Former NY Lt. Governor: A National Conversation Is “Urgently” Needed on Immigration

“You know, people say that demographics are not destiny,” said American “civil rights” attorney Judith Browne Dianis in 2019. “Well, we’re trying to make it destiny, so that’s the work that we are doing.”

Among those who already considered it destiny was late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, speaking in 2006. “There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe — without swords, without guns, without conquest,” he stated. “The 50 million [Muslims] in Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.”

Then there was a warning issued by the group Migration Watch UK, addressing how (im)migration is Britain’s main population-growth driver:

Rapid population growth will continue to have a significant impact on public service provision, from the queue for social housing … to hospital, maternity and GP services as well as education, the environment and transport.… Immigration may reduce access to social housing for the UK-born.

These statements were made in different countries and directly referenced different places and different implications of immigration. Different people will disagree, too, on whether the immigration referenced/alluded to is beneficial or detrimental. Yet all the statements share one commonality:

They all point to how immigration is a civilization-changing phenomenon. And you can view this truth as a good, bad, or neutral thing. But this is for sure:

It is a real thing.

Given this, shouldn’t we at least talk about it (that is, not just illegal migration, but legal immigration)?

In point of fact, is it not high time to have a serious national conversation on the subject?

More and more observers are calling for just that — and now a once-prominent blue-state politician has joined this chorus.

Get Swiss — Sort Of

Writing at the New York Post Friday, ex-New York Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey opens discussing Switzerland’s national immigration conversation. The country’s population has grown 25 percent since just 2000, mostly because of immigration. Despite this, its citizens just rejected a referendum that would’ve capped their population at 10 million by tamping down immigration. The reasons?

Among them were that most of Switzerland’s new arrivals are from neighboring European countries, not the Third World. Referendum opponents also argued that shutting borders would imperil their relations with the European Union, a major trading partner.

Of course, the United States’ conclusion on the question may be different because our immigration and needs are different. What’s for sure is that we must have that national conversation. Instead, though, and sadly, writes McCaughey,

our politics has been fixated on one polarizing, fringe issue — ICE and deportations — rather than on the real question: Who should we invite into the United States?

The current law, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, must be replaced with immigration standards that boost our economy and avoid dependence on public handouts.

A staggering 47% of US households headed by a noncitizen collect welfare benefits such as food assistance or Medicaid, per the Center for Immigration Studies. Ouch.

That’s almost double the dependence rate (28%) for households headed by someone born in America.

Americans are fed up with taking in newcomers who need to mooch. It’s not sustainable.

Part of the blame goes to our crazy immigration laws, which give preference to newcomers with family ties — a child or other relative already here — instead of job skills, education, English-speaking ability or interest in American civic life.

Congress needs to scrap those laws, enacted in 1965, and give the nation a merit immigration system that will boost the economy and spare taxpayers.

Note here that the 1965 legislation created a situation wherein 85 to 90 percent of our immigrants come from the Third World. This has caused a degree of national demographic change rarely seen outside of invasions.

The former lieutenant governor also puts an onus on Joe Biden’s open-borders policy. It greatly exacerbated our problems because, as with illegal migration generally, the aliens admitted were inordinately poor and uneducated. This explains a trend, too: In 2019, (im)migrant men earned 62 percent of what American-born men did. Now that figure is down to 52 percent.

So even when working, these (im)migrants’ lack of education and skills will ensure they remain part of a dependent class. Their presence will also have the effect of driving down American workers’ wages. It’s simply worker supply and demand.

It Gets Worse

After explaining all this, McCaughey wrote that the “Biden administration’s surge was nothing short of treasonous. Like napalming our towns and cities, leaving them with a growing dependent class and public debt.”

Consider here, however, that it’s only our towns if “our” references blue-collar America and not blue-voting rich America. Migrants are put in places such as Hazleton, Pennsylvania, changing their faces in perhaps a decade. They’re not put in Nancy Pelosi’s neighborhood and aren’t welcome in such locales. The 2022 Martha’s Vineyard “object lesson” demonstrated this wonderfully.

Moreover, the Post article understandably focuses on (im)migration’s economic implications because that’s as nonpartisan a framing as possible. People do, too, generally vote their pocketbooks. But much could be said beyond economics.

First, it’s now fairly well known why Democrats push (im)migration, even sometimes explicitly defending illegal migration. Upon naturalization (and sometimes before), a majority of (im)migrants will vote for them.

Second, our (im)migration rate long ago exceeded our assimilation rate. Thus are we

• pressing “one for English”;
• seeing 109 foreign languages that government documents can be translated into in California;
• saddled with bilingual/dual-language immersion programs and ethnic studies curricula that prioritize maintaining heritage languages and cultures;
• witnessing neighborhoods or cities where daily life, commerce, media, and social norms operate primarily in non-English languages; and
• seeing church bells increasingly replaced by the Islamic call to prayer (the adhan). This could already be happening in dozens of American localities.

Related to the latter, Hamtramck, Michigan, became in 2021 the first U.S. city where all elected officials are Muslim. (One of their subsequent actions was to ban the Left’s cherished “Pride” flag from public property.)

Worth Talking About — or Just Like the Weather?

Many will say, though, of course, that all the above are merely parts of the “beautiful tapestry of America.” All right, but can we talk about it, having that national conversation? Or is it somehow inevitable, like rainfall?

The good news is that, McCaughey points out, the ice (and not ICE, thankfully) on this matter is being broken. The border is now generally secure. Yet the public still considers immigration our top issue next to affordability and the economy. In fact, she recommends that Republicans in difficult midterm races run, in part, on this issue. And, as the ex-politician concludes, “Who we let in will determine how we prosper.”

It’s an existential matter for sure. And, hey, immigration doesn’t get nearly the ink “global warming” does. But know this: It’s infinitely easier to change than the climate.