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Excerpts from AIC Newsletters:
For Tolerance: Limit Immigration
By John C. Vinson, Editor
Mass immigration supporters often wave the flag of tolerance. With their self-proclaimed open minds and open hearts, they urge the rest of us to accept open borders. But woe unto him who disputes their advice. The wrath of the "tolerant" can be quite terrible, as anyone can testify who has stood on the receiving end of their name-calling. Many of these "tolerant" people live in sheltered worlds, far from the madding crowds they wish to admit. In such comfortable settings they can indulge blissful ignorance of human nature.
The truth of the matter, proven through human history, is that tolerance among people, even countrymen, requires the most careful cultivation. Pleas for goodwill and brotherhood simply aren't enough. Human beings of all creeds, colors and nationalities are contentious. When they do get along it's usually when they share common values, and respect and obey equitable laws.
These precisely are the conditions that have made America a relative haven of peace in a strife-torn world. But it is a mistake to take them for granted. Some Americans pridefully believe that our country is "exceptional," one not subject to the strains and divisions of other countries. They forget the sad memory of our Civil War and fail to heed what it could suggest for our future.
Just as North and South once divided, multi-culturalism, given clout by mass immigration, is pulling us into factions. It is clear to most perceptive people that the strength of our common values is weakening. "The legitimacy of America's basic institutions and practices," notes political scientist Stanley Renshon of City College of New York, "are no longer a matter of fact, but rather of debate."
As this debate goes on, an unprecedented diversity of cultures is arriving. Several years ago President Clinton noted this consequence of immigration and said it could mean the end of our "dominant … culture." He said not to worry, however, because we would not "disintegrate" on account of it. Few thoughtful Americans were reassured.
Many immigrants today come from countries with values sharply different from ours. In those countries there is little tradition of tolerance in political life and little experience with the rule of law. Given time, if mass immigration continues, these characteristics will remake our national character. Of particular concern is out of control illegal immigration, a situation that directly undercuts our rule of law and debases our citizenship.
Ironically, the ethnic lobbies that facilitate and encourage illegal immigration often style themselves as "civil rights" groups. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Genuine civil rights activists in our history claimed their rights as citizens under our law. In contrast, illegal alien advocates claim for foreigners the right to break our law and reap the benefits of citizenship. With law undermined, citizenship becomes a second-class status for everyone, leaving it little power to inspire unity.
What can Americans who still value their culture of civic order do to stop the social disintegration they see so plainly? Perhaps the best answer is to practice the values they see passing away and work through our legal and political system for change. Today, unfortunately, change is difficult due to the corrupting influence of vested interests which extract cheap labor and cheap votes from immigration. To prevail against these interests, citizens must revive citizenship by taking it seriously.
This revival will require intense organizing and activism. It will exact a great deal of frustration and become a test of our tolerance. Some Americans, feeling betrayed, might also feel tempted to lash out in hostility against immigrants. This would be wrong. The proper response is to criticize and reform bad policy, not attack people, whether legal immigrants or illegal aliens. Once again, the best hope for preserving American ideals and values is to practice them. At the same time it would be helpful if those who identify tolerance with high immigration could extend at least some tolerance for the concerns of their fellow citizens who favor restriction.
The stakes are truly high. The type of diversity flourishing today is not our strength, but the weakness of cultural anarchy beginning to unfold. By working lawfully and decently to reduce immigration to reasonable levels, we can preserve our country as a land of peace and harmony.
By Robert H. Goldsborough, President, AIC
Indeed, according to federal investigators, most — if not all — of the nineteen terrorist highjackers had been in and out of the United States for more than a year attending various flight schools in Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Oklahoma, California and elsewhere. They apparently had no difficulty getting visas: some of the Islamic fanatics were here under their own names; others were using aliases; some even used school-supplied visa forms to attend flying schools.
America's intelligence agencies knew from the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center that al Qaeda terrorists had already infiltrated the United States. As Mike Cherkoski, former federal prosecutor of some of those terrorists said, "We have a war in the U.S." Muslim terrorists have been at war with America even before the 1993 attack, but that deadly bombing should have been a final wake up call for America, for President Clinton and for Congress.
For more than fifteen years, Americans for Immigration Control has been telling Congress and the President that America has inadequate security at ports of entry and border crossings. Repeatedly, AIC has warned about the real threat of alien terrorists entering our country.
America's security was never a top priority for the Clinton administration, and consequently, terrorists bombed not only the World Trade Center in 1993, but also our embassies in Kenya, Tanzania and the USS Cole. However, Justice Department and its agencies (FBI and INS) did not sit around idly, for the Clintons used them for their own political purposes — i.e. the White House travel office scandal, collecting FBI dossiers on Republican appointees etc.
The most outrageous misuse and abuse of the above agencies began in 1995 when President Clinton ordered the crash project to naturalize 1 million immigrants in time to register and vote in the 1996 presidential election. The FBI had neither the time nor the manpower to perform the required background checks and so, in thousands of cases, alien felons were naturalized and registered to vote. The whole sordid story of how the Justice Department and its agencies were used illegally for partisan purposes and how then-Attorney General Janet Reno covered it up, is documented by David Schippers in his book Sell Out ( Regnery Publishers). Democrat Schippers, chief investigative counsel of the House Judiciary Committee's investigation of unethical partisan activities by the Justice Department, wrote "We received no cooperation from either the Justice Department or the INS. Instead we received nothing but complaints.... we reasoned that if criminals were given citizenship in 1996, at least some of them had probably continued their criminal activity in the two years since." FBI files revealed rapists, child abusers, murderers, drug peddlers, and at least "one criminal who was actually in jail at the time he was naturalized...thousands of criminals are now citizens of the United States because it was assumed they would vote for Bill Clinton and Al Gore."
The Clinton Justice Department headed by Janet Reno was kept so busy turning criminal aliens into voting citizens that the FBI and the INS had minimal time to track down and arrest the alien terrorists who had already bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. When the FBI warned the INS to stop one of the suspected terrorists if he tried to enter the U.S., the INS said he was already in the United States. Neither the FBI not the INS could find him. There needs to be a congressional investigation to assign accountability for what has happened.
Quite possibly, the mindless carnage of September 11th might not have happened had not the following terrorists entered the United States during the Clinton/Gore/Reno administration:
In order to protect the security of America in this age of terrorism, the INS and the entire immigration process must be re-organized:
We must immediately implement these changes so as to make America safe again. It's Righteous Indignation, Not Hate
By John C. Vinson, Editor
Many Americans object when immigration changes their neighborhoods and communities beyond recognition. When they do, they can count on swift criticism from immigration enthusiasts, who are quick to label their reaction as "fear" and "hate." The proper response, say these moralists, is to "celebrate" the new diversity of peoples, nearly all of whom are "hard-working" folk who just want "the American dream." Wanting a common culture, they piously intone, is "bigotry." Is it really? To be sure, many Americans in the newly "diverse" areas show anger, though just as many, quite often, are more sad than mad. But is anger in such cases inappropriate, or even immoral? The answer most certainly is no — at least if common sense has any say-so on the matter. Like it or not, people generally prefer the familiar. Human beings, by their nature, desire a sense of belonging, and belonging requires common values. This is not irrational prejudice, but rational practicality. Though diversity may be enjoyable for a vacation, the work-a-day world works best when common ties keep social friction to a minimum. Agreed upon standards and values, derived from Western culture, have been the source of American success and freedom. Communities of Americans, working in harmony, have achieved impressive civic and material goals without needing government as a rule-maker and a referee for their activities. Sadly this harmony is fading, as community after community falls victim to the kind of diversity which destroys common purpose. Even when immigrants are hard-working, this does not mean that they that they share all American values and sentiments. To illustrate, the August 1998 issue of National Geographic ran a generally pro-immigration article about New York's Chinatown. It noted the work ethic of recent Chinese immigrants. The author commented, however, that all he met "[used] the same word for [American] white people. It means 'barbarian'." If the numbers of newcomers in a community are sufficiently large, a clash of cultures — and confusion — will follow. Many natives, feeling like foreigners in their own country will experience a deep sense of alienation, a psychological condition characterized by anger and sadness. Such anger is entirely appropriate, and is justified further by the undemocratic manner through which "diversity" comes about. Politicians often show no appreciation of their constituents' feelings toward immigration, or if they do they lie about the consequences. A classic example was Sen. Ted Kennedy's promise in 1965 that the immigration act of that year would not cause "our cities with a million immigrants annually," or change the country's make-up. Why then do diversity advocates want to inflict cultural pandemonium on their fellow citizens? Aside from monetary and political gain, two other explanations are ignorance and treachery. Many elitists favor diversity because they seldom see it in full-blown form. Almost as ironclad as a law of physics is the principle that support for diversity increases in direct proportion to the distance from it. To economic elites, diversity is the pleasant experience of eating out at some tony ethnic restaurant. Afterwards, commonly, they return home to up-scale homogenous neighborhoods where no one plays loud foreign music all night long or butchers goats in the back yard. Cultural enrichments like these are left to the American masses, along with such amenities as schools where their children are shortchanged because of bilingualism and other immigration-induced fads. On the treachery side are neo-Marxists in foundations and universities who welcome an alienated and balkanized society. Their network is well-documented in William Hawkins' book, Importing Revolution. Flying the banner of "political correctness," they see themselves as the lords of enlightenment who should properly rule society. When society falls apart, they stand ready to offer their services as mediators and "managers of diversity." It is ironic that these types are the first to cry "racism" when challenged. In point of fact, racial antagonism benefits their agenda perfectly, which is why they promote mass immigration and the inevitable misunderstandings it brings. Most ironic too is how the pro-immigration side constantly harps on the issue of "compassion". This, they tell us, is what Americans owe all comers. Yet no such empathy is ever available for the heart-felt anguish of patriotic citizens, native and foreign-born, who mourn the incremental loss of their county and way of life. The anger they feel is not hate, but righteous indignation which they have the right — and indeed the duty — to express. Backers of mass-immigration may posture all they like about the "American dream." For patriotic citizens, their dream is the American nightmare.
Consider the Message They're Sending
By John C. Vinson, Editor
But the truth of the matter is that most illegals left the shadows a long time ago. And why not? With our broken-down interior enforcement, they certainly have little if any reason to fear deportation. And our failure to enforce our laws has encouraged more than a few illegals to shed whatever humility they once had and regard us with contempt. It shows in many ways. Drunk driving, disregard of housing codes, harassment of American passers-by at "day labor" sites, and welfare rip-offs, just to name a few of the relatively minor abuses.
And then there are the major abuses, such as border violence, drug-running, and spreading gang activity. Even more worrisome is the growing brazenness of self-avowed illegals — in broad daylight — who demand rights in our country. As Congress has pondered amnesty in recent months, illegals have protested in various cities around the country. In Washington D.C., at the beginning of the protests, many gathered near the Capitol. Some carried placards saying "No Amnesty, No Peace." The former shadow-dwellers are casting some shadows of their own, particularly on our rule of law.
The largest demonstration was in Los Angeles where, reportedly, 500,000 illegal aliens and their supporters paraded through the streets. They carried Mexican and American flags, but their attitude reflected far greater allegiance to the former than the latter, as they shouted for amnesty and carried signs claiming American territory for Mexico. The second largest gathering was in Chicago where 100,000 illegals and friends rallied for lawlessness.
Interestingly, Mexico does not allow foreigners residing there to protest its laws. Last year, some Americans tried it, and they got a swift kick back home. Many Mexican officials are corrupt, but at least they guard their homeland's sovereignty.
We Americans should be so lucky. Welcoming the illegals' march in Chicago was Mayor Richard Daley, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. For pure pandering would be hard to beat Bagojovich's grovel greeting in Spanish: "Ustedes no son criminales. Ustedes son trabajadores." (You are not criminals. You are workers.) As the marchers moved along they chanted, "La Raza unida nunca sera vencida." (The race united will never be conquered.)
So what's going on here? Simply this: The growing illegal population is sending the not-so-subtle message that they can put "heat in the street" and use this intimidation tactic get whatever they please — regardless of our laws. And quisling U.S. politicians, no doubt sniffing votes through amnesty, are more than happy to aid and abet them.
Fellow Americans, this is a wake-up call and a serious warning. If we sit and do nothing, the heat in the street will continue to rise, degrees by degree, in more and more of our cities. And as the lawbreakers proclaim they will never be conquered, we should consider that we might be.
If some of you, fellow citizens, have never done anything to protest the tide of illegal immigration, please pry yourself away from your television, your sports teams, and other amusements to consider some issues of real life. The freedom and independence of our country are not an entitlement. These depend on the vigilance of citizens who take their citizenship seriously.
Be active and determined, fellow countrymen, to make our system work in a decent legal fashion. Do it while there is still time.
How to Keep Terrorists Out of the USA
Accountability for the Past, Security for the Future
On September 15, 2001, just a few days after the terrorist attack on America, Secretary of State Colin Powell made the astonishing admission that, "the enemy is very often right here within our own country."
"Bring them out of the shadows." Illegal alien advocates regularly deploy this maudlin phrase to garner support for amnesty. The idea suggested is that illegals are humble folk who fear even to show their faces in public, lest they be rounded up and deported. Surely, as the manipulators tug on our feelings, we must legalize these harmless and gentle people!
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©2008 Americans for Immigration Control