Republicans are making demographics destiny

by | Jan 12, 2018 | Editor's Blog, Immigration | 21 comments

Immigration has been a contentious issue almost since the beginning of the country. Tensions might subside but they’re always just below the surface. Right now, they’re busting through.

Yesterday, Donald Trump wondered why we have to take people from all these “shithole” countries like Haiti and ones in Africa instead of places like Norway. In other words, why do have to take brown people instead of white ones? Politicians of all stripes blasted the racist sentiments implied in his ramblings.

In North Carolina, Rep. George Holding (NC-02) said he would not support a DACA deal that leads to citizenship for any of the people who were brought here by their parents as children. Holding said, “Breaking the law has consequences and that will flow down to your children.” How else will he apply that standard? Will children whose parents shoplift and are banned from certain stores also be banned? How about children whose parents commit Social Security fraud? Will they be banned from receiving benefits? Holding’s standard is political, not practical.

The DACA debate and the immigration debate in general is rooted in politics, racism and xenophobia, even if conservatives want to claim it’s more about economics. The Trump wing of the Republican base is animated more by the influx of people from Mexico and Latin America than probably any single issue other than guns. It’s the browning of America that scares them because they believe they’re losing their culture and their jobs to these foreigners.

To keep them engaged, Trump and his GOP allies propose legislation that deports the people already here and prevents more from coming to the United States. The border wall is the symbolic barrier to immigration though it would likely have little real effect since most undocumented immigrants arrive in airports. Conservatives like to argue that we need immigrants from more developed countries because we need their skills. However, immigrants from Nigeria, one of those shithole nations, have a higher education level and higher income than most Americans. Almost two-thirds of Nigerian immigrants hold college degrees.

The other reason Holding and Republicans don’t want to give Dreamers access to citizenship is that they don’t want them to vote. The GOP has increasingly alienated people of color and instead of wooing them, they’re trying to limit their access to the ballot box. It’s a failing strategy that just serves to further define the GOP as the party of old white people. As for the politics, demographics are only destiny if the Republicans make them so.

Immigration should not be about the quality of the countries people want to leave. It should be about the quality of the people who want to come here. We need people who want to pursue the American dream through hard work and enterprise. Sure, we should be looking for people already prepared for the modern economy, but we should also be welcoming people who will build the workforce a generation from now. Penalizing dreamers will only further drive a wedge between Republicans and the fast growing segments of the population.

21 Comments

  1. Hugh

    I for one am not concerned in the least about the “browning of America”. If we are indeed the melting pot, then all those coming to our country help to define who we are. Otherwise, isn’t it about time we sent the Statue of Liberty back to France? Or at least change the inscription?
    But sooner or later the present issue of immigration, as thorny and divisive as it is, will have to be part of a larger conversation about how overpopulation, lack of security and the effects of global warming will cause those in poor countries worldwide to seek a better life in more developed countries such as our own, or in Europe, or Australia, or sadly, even Bangladesh. As conditions in the undeveloped countries worsen, those people will become increasingly desperate , and will rightly see the crossing as a matter of life or death. Our present isolationist positions and those of some other countries are somehow grounded in a realization of how burdensome that inevitable migration will become, and yet isolation can only accelerate the time when famines and war cheapen the value of human life in poor countries. The brutishness of turning a blind eye to those dying by the millions will cheapen the value of lives everywhere.
    It seems to me the solution should be to feed the poor, which right now we are not doing very well, try to lessen the effects of global warming which we aren’t doing at all, and through collective action double down on bringing stability to poor countries. Rather than closing our borders , the United States should again take the lead so that nations band together to prevent rather than react to migration that will only grow worse each year.

    • Norma Munn

      Thanks for a constructive and thoughtful posting. I would add that acknowledging these problems as ones for which we must take some responsibility, and hopefully leadership, would be essential. A president who actually levels with the American public about what is coming might find broader support that is expected. I do not think people mind helping others; they resent not being helped when they need it and they resent seeing tax money wasted. Some do seem to believe that all the needs in our country can be met by personal and local charity, which is not the case. Looking beyond our borders would be for them a very difficult stretch. But whether we like it or not, walls and ICE agents, nor oceans, will keep us from being part of the larger world,

  2. DB

    If these counties are not sh–holes, why do their citizens leave and nearer go back?
    The people from Haiti have been here how long? I wonder how much in government benefits they have taken from tax payeers?

  3. Philip

    “In North Carolina, Rep. George Holding (NC-02) said he would not support a DACA deal that leads to citizenship for any of the people who were brought here by their parents as children. Holding said, “Breaking the law has consequences and that will flow down to your children.” How else will he apply that standard? Will children whose parents shoplift and are banned from certain stores also be banned? How about children whose parents commit Social Security fraud? Will they be banned from receiving benefits? Holding’s standard is political, not practical.”

    It’s also unconstitutional. What he’s proposing (in effect a Bill of Attainder) is strictly forbidden by Article I, Section 9.

    • Peter Harkins

      With all due respect Phillip, to expect the congressman to understand what a “Bill of Attainder: is, much less spell it, is asking for just slightly less than divine intervention. 😉
      ‘Course under the current POTUS, I guess any event is possible.

      Uncle Grumpy

      • Norma Munn

        Love it!!!

    • Troy

      You don’t have to be smart to be elected; you just have to elected.

    • TY THOMPSON

      Ol’ George says a lot of things, though being a Wake Law grad, I figured he’d at least be on solid ground with that remark. However, we live in a time when new interpretations of the Constitution seem to be proliferating. Take the 4th circuit’s opinion that political gerrymandering is unconstitutional, for example. Line drawing for political advantage has been around since at least 1790 but no federal court has ever really come down hard against it until now which brings up the question as to where in the Constitution does the 4th Circuit find this novel interpretation? Similarly, your mention of Article I is correct as I understand it but who is to say whether a future court may deem that it means what you and I believe that it means? For that matter, a Court may one day rule that the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to children born in this country to non-citizens because the 14th Amendment is a relic that only applies to former slaves, none of whom are alive today, and I suspect that is how Holding views it.

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