The Quote Below: More Misinformation from the Media:
“There is no issue as representative of the moral and intellectual decline of the Republican Party as immigration. The GOP has gone from the party of economic growth and innovation (for which legal immigration is essential), optimism (not Malthusian economics, which posits every new American uses up scarce resources) . . . .
“President George W. Bush was a fierce advocate of immigration reform, as he and his wife Laura Bush reminded at a naturalization ceremony on Monday. “We’re a state that thrives due to the prosperity, ingenuity, transformation, and generosity of immigrants. And we are a much richer state for all the cultures that have settled on our land,” Laura Bush said. . . .
“Unlike the president, who wants to keep out immigrants form “s—hole countries to keep America white, she reminds us that new immigrants become just as much a part of America as past immigrants. . . . Bush gave voice to what a responsible immigration debate should sound like:
“‘America’s elected representatives have a duty to regulate who comes in and when. In meeting this responsibility, it helps to remember that America’s immigrant history made us who we are. Amid all the complications of policy, may we never forget that immigration is a blessing and a strength. . . .’ He concluded by expressing regret he didn’t achieve his goal of passing immigration reform.
“Those sentiments, which echo the foundational creed of America (“All men are created equal…” ) have no place in the Trumpized GOP. On this issue alone, the GOP has lost many of us who subscribed to the believe that free markets, robust immigration and inclusiveness made the secret sauce for American success.” – Presidents Don’t Always Embarrass Us When Talking About Immigration, Jennifer Rubin, The Salt Lake Tribune, 3/19/19 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: Former President George W. Bush, a man of limited intellect, is hardly one to cite as an authority on immigration or anything else. One of Bush’s lasting legacies was involving us in a pointless war with Iraq based on lies about “weapons of mass destruction.” What he tried to do with immigration would have been ruinous too if it had passed. His plan was amnesty for almost all of the illegal aliens in the U.S. while making mass legal immigration even more massive.
It is easy for social and economic elites like the Bushes to rhapsodize about immigration without any concern about its quantity or quality. They see only the upsides for their class—a steady supply of cheap and docile servants, tony ethnic restaurants, and unending cheap labor for their friends in business. Their privilege and insulation make them clueless to the negative impact of excessive immigration on the rest of society—divisive diversity that undermines social cohesion, suppression of wages and economic opportunity (particularly for disadvantaged Americans), environmental degradation, and depletion of resources. If Rubin thinks that water, for example, is not a scarce resource, she should take a tour of our western states.
To say that immigration is always good is as mindless as saying that water is always good—as if there is no difference between a body of fresh water contained in a reservoir and a tidal wave of ocean brine surging over the land.
Again, the key issues are quantity and quality. In terms of quantity, do we as a developed country need an unending tidal wave of legal immigration, averaging more than a million a year for the past thirty years—the highest sustained level in our history. Do we want to lose all our wide-open spaces and experience the congestion of overcrowded countries like China or India? As for quality, should we be taking so many people from dysfunctional countries? President Trump allegedly called them s—holes. If he did, that was excessively crude, but the point is valid.
If we take too many people from failed cultures, those cultures will shape our culture for the worse. Our ability to assimilate immigrants is not limitless. When Thomas Jefferson wrote about men being “created equal,” he apparently was referring to aristocrats and non-aristocrats. Nothing indicates that he ever believed that all cultures were equal.
Rubin’s claim that we need mass immigration to be innovative and prosperous is patently false. Between 1924 to 1965, we had limited immigration—and the greatest economic advances in our history. Its outstanding achievement was a vibrant middle-class society. In terms of technology, we went from propeller-driven bi-planes to the threshold of a moon landing.
Today after decades of mass immigration our middle class is shrinking, and we’re losing our technological edge. There is a reason Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” resonates with so many people. Without a doubt, we’re not as great as we were. Reckless and unending mass immigration is one of the reasons.