On Assimilation and the Rule of Law

If you read carefully enough, you will see this L.A. Times article telling you what the sheer numbers alone should  make clear:  the overwhelming majority of those who rallied in L.A. yesterday were not “immigrants’ rights advocates,” they were themselves illegal aliens.  When half a million people who have no legal right to even be in the country can essentially sieze control of one of your largest cities, you have a big problem. 

Thankfully, the demonstrators didn’t riot and burn  like the Arab mobs in France did.  This, despite the fact that  most are only marginal stakeholders in a civil society.  But had even ten percent of them chosen to do so — to riot and burn — there’s little the cops could have done to stop them.  Regardless of what you think immigration policy should be,  that ought to alarm you.

This isn’t really a discussion of what our immigration policy ought to be.  Several proposals I’ve seen have merit, although any of them has more merit than none of them  (meaning a system that’s essentially unenforced, which is what we’ve had up to now).  The discussion here is more about our last chance to avert a long-term economic and political danger we face.  Presume a best case scenario, in which our society maintains a peaceful coexistence with the illegals among us. You can’t even presume that such numbers can be assimilated into American society if trends continue.  We’d be headed toward a  society divided between two socioeconomic classes, each speaking different languages, watching different movies, and voting — if they can vote at all —  for different candidates.   A template for  that social experiment  already exists, fortunately, far from our shores, in France.   A new WaPo piece illustrates the state in which France finds itself:  economic polarization of irreconcilable cultural groups that turn to street violence to  break deadlocks that democratic politics can’t resolve.  (In the French case, the extraordinary cowardice of its politicians makes matters worse.)   A society divided between patricians and plebians is inherently unstable.  It’s probably too late for France to face that fact.  We must.

Of course, for far too long, our society has already been polarized by race.  For the last several decades, statistical trends told us that the black middle class expanded at a significant rate until it hit a wall around 1990, after which its expansion slowed (but did not stop).  Why?  Some  evidence suggests that illegal immigration may be part of the problem.  With so many illegal aliens willing to work for much lower wages in building and manufacturing trades, it is the  African-American and  native-born Latino  working class — once the gateway to the next generation’s prosperity — that’s been hardest hit.

Mexico suffers, too.  Contrary to the common assumption that Mexicans who come to the United States to work illegally are mainly unemployed, we’ve learned that most were already employed.  In other words, for the immediate gain of remittances from illegals, Mexico steadily loses its relatively more skilled workers to the United States.  This brings us to the question of  how we can best help  Mexico to develop a mature economy of its own, for which the price may well be the loss of more manufacturing jobs here to maquiladoras.  It’s reasonable that Mexican workers ought to be able to earn a living wage, for which increasingly open markets can help provide.