The Immigration Transformation

[4est_4est_Gump]

A rational immigration reform would attempt to reorient, not accelerate, current policy.
Mark Steyn, NRO

Most countries in the world have irrelevant numbers of “immigrants.” In the Americas, for example, only Canada, America, and the British West Indies have significant non-native populations. In Mexico, immigrants account for 0.6 percent of the population, and that generally negligible level prevails all the way down through Latin America until you hit a blip of 1.4 percent with Chile and 3.8 percent in Argentina. There’s an isolated exception in Belize, which, like the English Caribbean, has historical patterns of internal migration within the British Commonwealth, such as one sees, for example, in the number of New Zealand–born residents of Australia. But profound sweeping demographic transformation through immigration is a phenomenon only of the Western world in the modern era, and even there America leads the way.

Over 20 percent of all the immigrants on the planet are in the United States. The country’s foreign-born population has doubled in the last two decades to 40 million — officially. Which is the equivalent of Washington taking a decision to admit every single living Canadian, and throwing in the population of New Zealand as a bonus. Thank goodness they didn’t do that, eh? (Whoops.) Otherwise, America would have been subject to some hideous, freakish cultural transformation in which there would be hockey franchises in Florida, and Canadian banks on every street corner in New York trumpeting their obnoxious jingoistic slogans (“TD: America’s neighborhood bank”), and creepy little pop stars with weird foreign names like Justin and Carly Rae doing the jobs America’s teen heartthrobs won’t do. What a vile alien nightmare that would be to wake up in.

Not so very long ago, its national mythology notwithstanding, the United States was little different from most other countries. In 1970, its foreign-born population was 4.7 percent. And, while most of the West has embraced mass immigration in the last half-century, America differs significantly from those developed countries, like Canada and Australia, that favor skilled migrants. Personally, I don’t see what’s so enlightened and progressive about denuding Third World nations of their best and brightest to be your doctors and nurses, but it does demonstrate a certain ruthless self-interest. By contrast the majority of U.S. foreign-born residents now come from Latin America, and more than a quarter of them — 12 million — from Mexico. A policy of “family reunification” will by definition lead to low-skilled immigrants: An engineer or computer scientist is less likely to bring in an unending string of relatives — because his dad’s a millionaire businessman in Bangalore and his brother’s a barrister in London, and they’re both happy and prosperous where they are. Insofar as there is any economic benefit to mass immigration, it’s more than entirely wiped out by chain importation of elderly dependents and other clients for the Big Government state.

So any rational immigration reform that respected the interests of the American people would attempt to reorient present policy. Instead, the Gang of Eight’s bill will cement it, and accelerate it. According to Numbers USA, if the immigration bill passed, it would increase the legal population of the United States by 33 million in its first decade. That figure includes 11.7 million amnestied illegals and their children, plus 17 million family members imported through chain migration, with a few software designers on business visas to round out the numbers.

Thirty-three million is like importing the entire population of Canada . . . oh, wait, we did that shtick three paragraphs ago. Okay, if you’re black, look at it this way: The demographic clout it took you guys four centuries to amass can now be accomplished overnight at a stroke of Chuck Schumer’s and Lindsey Graham’s pens. And, if you belong to the 40 percent of Americans who’ll be encountering many of these “chain migrants” in the application line for low-skilled service jobs, isn’t it great to know that in this gangbusters economy you’re going to have to pedal even faster just to go nowhere?

 

[mercury14]

If illegal immigrants weren't already here doing work the author might have a point.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Shut the Fuck Up merc! We all have you on ignore.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

My stock exhaust manifolds are getting ready to emigrate somewhere . . . I hope for recycling.


The new immigrants:

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

You got da curves baybee,
I got dee angles...

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I can hardly wait for the banged-up knuckles and the crap falling into my eyes.


I have my torch, I have my reciprocating saw, I am all kinds of ready.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I'm picking up a side of beef for BBQ season.


Of course, I also just read an article on the beef-price inflation, so fingers crossed...

... let us just hope that that is Supermarket beef.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Surprisingly, I don't find car parts to be that badly inflated. Shit seemed way expensive 30 years ago and not so bad today.


Maybe it's because I have more Stimulus Dollars . . . .

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Maybe the lowered demand for parts for cars that are dead at 80,000 miles instead of just getting broken in...

 

[Wat_Tyler]

There are some dedicated motorheads who won't let them die, no matter what.


For example, who wouldn't want a '29 DeSoto with a 392 gen 1 Hemi for getting groceries?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Even my mule laughs at that.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

By mule, I do not mean a Mexican with a bale of pot on his way to Tucson...

 

[Saint Peter]

Paint the firewall.

Show some pride.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

My granddad had a '31 DeSoto roadster, so it gives me flashbacks of the good variety.


Hell, I'd take two.


It'd blow the flanks off'n a mule, insulted or not.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Grandpa was an Old Spice and Olds man...


454

 

[Phelia]

There are a few things I take issue with in that article, the first and foremost being that the author's jokes totally suck.

Anyway I think it's interesting that Silicon Valley has picked up immigration as a pet cause, Mark Zuckerberg specifically. It makes sense, of course - they want good engineers and they want to be able to pay them less. See fwd.us.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Mine drove a Packard until the day he died, literally.


They were both cooling off at the same time.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

There are a few things I take issue with in that article, the first and foremost being that the author's jokes totally suck.

Anyway I think it's interesting that Silicon Valley has picked up immigration as a pet cause, Mark Zuckerberg specifically. It makes sense, of course - they want good engineers and they want to be able to pay them less. See fwd.us.

He's been funnier, but look, the tribe went through the same thing when they let a few white people in the door and let themselves be "civilized."

They were then taught about Rome...

Mine drove a Packard until the day he died, literally.


They were both cooling off at the same time.

Too bad only the Packard can be restored.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Too bad only the Packard can be restored.

Mom says I am he, reincarnated.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Sorry, only Jesus gets to come back...



The border is politically unable to be secured.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Borders are inert and have no politix . . .


unless they are camping on my cough.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I did hear that Borders was going out of business...


People just do not read all that much about Rome anymore.

 

[Beco]

"It would modernise our legal immigration system so that we're able to reunite families " O'bama

First off, nobody asked illegal immigrants to leave their famiilies and come to the US, second, why is it the USA's job to reunite them?

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Couch, not cough.


That's okay, I got more coffee to fix that.


All the best engine books have to be found online anyway.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

"It would modernise our legal immigration system so that we're able to reunite families " O'bama

First off, nobody asked illegal immigrants to leave their famiilies and come to the US, second, why is it the USA's job to reunite them?

We need to do some Islamic reuniting and it feels so good!

Reuniting and we're understood!

Couch, not cough.


That's okay, I got more coffee to fix that.


All the best engine books have to be found online anyway.

I'm off to do some TKD and Kobudo...