August 19, 2005

Why the Democrats won't oppose illegal immigration

Mark Krikorian paints a bleak picture in "Liberal Two-Step: Dems pay lip service only on border control", outlining the interest groups that favor massive legal and illegal immigration, including:

- the environmental establishment
- the ACLU
- Big Labor
- the black establishment
- the race groups

Here's the ACLU bit:

The group refused an open-and-shut free speech case in New York City — because it was about limiting immigration. In 1999, an immigration-control group named Project USA started putting up billboards in New York with pictures of two children with the inoffensive (and accurate) caption, "Immigration is doubling US population in our lifetimes," citing the Census Bureau as the source. City officials threatened the billboard companies with financial retaliation if they weren't taken down immediately, and the companies caved. One staff attorney told Project USA privately that the ACLU couldn't take such an obvious free-speech case because "there is a large and growing immigrants' rights faction within the organization."

Posted to Immigration2005b at August 19, 2005 04:37 PM

Comments

Can someone explain to me why the "environmental establishment" supports high immigration levels? It is an equation as simple as 2+2=4 that population growth puts increased pressure on the environment.

Posted by: perroazul del norte at August 19, 2005 10:24 PM

As a matter of fact, I can. In most cases, it is political correctness, the McCarthyism of our time.

Posted by: D Flinchum at August 20, 2005 06:09 AM

"it is political correctness"

Yes, I think this is a big part of it: wanting or needing to feel morally superior by appearing to favor helping the poor brown people who want to come to America.

And it is still pretty powerful, make no mistake about it.

Where there is a want of logic, it still fills the bill pretty nicely: nothing shuts people up or keeps them silent like the scare words "racist" and/or "xenophobe".

Posted by: eh at August 20, 2005 09:06 AM

Can someone explain to me why the "environmental establishment" supports high immigration levels?

In addition to PC, those groups are part of the left, they join with other left-wing groups, and they receive funding from left-wing foundations. And, in the case of the Sierra Club there are 100 million reasons why not.

Posted by: The Lonewacko Blog at August 20, 2005 12:57 PM

eh, you are right in your assessment: "wanting or needing to feel morally superior by appearing to favor helping the poor brown people who want to come to America."

However, the flip side is that these same people are almost always in a position to be far removed from the natural consequences of their political correctness. Their kids are in private school or in a school district where only well-off folks can live. Their houses are not near the day laborer sites. They are not seeing their jobs disappear or their wages depressed as a result of a massive influx of cheap labor. It's all a cheap way to feel morally superior. It's the left's version of "chicken hawks" - rich folks who favor sending somebody else or their kids to die in a war while they and their own kids are safe at home.

Posted by: D Flinchum at August 20, 2005 12:59 PM

I think that there is a division in the Environmental movement that some feel that they should speak out against illegal immigration. I know that the head of the Sierra club said that he didn't want to speak out about illegal immigration because it got away from their main message. But I also think that alot of it is PC, people are afraid to speak out when they are quickly accused of being rascist of Xenophobe, just like you said. I think that they are dead wrong because if you see pictures of the garbage and destruction down on the border regions,for example, it is an outrage and they need to speak out about it. Plus all the extra population and overcrowding this is causing. Around here all the farm land is dissapearing.

Posted by: Debbie at August 20, 2005 04:11 PM