Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Immigration and migration challenges continue to rattle cages and demand attention. Nice to see the mainstream press finally take note of what has in fact been a very big story for a very long time.

* Hey, let's invite some more of these problems into our midst. Whoops, consider it done.

* Another transforming-America landmark has been reached.

* Part of what I enjoy about following immigration questions is the way they (and responses to them) scramble traditional political categories. As Bush's team continues to defy his supporters' druthers, Howard Dean declares that border security should be the Dems' main concern in November. Meanwhile, an African-American group finds common cause with the Minutemen.

* LA-area illegals are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in public assistance.

* A British poll discovers that nearly 60% of Brits think that all immigration into Britain should be halted.

* How did it all start? The Boston Globe's Colin Nickerson recounts the story of how, in 1961, the first 7000 Turks were imported into Germany. (Link thanks to Ziel.) Nice quote:

Nobody grasped that the country -- and the continent, because neighboring nations soon undertook similar experiments -- was on the brink of a transformation whose effects are still reverberating across Europe ... In the 1960s, a few hundred thousand Muslims lived in Western Europe. Today, best estimates peg the number at more than 20 million

Two small Michael Blowhard conclusions: 1) View the schemes of elites with skepticism. 2) Be wary of any and all new social-policy initiatives, except maybe those that correct past goofs.

* Vdare's Alan Wall writes that the three major candidates in Mexico's upcoming presidential election all count on the US continuing to function as a safety valve for Mexico's problems.

Best,

Michael

Los Angeles County has a population of about 10 million people (36% foreign-born), so those 100k legal kids of illegal immigrants constitute 1% of the county population getting subsidies of $2,700 per kid per year. It's probably peanuts compared to the value provided by the illegal (or legal, for that matter) immigrants in that county. "hundreds of millions of dollars" sounds like a lot, but the number is only big because LA itself is so gargantuan; in context it's not so much.

Posted by: Glen Raphael on April 27, 2006 4:09 PM

Just to keep an eye on the northern border, where many of us live lives sort of on both sides, since Alberta, Canada, has cities like Calgary and Lethbridge with populations bigger than any in Montana and since many of the Montana border small ag towns depend upon Alberta shoppers, we are now being told that people who were once nodded through with a smile from a familiar person, must now carry passports. Not to get into Canada but to get back into the United States. And by 2008 we are told to expect to have put biometric ID (eye scans) on the border computer before we can come back into the US.

We are all fearful of what this will do to tourism, a major source of income here. Glacier National Park and Waterton Peace Park are celebrated as contiguous and continuous across the 49th parallel and have a major monument to the peaceful "open" border between the two nations. This was true through two world wars and Prohibition. It is part of the Blackfeet treaty since their tribe was riven in half by the border, that they can cross anytime.

This paranoia can easily become self-fulfilling.

Prairie Mary

Posted by: Mary Scriver on April 27, 2006 5:55 PM

Millions of dollars for English as a Second Language.
Not a penny for bi-lingualism.

Posted by: David Sucher on April 30, 2006 12:00 AM

I truly like this site and have visited for a long time. However, the anti-immigrant tirades, often based on hackneyed steriotypes and rank prejudice, are getting increasingly tiresome.

Yes, everybody is entitled to their point of view. But I would ask Michael vB what is it that bothers him so much about immigrants? As far as I can tell, he has never come clean on this. And the "it's an important and interesting topic" excuse doesn't cut it.

After all, the current wave of immigration over the last 20 years has coincided with......a strong economy, low and falling crime rates, etc.

Posted by: Andres on May 1, 2006 9:36 PM






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