The Hateful Side of Immigration Reform

After covering Tuesday’s immigration reform rally on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall, I’m convinced that the proponents of immigration reform don’t want to persuade American voters to support their agenda. They want to bully them into submission. 

What other conclusion can be drawn from the warnings that opponents “will be branded” as bigots unless they comply; the “demand, not request” that Republicans represent those who support “comprehensive” reform and ignore the rest of their constituents; the constant “¡Si, se puede!” chants?

At the rally, Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) lied through her teeth, claiming Republican proposals to break up the Senate bill into individual bills in the House of Representatives meant turning “immigrants”–not illegal, but all, immigrants–into criminals. Members of the clergy applauded as one speaker after another took aim at the GOP and promised to campaign in 2014 for the defeat of Republicans who refused to back demands for a “path to citizenship.” Union leaders warned Republicans ominously of a future of political defeat and isolation.

The whole event made a mockery of any pretense that immigration reform is a “bipartisan” affair–or that the left will spare those Republicans who support a “path to citizenship” from the intended fate of their party in general. 

For most of the rally, there were more journalists than demonstrators on the steps of City Hall–and most of those activists who showed up were union members carrying ready-made signs. This is an Astroturfed, Democrat-and-media-driven campaign, not one responding to the actual desires of American voters.

The leaders of the immigration reform push do not care to show that immigrants are eager to integrate into the cultural and political life of the United States. They act as if the rest of the nation owes something to illegal immigrants, even though, aside from the small minority brought here as children, those individuals made the voluntary decision to break U.S. law. They play on the guilt of wealthier Americans, telling them they have to do right by their nannies and gardeners–and ignore the concerns of other Americans still facing joblessness.

Then they vilify half the country with partisan attacks, warning Republicans of their political “extinction,” that opposition to Democrats’ version of immigration reform is morally equivalent to racism. 

But it is the movement for “comprehensive” immigration reform that is playing on hatred and division. It rejects the very substance of the citizenship oath: “that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America”–then vilifies those who take that oath seriously. 

Is that any way to embrace their future countrymen?