Retreating into our Shells

Friday, October 20th, 2006 11:42 am by Neal

This week we heard that the 300 millionth occupant of America was either born (to a legal citizen or illegal alien) or sneaked across the border. Like many folks, I’m not celebrating.

Don’t miss Pat Buchanan’s article, “America 2050: A Nation of Turtles,” on today’s townhall.com. Buchanan is one of the most consistent voices on the US immigration disaster, and this essay shows how long we’ve been dealing with this problem and what lies ahead if we don’t fix it.

We have 300 million here today only because the government of the United States refuses to enforce our immigration laws and the people were misled or lied to when the Immigration Act of 1965 was passed.

Who was the chairman of the subcommittee that conducted the hearings? Edward M. Kennedy. And what did Sen. Kennedy promise? Here are his own words of four decades ago:

“(O)ur cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same. … The ethnic mix of this country will not be upset. … Contrary to the charges in some quarters, S. 500 will not inundate America with immigrants from any other country or area, or the most populated and economically deprived nations of Africa and Asia.”

Only haters would make such assertions, Kennedy thundered. “The charges I have mentioned are highly emotional, irrational and with little foundation in fact. They are out of line with the obligations of responsible citizenship. They breed hate of our heritage.”

How good were the senator’s assurances?

Today, we have 36 million immigrants and their children here, some 90 percent from Third World nations whose peoples have never before been assimilated into a First World nation. A third, 12 million, are here in violation of our laws.

Most of those coming now are poor and uneducated, and are unable to speak our language. Some do not wish to become Americans. But they are sending our crime, poverty and disease rates skyward, and pulling U.S. academic scores down toward Third World levels.

But what is most significant about these deep and irreversible alterations in the character of the nation is that the American people never voted for it and do not want it. It is being imposed from above, anti-democratically, by a regime that refuses to enforce our laws and is now at virtual war with the American people.

Though immigration is the hottest domestic issue in 2006, and every candidate in a close race is taking a hard line on border security — even Hillary Clinton voted for 700 miles of security fence — the will of the people is ignored. According to a poll released Monday by The Center for Immigration Studies, 68 percent of Americans say immigration is too high. Only 2 percent believe it is too low. Yet the McCain-Kennedy-Bush bill would have granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and doubled the number of legal immigrants.

The failure to restrict immigration so the Melting Pot can work, the refusal to seal the border despite what America wants, suggests ours has ceased to be a democratic republic. “Here, sir, the people rule!” used to be a proud boast. Today, the line is laughable.

Read the rest of the article to find out why America will become a country of turtles if this trend continues.

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