded.
The claim that President Trump has “poisoned” the debate on immigration with “slurs” is absurd. He did not say all Mexican immigrants (presumably legal and illegal) were rapists. What he said was that some illegal aliens were dangerous criminals, including rapists. This characterization was a needed correction to balance the common media portrayal of illegal aliens as wonderful, hard-working, good-hearted people. The president’s concerns for the safety of American citizens hardly qualify as “affronts to U.S. traditions and values.”
Unlike most pro-immigration columns and editorials, this one does concede that mass immigration does have some downsides. Perhaps this is to give the appearance of fairness. In any case, the editorialists are quick to add that the benefits of mass immigration far outweigh its liabilities.
If that is the case we might look at the state of California, the trend-setting state of the union. As the state with highest number and percentage of immigrants, it should be a test case of whether mass immigration has “fed” prosperity. Before the current wave of immigration began to surge in the seventies, California was already a prosperous middle-class state, with abundant opportunities for economic advancement. So has it become even more prosperous after decades of large-scale immigration?
In fact the exact opposite has happened. Today California resembles more and more the classic profile of a Third World society, with a relatively few rich people at the top, lots of poor below them—and not many in between. The state has the highest poverty rate in the nation. One reason for the economic decline is that leftist Democrats have an iron grip on politics in California, and they have created a difficult climate for business. As a consequence, many businesses have fled the state. Immigrants are a key Democratic constituency.
The general quality of life in California has declined since the advent of mass immigration. Overcrowding and traffic gridlock have increased, while excessive diversity has made life more stressful for many Californians.
The Post and other media won’t relent from their false narratives about the supposed benefits of mass immigration. It is they who truly poison the immigration debate.