The thoughts I have offered in these columns on where the conservative movement needs to go have generally looked long-term, toward the time after the end of President Bush’s second term. But there is one issue that will not wait, and that issue is immigration. We need to do something about immigration now.
Let me put this bluntly. On no issue have a Republican administration and a Republican House and Senate more blatantly or more cynically sold out the conservative movement and our country than on immigration. Their inaction on this issue-or worse, actions that would make the problem even worse, like the administration’s proposed amnesty for illegals-are a scandal and a disgrace. Conservatives should be hopping mad about it, mad enough to tell Republicans that they will not have our votes unless they change. I would rather stay home on Election Day than vote for someone who believes in open borders.
There are many reasons why we need to halt illegal immigration and also restrict legal immigration. I want to focus here on just two, two issues that are central to the next conservatism. One is national security, and the other is preserving our traditional American culture.
The national security issue is simple. Our country is being invaded. It is being invaded by millions of people from all over, some of whom are not our friends. Bill Lind wrote in the last column that invasion by immigration is part of Fourth Generation war. That is exactly correct. What we are doing today by leaving our borders open is importing Fourth Generation war, war that will be fought out on our own soil, with attacks like 9/11 only worse.
Frankly, it doesn’t make any sense at all to be fighting terrorism in places like Iraq and Afghanistan while laying down a red carpet for terrorists of every variety who want to come and attack us here. That is what we are now doing with our current immigration policy.
Of course the Left wants open borders, because one way to destroy our traditional culture is to swamp us with tens of millions of immigrants from other cultures. The cultural Marxists preach “multiculturalism,” which says that these immigrants should not adopt our culture but keep their own cultures. That is a prescription, once again, for Fourth Generation war on American soil.
My father was an immigrant. He came to America as a young man in the 1920s, from Germany. Like other immigrants in his time and before, he worked hard to become an American. We spoke English in the home I grew up in, not German. We lived just like other Americans who had been here for generations. My father would have regarded multiculturalism as both stupid and dangerous. He would have been right on both counts.
The next conservatism needs to recognize that when it comes to immigration policy, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are our friends (this may not be the only issue where this proves to be the case). The Democrats want open borders because most of them are cultural Marxists. The Republicans agree because Wall Street wants cheap labor. The next conservatism should not be in Wall Street’s pocket. Our country is more important than their profits.
Unfortunately, we cannot wait until President Bush leaves office to address this issue. The damage done by open borders is too great to wait any longer. This may be the first issue the next conservatism needs to take on, because we need to do something now.
As conservatives, we need to make it clear that we will not vote for any candidate who refuses to close our borders to illegal immigration and cut back on legal immigration, at least until we can acculturate the immigrants we already have. More, we will actively support candidates, including in primaries, who promise to take the actions necessary to control our borders. The Minutemen in Arizona showed it can be done.
We may have to go further on this issue. We may have to say that we will not support sending American troops to any other country until we have enough troops on our own borders to control them. Nor will we support $500 billion defense budgets so long as our country is left open to invasion by immigration.
Conservatives have the political muscle to change national policy on immigration. We need to use that muscle, and we need to use it now.
