Confidence, Power and the Price of Open Borders

Writing in the National Review, Mark Krikorian ably cuts through the sympathetic mainstream press coverage of the on going Immigration Bill protests by illegal aliens, correctly identifying the troubling message of the protestors.

This isn’t really about immigration, though — it’s about power.

What we’re seeing in the streets is a naked assertion of power by outsiders against the American nation. They demand that we comply with their wishes and submit our immigration policies for their approval, and implicitly threaten violence if their demands are not met. Far from being a discussion among Americans about the best way to regulate immigration, the illegal-alien marches have been marked by the will to power: ubiquitous Mexican flags, burning and other forms of contempt for the American flag, and widespread displays of blatant racial chauvinism and irredentism.

This is precisely the same kind of challenge that aggressive outsiders are making against other parts of the West, including Muslim immigrants in Europe and, in the most extreme form, Palestinians in Israel. Supremacist Muslims have demanded that Europe repudiate Israel, legally prohibit public criticism of Islam, downplay acts of violent Jew-hatred by immigrants, and not deport Muslim illegal aliens. And some Palestinians, of course, demand that Jewish state abolish itself altogether, actually cutting it out of maps of the Middle East (just as illegal-alien marchers in L.A. held signs of North America with the United States crossed out).

The admission of large numbers of illegal aliens into a country creates, merely by their presence and sheer numbers, the sort of street power currently on display throughout the southwestern US. Moreover, the numbers serve as a lure to meretricious politicians eager to build their own political power, careless to the effect on the nation. This is why strict border controls are a necessity in the maintenance of a functioning republic. Having permitted so many Mexicans to illegally enter the US, Americans now find themselves confronted by millions of people whose cultural identity is not American and who have little but contempt for American custom and law. Remember, these are people whose first act in the US was to break the law. What sort of attitude toward the rest of American culture can they be expected to display?

Krikorian attributes the brazen quality of these protests to "civilizational confidence," the notion that once a group of people come to perceive another group as weak, it emboldens them to press their demands with vigor. Even if the opposing group is actually stronger and could stop them if it chose. The US could expel all illegal aliens and could stop all illegal immigration if US leaders had the will. But they don’t. Too many profit from the cheap labor provided by immigrants (or their financial backers do, at any rate) and the remainder are too frightened of being called racist if they vigorously oppose immigration. The protestors understand this and feel confident that they can get away with mass demonstrations.

If nothing is done and the federal government caves to the illegal immigrant advocates, then the confidence felt by illegal immigrants and radical Hispanic activists will only be strengthened. That will lead to a dismal future dominated by increasingly radical Hispanic activists pushing ever more seditious demands. There will be no assimilation, because immigrants will feel no need to assimilate, and will argue (as some already do) that assimilation itself is fundamentally racist. The radicalism of Hispanic groups that seek to return much of the American southwest to Mexico may seem outlandish today, but then so did the radicalism of Wahabbi Muslim imams in Europe thirty years ago. No one is laughing at them today. If the US doesn’t act soon to close the door on the illegal tidal wave, in thirty years the radicals of Aztlan, Mexica-Movement and Stolen Continent won’t seem so outlandish either. In fact, they may seem all to moderate.