Login / RegisterGwynne Dyer: Why the U.S. opened its doors to mass immigration
What if China, flush with its new wealth, opened its doors to mass immigration? It would make sense from an economic and social point of view, because its one-child-per-family policy has produced a young generation far smaller than the one that now does most of the work. China’s population is “aging” (i.e. its average age is going up) faster than any other country in history, and it could certainly do with some more young people.
If it had an immigration policy like that of the United States, it could fill all the gaping holes in the workforce that will open up when the present adult generation retires, and there would be enough people working and paying taxes to support that older generation in its “golden years”. Otherwise, there will be barely one worker for each retiree, and their post-retirement years will be far from golden.
So let’s suppose China opens the gates. (Stay with me on this.) The immigrants would come, from all over the world. Probably most would be from south and south-east Asia (India, Pakistan, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines), but plenty of Russians would come too. So would Arabs from the slums of Cairo, and Congolese from the slums of Kinshasa, and Mexicans fleeing the bloody war on drugs.
There would be young Europeans coming too, fleeing the 25-to-50 percent youth unemployment rates of Spain, Italy, and Greece. Some Americans would also come, like former automobile workers from Rust-Belt states hoping that their skills would find employment in what is now the world’s biggest car-maker. China’s politics wouldn’t deter them; they have already tried being free and poor, and some of them would be willing to trade.
They would all come, and China would be transformed. In 50 or 60 years it would be one of the world’s most diverse societies. Almost all the new immigrants would learn to speak some Chinese, of course, but their children would be fluent in the language. Indeed, they would think of themselves as Chinese, even though their skins were white, brown, or black and their religions Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, or Hindu.
Some tens of millions of them would already have intermarried with ethnic Chinese, if only because there are tens of millions of young Chinese men who will otherwise remain unmarried. (The Chinese have been killing too many of their baby girls.) And everybody would live more or less happily ever after.
I know. It’s never going to happen, because the Chinese would never let it happen. But that’s precisely the point. The Americans have let it happen. Why?
I’m not saying it is a bad thing. Personally, I like it. But it is an extraordinary thing. Sixty years ago the United States was a country whose population was overwhelmingly of white European descent. The only really big minority was the black and mixed-race descendants of African slaves, who accounted for about one-eighth of the population. And then the United States opened the gates very wide.
Last month, the U.S. Census Bureau revealed that non-white births in the country narrowly exceeded the number of births to white Americans for the first time. There are some curious kinks in the statistics, such as the fact that Spanish-speaking whites are not counted as white, but the message is clear: the next adult generation in the United States will not be majority white.
So why did the last two generations of Americans, who were still mostly of European descent, let it happen? Did they welcome and encourage it, as a good thing for the country’s future? Or were they just asleep at the wheel?
Some Americans certainly did encourage it, arguing that turning the United States into a microcosm of the whole world was fulfilling its destiny, and that the sheer diversity of its future population would give it a huge competitive advantage in the world. But there were not many people who made that argument, and there is actually little evidence to show that ethnic diversity makes a country more competitive.
Nor did this immense change happen while the old white population was just not paying attention. There were debates about immigration policy all the time, there was plenty of information about where the current immigration policy was leading, and Americans simply let it happen.
One explanation that sounds plausible is that it was about fairness. As descendants of immigrants themselves, they felt that they could not deny others the same opportunities. Many older white Americans were clearly uneasy about the new social reality that was springing up around them, but most of them remained true to their ideals and never mobilised to stop it.
Maybe the last two generations of Americans were a lot less racist than many people—including many Americans—thought. Or perhaps they were all silently aware that only 500 years ago, none of the births in North America were white.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus, 1883
Tea Party State Treasurer Mourdock unseated Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, as he had approved of illegal alien amnesty. Senator Lugar believed that illegal immigrants should have the same rights as citizens and law-abiding legal residents. Moudock stated that he will fight to secure our borders and ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent only on those legally allowed to live in the United States. Lugar had a long record of fighting for amnesty for illegal immigrants and was a primary sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would have fast-tracked amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants nationwide. Never before has a political membership in modern times, sprouted with such gigantic influence from the Republican Party in the millions. Liberal Democrats have a fight on their hands, from the Tea Party roots in our Democracy, founded on the U.S. constitution and representing all the people, not just the special interests.
Investigate who are the good guys are and pro-sovereignty organization such as ALIPAC. The U.S. Constitutional TEA PARTY is baring its fangs, against any election contender who is a pro-illegal immigrant politician. Also remember there is an ugly battle brewing over non-citizens voting in any ongoing election, federal or state. The TEA PARTY will promote the issuance of some form of official picture ID, so only eligible citizens can vote.
As for the US, as long as the foreign policy is dictated by the military-industrial complex, the US will not be able to garner world respect.
The irony is , is that US Dollar is still the default currency and the Feds can print as much as Congress allows.
Both China and India have a ways to go, in terms of social infrastructure.
It is going to take another 30 years or so before there are real changes in the BRICS countries.
In a decade or so, Canada will be the beacon of democracy that the rest of the world will look to.
Oh, and Harper will be out of politics and the Conservatives will lose their standing with the voting citizens of Canada.
Canada needs to look to the East and to points south of the US as well.
Just saying.. ping pong anyone?
I don’t imagine that any White native born American from that era would have welcomed this if they could see what sort of demographic nightmare their country has become.
Any nation seeking to race-replace its native born population through massive Third World immigration is hardly great in my books. And that poem by Lazarus has been falsely associated with American principles. There is absolutely NOTHING in the original Declaration Of Independence, Bill Of Rights, or any writings of the Founding Fathers to indicate that the United States was to be the world’s dumping ground for the masses of wretched refuse.
The founding fathers were from "wretched" stock look ad Ben Franklin for example...
Franklin's father, Josiah Franklin was a tallow chandler, a soap-maker and a candle-maker. Josiah was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England, on December 23, 1657, the son of Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith-farmer, and Jane White. His mother, Abiah Folger, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15, 1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher and his wife Mary Morrill, a former indentured servant.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"
This phrase is commonly attributed to the Constitution, but it comes from the Declaration of Independence.
Immigration
The Constitution never uses the word immigration, so how is it that the rules for immigrants, and quotas for countries, are set by the federal government and not by the state governments? After all, as the 10th Amendment states, are the powers not delegated to the United States held by the states, or the people?
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Congressional power to regulate naturalization, from Article 1, Section 8, includes the power to regulate immigration (see, for example, Hampton v. Mow Sun Wong, 426 U.S. 88 [1976]). It would not make sense to allow Congress to pass laws to determine how an immigrant becomes a naturalized resident if the Congress cannot determine how, or even if, that immigrant can come into the country in the first place.
*** Just because the Constitution lacks the word immigration does not mean that it lacks the concept of immigration. ***
There is also an argument that immigration is an implied power of any sovereign nation, and as such, the federal government has the power to regulate immigration because the United States is a sovereign nation.
While it is true that the United States is a sovereign nation, and it may be true that all sovereign nations have some powers inherent in that status, it is not necessary to determine if immigration is such a power that does not even require constitutional mention, because the Naturalization Clause handles the power.
Citation Reference...
Mount, Steve. "Constitutional Topic: Martial Law." USConstitution.net. 30 Nov 2001. http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_mlaw.html (3 Dec 2001)
Furthermore it is the policy of the US Government (any Administration) to give out Green Cards via Lottery to the so called "wretched / Refuse" because there is a better life and a chance of success in "America".
It is one of the few Western Countries to give out Immigrant Visas via Lottery to the Poor and disadvantage of our Planet.
The Constitution applies to "non-citizens"...
The Supreme Court has become a live battleground for these two worldviews, as evidenced by two of its decisions last term, Feldman told his audience in Langdell Hall’s Caspersen Room.
One of the cases—Boumediene v. Bush—took place against the backdrop of the detentions of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The detainees were being held there because, Feldman said, the Bush administration’s lawyers were confident that detainees there would not enjoy constitutional rights. But the Court’s decision in Boumediene repudiated that attempt. The majority, led by Justice Kennedy, announced that for constitutional purposes, Guantánamo Bay was part of the United States. In effect, Kennedy’s opinion rejected what the Bush administration had claimed to be the rule that noncitizens held outside the United States were not entitled to constitutional protection.
Citation....
http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/spotlight/ils/feldman_lecture.html
Exploring the Supreme Court’s role in foreign policy, Noah Feldman argues against unilateralism in the law
After 1945 the United States found itself the world's dominant power, with the Soviet Union its only real rival. Not just a military rival, but an ideological one as well: we tend to forget today that Communism in a number of Western countries (France, Italy, Portugal) enjoyed real popular support after 1945, and genuine hard-core Communist parties stood a real chance of getting elected in those three countries.
Furthermore, with the collapse of European Colonial Empires scores of new states, with non-European elites, were being courted by the Americans and the Soviets alike.
In such an international environment it was obvious that American racism was a HUGE obstacle, especially considering the explicitly universalist pretensions of Communism: the latter certainly seemed a far more desirable ideal (from afar, of course!) to anyone who had seen German and Japanese racism up close during World War II. Read Jean-Paul Sartre's LA PUTAIN RESPECTUEUSE for a (very good) indictment of American racism: compared to this an ideology which explicitly proclaims the equality of all (workers, actually), regardless of color or country, looked attractive indeed.
Now, the American elite wasn't stupid: I believe it was Hubert Humphrey who, immediately after World War II, stressed that the social and legal status of American blacks was a huge disadvantage when it came to American credibility in the world.
So, the answer? First, desegregation. Two, an open and color-blind immigration policy (the two were enacted at about the same time, which does suggest a common root cause, doesn't it?). The latter policy was especially useful in strengthening the ties between the United States and various client states, whose elites often owed their survival to the continuous export of their unemployed surplus population to the United States, thereby staving off any revolution (Mexico is a textbook example of this, but the same model applies to a number of other Latin American, West Indian and Pacific island states).
Of course, from the client states' vantage point whether the emigrants entered the United States legally or illegally was irrelevant: they wanted to get rid of them. On the other side of the border, however, American Big Business found and finds it convenient indeed to have a worforce of illegal immigrants within the United States that can be paid and treated like the plantation slaves of yore. Which I suspect goes a long way in explaining the rapid growth, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of immigrants, of illegal immigrants in the United States between 1945 and 1990. Black America did progress spectacularly during this time period, or so it would have seemed to the casual observer.
If the above scenario is correct then we would expect that the post-cold war United States would be a country where illegal immigration would keep growing (correct: the end of the cold war did nothing to loosen the grip of Big Business in the United States, quite the contrary!) and where the social and economic gains of blacks would basically be reversed (also correct: in the absence of a rival universalist ideology the (white) American elite no longer needed to pretend it thought of black America as anything except an annoyance).
Is this a good or a bad thing? I'll say bad: there is no way in which the (non-elite) American native-born have tangibly gained anything from post-1965 immigration, and indeed illegal immigrants have certainly contributed to the stagnation of wages to working-class Americans (among whom black Americans remain sadly over-represented). And the total failure, on the part of the American nation, to durably and irreversibly integrate Black Americans is something which future generations of Americans will pay for dearly, I fear.
In America's first naturalization act, citizenship was limited to free white persons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790
How did this treacherous revolution come about in 1965? A white majority too feckless to fight and a determined Jewish lobby who loved their people more than their country.
Senator Jacob Javits, Congressman Emanuel Celler, former president of the American Jewish Committee Leo Pfeffer, and Norman Podhoretz advocated for open immigration in their writings and bills. The American Jewish Committee, the ACLU, and B'nai B'rith filed briefs in support of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
Why did they do so? First, the horrors of the Holocaust motivated them to seek safety in a plurality of nations. Second, the tactics of divide and rule were employed against the majority. If a minority wants to colonize a majority, they increase the power and numbers of the minority. This is empire building 101. The treachery of it all is beyond imagining. But it happened.
As for Native born are you referring to the Natives? The real indigenous peoples of the Americas both North and South.
By the way while there is a history of Race White Slave Owners on Black Slaves and the general destruction of Native Americans by Colonists.
One can not overlook the fact that...
(A) The US has elected a Black President (even though he is part white) and that probably won't happen in our life times in Canada.
(B) The US has largely reformed via legislation Racist Policies
(C) Canada is not pure as the Virgin Snow when it comes to Racist History
(D) The same " stagnation of wages" and Integration applies to minorities in Canada.
(E) In Canada the Government in 2012 has proposed a Law to allow Corporations to bring in "Temporary" Workers to take jobs from Canadians as LOWER Wages.
So the stagnation is alive and well in Canada as well.
So how do you like a Nanny from Asia taking your Timmy's Job now?
The same type of jobs that have historically funded Canadians early teen to university studies.
I guess we will simply have more Strippers and Hookers both male and female putting themselves through University than before :).
I love Strippers and Hookers I think they are great for the Economy.
Like Israel, our country was founded by settlers, not immigrants. There's a big difference. Settlers found a society. Immigrants are attracted to it. Disloyalty is always a bad thing, although loyalty is a virtue in short supply these days.
Sheeple-YOU are a brainwashed moron. When you change the people of a nation, you change the country, its' unique culture, language, laws and everything about it. China won't allow mass immigration because they, along with every other non-White nation, know that mass multiculturalism causes nothing but discord and conflict. The Chinese know that if mass immigration made them a minority in their own country, China would no longer be China. Only Whites are stupid and brainwashed enough to believe that they are "racist" if they don't allow themselves to be ethnically cleansed. Non-Whites aren't that stupid, that is why they allow little or no permanant immigration.
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