I
run hot and cold on Andrew Sullivan, but his analysis of U.S. immigration, refugee
status, and asylum is worth the read. The full article is here. This extract is
via Instapundit:
Take the tragic tale of Oscar
Ramirez and his young daughter Valeria, the father and daughter captured in
death in that heartbreaking photograph. Ramirez’s widow explained to the
Washington Post why her husband wanted to move to America: He wanted “a better
future for their girl.” This is an admirable goal, but it is classic economic
immigration, and it would appear, based on what we know, that it has absolutely
nothing to do with asylum. Here again is the United States Citizenship and
Immigration Services definition: “Refugee status or asylum may be granted to
people who have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of
race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or
political opinion.”
But somehow the courts have decided
that you qualify for asylum if there is simply widespread crime or violence
where you live, and Ramirez was also going to use that argument as well. A
government need not persecute you; you just have to experience an unsafe
environment that your government is failing to suppress. This so expands the
idea of asylum, in my view, as to render it meaningless.
Courts have also expanded asylum to
include domestic violence, determining that women in abusive relationships are
a “particular social group” and thereby qualify. In other words, every woman on
the planet who has experienced domestic abuse can now come to America and claim
asylum. Also everyone on the planet who doesn’t live in a stable, orderly,
low-crime society. Literally billions of human beings now have the right
to asylum in America. . . .
This is in a new century when the
U.S. is trying to absorb the largest wave of new immigrants in our entire
history, and when the percentage of the population that is foreign-born is also
near a historic peak. It is also a time when mass immigration from the
developing world has destabilized liberal democracies across the West, is
bringing illiberal, anti-immigration regimes to power across Europe, and was
the single biggest reason why Donald Trump is president.
I’m told that, as a legal
immigrant, I’m shutting the door behind me now that I’ve finally made it to
citizenship. I’m not. I favor solid continuing legal immigration, but also a
reduction in numbers and a new focus on skills in an economy where unskilled
labor is increasingly a path to nowhere. It is not strange that legal
immigrants — who have often spent years and thousands of dollars to play by the
rules — might be opposed to others’ jumping the line. It is not strange that a
hefty proportion of Latino legal immigrants oppose illegal immigration — they
are often the most directly affected by new, illegal competition, which drives
down their wages. . . .
When I’m told only white racists
favor restrictionism, I note how the Mexican people are more opposed to illegal
immigration than Americans: In a new poll, 61.5 percent of Mexicans oppose the
entry of undocumented migrants, period; 44 percent believe that Mexico should
remove any undocumented alien immediately. Are Mexicans now white supremacists
too? That hostility to illegal immigration may even explain why Trump’s threat
to put tariffs on Mexico if it didn’t crack down may well have worked. Since
Trump’s bluster, the numbers have measurably declined — and the crackdown is
popular in Mexico. I can also note that most countries outside Western Europe
have strict immigration control and feel no need to apologize for it. Are the
Japanese and Chinese “white supremacists”? Please. Do they want to sustain
their own culture and national identity? Sure. Is that now the equivalent of
the KKK?
# # #
