Good fence, good neighbor

See Power Line Blog’s item here about the 83–16 vote yesterday in the Senate in favor of a bigger, better fence at the Mexican border. 

In every state surveyed [by Rasmussen] except Massachusetts, at least 60% of respondents say we should "enforce existing laws and control the border before considering new reforms."

Senators got the message, including presidential aspirants Hillary and Kerry, says NY Post’s Deborah Orin, cited here. 

Thing is, to quote an expert John-Something on Bennett’s Morning in America (Bill should have given the last name when signing off on the guy), we can “assimilate” just so many newcomers. 

It’s understood that it’s important they become like us, not the other way around, say I: they aren’t coming here because we’re like them but are escaping to the U.S., as Chicagoans escape to Wisconsin, or so says the Wis. tourist board, and I believe it.  This John — maybe Hinderaker, of Power Line, but I doubt it — is very hot stuff.

For his ideas, and maybe I have John's name wrong — had to go into the dining room for something — see Robert Rector’s piece at the Heritage Foundation, where we read that

the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611) would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years, allowing an estimated 103 million persons to legally immigrate to the U.S. over the next 20 years—fully one-third of the current population of the United States.

Rector is quoted nowhere in Chi Trib on immigration, by the way.  Columnist Clarence Page cited him 4/23/06 in regard to welfare reform, identifying him as author of the 1996 welfare-reform bill.  Good for Clarence.  But why wouldn’t one of the reporters look up Heritage Foundation for research on this immigration reform?  Maybe they haven’t got to it yet.  It’s a “web memo” dated 5/15.  More from Rector:

[T]he bill would quintuple the rate of legal immigration into the United States, raising, over time, the inflow of legal immigrants from around one million per year to over five million per year. The impact of this increase in legal immigration dwarfs the magnitude of the amnesty provisions.

Can we remain the same country if this happens?  We are not talking salsa and tamales here, but importation of outlanders without our (fragile) concepts of rule by law — already undermined by race preference in legislation and judicial enforcement, to name one obvious area.  Neither is it cheap gardeners or more Catholics in the pews or more Democrat voters, but people whose whole experience is a degree of political and civic corruption to make the Cook County machine look like better government.  What is Bush thinking of, anyhow?  Is it “guest workers”?

The “guest worker” program, then, is an open door program, based on the demands of U.S. business, that would allow an almost unlimited number of workers and dependents to enter the U.S. from anywhere in world and become citizens. It is essentially an “open border” provision.

. . . .

 Assuming 10 percent annual growth in the annual number of guest workers entering the country (well below the bill’s maximum), the total inflow of workers under this program would be 20 million over 20 years.

Amnesty?

The bill would grant amnesty to roughly 10 million illegal immigrants. These individuals are currently living in the U.S.; amnesty would allow them to remain legally and to become U.S. citizens.

Green cards?

The bill would increase the number of employment-based visas from 140,000 to 450,000 per year. For the first time, it would also exempt the spouses and children of workers from the cap. Total annual immigration under this provision is likely to be 450,000 workers plus 540,000 family members annually. The net increase above current law over 20 years would be around 13.5 million persons.

We’re a nation of immigrants?  Not quite:

Between 1870 and 1920, the U.S. experienced a massive flow of immigration known as the “great migration”. During this period, foreign born persons hovered between 13 and 15 percent of the population.  In 1924, Congress passed major legislation greatly reducing future immigration. By 1970, foreign born persons had fallen to 5 percent of the population. 

In the last three decades, immigration has increased sharply. The foreign born now comprise around 12 percent of the population, approaching the levels of the early 1900’s. However, if CIRA were enacted, and 100 million new immigrants entered the country over the next twenty years, foreign born persons would rise to over one quarter of the U.S. population. There is no precedent for that level of immigration at any time in U.S. history. [Italics mine]

What is he thinking of?  This?

 CIRA would transform the United States socially, economically, and politically. Within two decades, the character of the nation would differ dramatically from what exists today.

Remaking the nation.