Other Items of Interest

Theodore Roosevelt on bilingualism and immigration

Theodore Roosevelt understood the need for the assimilation of the “melting pot.” And Teddy knew something about immigration – he served as both Governor of New York and President of the United States during one of America’s largest and most famous waves of immigration.
 
“Let us say to the immigrant NOT that we hope he will learn English, but that he has GOT to learn it. Let the immigrant who will not learn it go back. He must be made to consider the interest of these United States or he should not stay here. He must be made to see that his opportunities in this country depend on it. He must be made to see that his opportunities in this country depend on knowing English and observing American standards. And employers cannot be permitted to regard him as only industrial asset.”
 
Roosevelt went on to say, “The effort to keep our citizenship divided against itself by the use of the hyphen along the lines of national origin [Latin-American, African-American, German-American] is certain to breed a spirit of bitterness and prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens.”

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

-Theodore Roosevelt 1907

More from Roosevelt:

IMMIGRANTS: TREATMENT OF. Never under any condition should this Nation look at an immigrant as primarily a labor unit. He should always be looked at primarily as a future citizen and the father of other citizens who are to live in this land as fellows with our children and our children's children. Our immigration laws, permanent or temporary, should always be constructed with this fact in view. (December 1, 1917.)
Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, 58.

IMMIGRANTS: OBLIGATION OF. We should provide for every immigrant, by day-schools for the young and night-schools for the adult, the chance to learn English; and if after, say, five years he has not learned English, he should be sent back to the land from whence he came. . . . We should demand full performance of duty from them. Every man of them should be required to serve a year with the colors, like our native-born youth, before being allowed to vote. Nothing would do more to make him feel an American among his fellow Americans, on an equality of rights, of duties, and of loyalty to the flag.
(New York Times, September 10, 1917.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 54; Nat. Ed. XIX, 46.

IMMIGRATION: REGULATION OF. It is urgently necessary to check and regulate our immigration, by much more drastic laws than now exist; and this should be done both to keep out laborers who tend to depress the labor market, and to keep out races which do not assimilate readily with our own, and unworthy individuals of all races,
(Forum, April 1894.)
Mem. Ed. XV, 27; Nat. Ed. XIII, 23.

IMMIGRATION: RESTRICTION OF. I wish Congress would revise our laws about immigration. Paupers and assisted immigrants of all kinds should be, kept out; so should every variety of Anarchists. And if Anarchists do come, they should be taught, as speedily as possible, that the first effort to put their principles
into practice will result in their being shot down . . . . We must soon try to prevent too many laborers coming here and underselling our own workmen in the labor market; a good round head tax on each immigrant, together with a rigid examination into his character, would work well.
(Before Federal Club, New York City, December 13, 1888.). Mem. Ed. XVI, 137-138; Nat. Ed. XIV, 85.

Source: The Theodore Roosevelt Web Book

"A vast majority of the American people have become so pre-occupied with their own lives, idiotic television programs, sports, the latest electronic gadgets, and their SUV's that they have become complacent about what is happening to their country right before their eyes. Their heads are buried in the sand... their mentality is, 'Someone else will take care of the problem... I don't have time to do anything about it'. The President and most of our lawmakers including our Senators, Governors, Congressional leaders and Mayors recognize this and do what they want to do to enrich their jobs, their political parties and their own pockets, ignoring the wishes of the American people, promising everything but doing nothing to protect this country and its citizens, knowing damn well that the people will be initially annoyed but will soon forget when the next National event occurs. But this immigration problem will be in our faces forever if something drastic is not done to correct the problem. People will be reminded every day of the consequences of the government's inaction and will surely remember it at election time. It's becoming increasingly clear that our history books will one day tell about the rise and fall of the United States. If you are raising children, pray for their future because today it looks very bleak."

-Henry Kulesza 2007

The Wisdom of Former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm on bilingualism

History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. [When] Societies are bilingual [they become] two competing and nation-dividing languages. A nation is much more than a place on a map. It is a state of mind, a shared vision, and a recognition that we are all in this together . . . [and] one indispensable element must be that we all speak one common language.

The Omen

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

Australia Ponders it's Choices

We have a clear choice: We can accept increasing immigration with the consequent exploitation of this land, and a falling standard of living and quality of life; living in crowded, polluted, high density cities, with over-taxed recreational areas and inter-communal tensions. The economic consequences of increasing foreign debt, foreign ownership, and undesirable, unsustainable economic expansion will destroy any chance of maintaining the best features of Australian life as we know it. And, as migrant numbers increase, there will be an escalating push for an ever higher migrant intake which eventually will be unstoppable. The end result for the Australian people will be a very low standard of living (the "poor White trash of Asia"?), and the complete destruction of our unique national identity and culture.

OR: We can stop mass immigration and attempt to live in harmony with our fragile environment, creating an economically and environmentally sound, self-reliant and self-sustaining community, maintaining our quality of life, and handing on to future generations a country which will be cherished, enjoyed, and free from the problems of over-population.

The True Agenda of The Race Industry

Harvard Professor Samuel P. Huntington, Chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies - a self-described "old-fashioned Democrat" - warned in his April 2004 article, "The Hispanic Challenge": "Demographically, socially, and culturally, the reconquista (re-conquest) of the Southwest United States by Mexican immigrants is well underway... No other immigrant group in U.S. history has asserted or could assert a historical claim to U.S. territory. Mexicans and Mexican Americans can and do make that claim."

In December 2004, the Mexican government published a guide advising illegal Mexican nationals on how to safely cross the U.S. border. In 2001, Ernesto Ruffo Appel, Mexico’s Commissioner for Northern Border Affairs, reportedly told potential illegal Mexican migrants: "If the border patrol agent finds you, try again."

Other Mexican government officials have said: "I have proudly affirmed that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders and that Mexican migrants are an important - a very important - part of it." --1997, Ernest Zedillo, former President of Mexico, in Chicago.

"We are practicing La Reconquista in California." --1998, Jose Pescador Osuna, then-Consul General of Mexico, in California.

"We are Mexicans that live in our territories and we are Mexicans that live in other territories. In reality, we are 120 million people that live together and are working together to construct a nation." --2004, Vicente Fox, President of Mexico, in Chicago.

Leaders of Mexican ancestry in the United States have made similar statements: "As goes the Latino population will go the state of California, and as goes the state of California will go the United States of America. My friends, the stakes are big. This is a fight worth making." --1995, Henry Cisneros, former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary, at a Hispanic conference at UC Riverside.

"Eventually, we are going to take over all the political institutions of California." --1998, Mario Obledo, co-founder of MALDEF and California Secretary of Health & Welfare under Gov. Jerry Brown. (He added that California will soon become an "Hispanic state" and that anyone who does not like Mexicans "should go back to Europe.")

"Mexico is recovering the territories yielded to the United States by means of migratory tactics." -- 2001, Elena Poniatowska, a prize-winning Mexican novelist who has taught at Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

"A secessionist movement is not something that you can put away and say it is never going to happen in the United States. Time and history change." --2002, Armando Navarro, professor at the University of California-Riverside.

"The U.S. Southwest will secede and may rejoin Mexico... No nation's borders have been permanent. Throughout history, nations and empires rise and fall." --2002, Charles Truxillo. professor at the University of New Mexico. (Who also said secession of the U.S. Southwest is an "inevitability" because of continued high Hispanic immigration.)

"We don't need no stinking green cards." --Benicio Silva of UC Berkeley declared that having to show them at the border was a "violation of our human rights" because "Aztlan is ours and the white man is the invader."

"They say we're 'Latinizing' Los Angeles! Don't you love it? We are fighting to build a new Mestizo nation." "We are here again, we are millions and millions, and the aging white Americans are not making babies, we've got to get ready to govern!" --Jose Angel Gutierrez, long-time University of Texas faculty member

Rudy Acuña warns that Chicano youth "bring the possibility of violence" to the Chicano movement, and the "Brown Berets" tell "gringos" that "the streets will run red with the blood of tyrants, who have murdered us for so long."

Amnestied and naturalized illegal aliens would be able to vote in U.S. elections. Their extended family members who migrate here also could become future voters in the U.S. "Anchor baby" children born in the U.S. to illegal alien parents also are able to vote.

Many Mexican-Americans are patriotic and have no political agenda, but they and their U.S.-born children indeed can be mobilized by Mexico to vote according to Mexico’s interests. Juan Hernandez, U.S.-born member of Vicente Fox’s cabinet, has remarked: "We are betting that the Mexican American population in the United States... will think Mexico first."

Reference: La Raza -Chicano Activism in California, by Diana Hull, The Social Contract (Summer 1999)

Facts or speculation?

From the L.A. Times

1. 40% of all workers in L.A. County ( L.A. County has 10.2 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This was because they are predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card.

2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.

3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.

4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.

5. Nearly 25% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.

6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.

7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.

8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.

9. 21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish speaking.

10. In L.A. County 5.1 million people speak English. 3.9 million speak Spanish. (There are 10.2 million people in L.A. County).

(All the above from the Los Angeles Times)

Far fetched? Not really.

Speakout: Illegals might swamp U.S. 'lifeboat'
By Charles King, The Rocky Mountain News, February 7, 2003
 
"By our continued winking at our immigration laws, we are slowly redefining 'illegal' to mean 'legal.' It is high time - past time - that our immigration service, now under Homeland Security, begin restoring respect for the law...
 
Radical as it sounds, our immigration services (under Homeland Security) should waste no time in not only identifying the 8 to 10 million or more illegal aliens in our country (including 3 to 5 million Mexicans alone). It must, as impossible as the task might seem, immediately start rounding up all aliens here illegally and ordering their swift departure (under armed escort if necessary) to their home countries - wherever their home countries might be...
 
Who owes them a chance for a decent life? Their home countries. We don't - except to legal immigrants from any of the world's many nations. We have been taking in half of the world's immigrants for decades. We must not swallow the Big Lie circulated by open-borders advocates that America, the most powerful nation on Earth cannot and will not defend its own borders against a veritable invasion from abroad. If allowing only legal entries into this country is impossible, then we Americans have lost our nationhood and, in a short time, we will lose our freedom and prosperity..."
 
Charles L. King is a University of Colorado at Boulder professor emeritus of Spanish and a member of the CAIR advisory council. A book of homage to him was published in Spain in 1999: Ramon J. Sender y sus coetaneos: Homenaje a Charles L. King (Ramon J. Sender and His Contemporaries: Essays in Honor of Charles L. King).

More Facts...

Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare.

Over 70% of the United States' annual population growth (and over 90% of California , Florida , and New York ) results from immigration.

The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 was, (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay), a NET $70 BILLION/year, [Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University ]. The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is a NEGATIVE number.

29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.

If they can come to this country to raise Hell and demonstrate by the thousands, WHY can't they take charge over the corruption in their own country?

We are a bunch of fools for letting this continue.

Actually, it's not a mixed message we're sending, it's an advertisement in bright neon lights that reads: "Get Across The Border and You're Here To Stay."

Why hesitate to come, or worry about getting caught once you get here?

Laws that penalize employers for hiring illegal immigrants are seldom enforced.

A person has to be caught sneaking across the border as many as ten times before they are charged with breaking immigration laws.

Unless an illegal immigrant is convicted of a serious crime, it's unlikely they ever will be deported.

Fraudulent birth certificates and Social Security cards are cheap and easy to obtain.

Some states provide illegal aliens with drivers licenses; many businesses accept Mexican identification cards as proof of legal residence in the U.S.

The dangers posed by porous borders and illegal immigration are not going away. The longer we wait to enforce all immigration laws, the worse the situation becomes, and that's not good for Americans' security.

— Lamar Smith (R., Tex.), serves on the Homeland Security Select Committee and on the Immigration Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee.

THE U.S. VS. MEXICO

On February 15, 1998, the U.S. and Mexican soccer teams met at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Mexican even though most lived in this country. They booed during the National Anthem and U.S. flags were held upside down. As the match progressed, supporters of the U.S. team were insulted, pelted with projectiles, punched and spat upon. Beer and trash were thrown at the U.S. players before and after the match. The coach of the U.S. team, Steve Sampson said, "This was the most painful experience I have ever had in this profession."

Did you know that immigrants from Mexico and other non-European countries can come to this country and get preferences in jobs, education, and government contracts. It's called affirmative action or racial privilege. The Emperor of Japan or the President of Mexico could migrate here and immediately be eligible for special rights unavailable for Americans of European descent.

Corporate America has signed on to the idea that minorities and third world immigrants should get special, privileged status. Some examples are Exxon,
Texaco, Merrill Lynch, Boeing, Paine Weber, Starbucks and many more.

Five million of our older Americans have not signed up yet for their Medicare, Part D, drug plan------they are old and confused. We are NOT going to grant them an extension.

However, 12 million illegal aliens are in our country and we are going to allow them to stay, protest, procreate, receive support monies, attend schools, avoid paying income taxes, have our teachers take 300 hours of ESL (English as a Second Language) training at our expense, etc.

WE MUST REALLY DISLIKE OUR OLD PEOPLE... OR WE MUST REALLY LOVE TACOS!!!

DID YOU KNOW?

Did you know ... that Mexico regularly intercedes on the side of the defense in criminal cases involving Mexican nationals?

Did you know .. that Mexico has NEVER extradited a Mexican national accused of murder in the U.S. in spite of agreements to do so?

According to the L.A. Times, Orange County , California is home to 275 gangs with 17,000 members, 98% of which are Mexican and Asian. How's your county doing?

According to a New York Times article dated May 19, 1994, 20 years after the great influx of legal immigrants from Southeast Asia, 30% are still on
welfare compared to 8% of households nationwide. A Wall Street Journal editorial dated December 5, 1994 quotes law enforcement officials as stating that Asian mobsters are the "greatest criminal challenge the country faces." Not bad for a group that is still under 5% of the population.

Is education important to you? Here are the words of a teacher who spent over 20 years in the Los Angeles School system. "Imagine teachers in classes containing 30-40 students of widely varying attention spans and motivation, many of whom aren't fluent in English. Educators seek learning materials likely to reach the majority of students and that means fewer words and math problems and more pictures and multicultural references."

WHEN I WAS YOUNG I remember hearing about the immigrants that came through Ellis Island. They wanted to learn English. They wanted to breathe free. They wanted to become Americans.  Now, far too many immigrants come here with demands. They demand to be taught in their own language. They demand special privileges ... affirmative action. They demand ethnic studies that glorify their culture.

NOW ... WHY CAN'T WE SEND THEM HOME???

  Will Senate Amnesty Bill Trump State Efforts To Curb Illegal Immigration?

By Steve Elliott, President Grassfire.org 

The real impact of illegal immigration is not felt in Washington, D.C. It is felt in the states -- the cities and towns across the nation being forced to foot the bill for the runaway costs and local impact of illegal immigration. 

That’s why it should be no surprise that, with the Senate and the President pushing through an irresponsible blanket amnesty plan, our state legislatures are taking matters into their own hands. As USA Today and others are reporting, 30 states have passed legislation this year to crack down on illegal immigration. Go here  to see if your state is taking action. 

State laws with teeth

These laws are wide-ranging -- from cracking down on employers hiring illegals to requiring state contractors to ensure that their employees are legal. There are laws against human trafficking, requiring citizenship or legal status to receive health benefits, making English the official language, establishing fines for counterfeiting documents, and more. One law in Texas has real economic teeth -- it prohibits businesses from deducting as a business expense wages paid to illegals. 

In all, some 57 laws have been passed in these states, with more pending. I believe if left to our own devices, “we the people” would eventually solve this illegal immigration crisis. The 57 laws are evidence of that.  Just one problem.... 

Senate Amnesty Bill Will Trump Your State

If the Senate amnesty bill passes, virtually all illegals  will quickly migrate to some form of legal status, and ultimately the “path to citizenship” that the President is touting. Which brings us to one of the most damaging possible consequences of a federal amnesty bill -- what happens to the state efforts to control illegal immigration. 

Once an illegal is granted legal status, how can state laws against illegals apply? It is clear that these laws will not apply to the 12-20 million who get legal status, or the tens of millions more who will be coming to our nation under the Senate amnesty plan. 

Hidden danger of Senate amnesty plan

This is one of the least advertised dangers of the Senate amnesty bill. Yes, the very idea of granting amnesty to millions of illegals is repugnant. Yes, our porous borders are a national security threat. Yes, many communities are literally being torn apart by the influx of illegals. Yes, our hospitals and schools are being stretched to the breaking point. 

As if these factors were not bad enough, our fearless leaders in the nation’s capital are trying to trump everything we can do at the state level and totally federalize another issue. Undoubtedly, this outrageous amnesty plan will concentrate more power at the federal level. Further emasculate our state and local governments and ultimately result in more taxes and spending at the federal level. Just to make the problem worse. 

Once again, Washington, D.C., is on the wrong side of an issue, totally out of touch with what most Americans want. If the situation were reversed and 30 states had passed bills supporting amnesty, you can bet that the pressure would have already forced the House to cave in to the Senate amnesty plan. The President and some in the Senate are out of touch. But unless we stand strong, their amnesty plan will trump our state-level efforts to control this crisis.

Press Release

Contact:
Jo Wideman, C.O.O.
Californians for Population Stabilization
(805) 564-6626
info@capsweb.net

California is the Dim Picture of America's Future

The Golden State Today Bodes Ill for the U.S. of Tomorrow

SANTA BARBARA—October 5, 2006—As America prepares to surge past a population of 300 million people sometime around October 15, one need only to look at what has happened to California over the past two decades to see what is in store for the rest of the nation.

“Three hundred million people is neither an achievement nor an endpoint, but just a landmark on the way to a billion people,” said Diana Hull, President of Californians for Population Stabilization. “It is time to remind everyone again, that perpetual growth is the philosophy of a cancer cell.”

Hull delivered her comments at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, where some of the nation’s top population and immigration experts warned that 300 million people is nothing to celebrate.

The grim foretelling in California of the impacts that massive population growth will have on the nation’s environment and quality-of-life demonstrate how fast the ‘tipping-point’ can be reached. “The California Experiment is an example of how far and how fast a magnificent natural inheritance can be squandered and plundered,” Hull said. “How fast the skid and how far the fall.”

Hull, a behavioral scientist trained in demography who served on the Sierra Club’s Population Committee and the Southern California Demographic Forum, said California’s cultural penchant for fast-if-easy living was quickly outstripped by its unchecked appetite for simply ‘more.’

“In our state, the race to gargantuan-size has progressed so far and so fast that we can barely move,” Hull said. “Freeways have become like doors that the morbidly obese can no longer fit through, thus the size of everything has to expand.”

It’s unlikely that Governor Pat Brown, who invested heavily in California’s infrastructure, could have envisioned in 1965 the human tidal wave that would eventually swamp his fabled public works.

But it was in 1965 that real sustained population growth began in California that would take on what Hull described as “astonishing momentum” over the next four decades. In 1965, California’s population was just over 18 million people. Today, California has more than 37 million people, and sustains a net-gain of about 500,000 more people annually.

The vast majority of people flowing into the state, Hull said, are legal and illegal immigrants; the vast majority of them are poor and uneducated and require social assistance. The resulting cultural arguments over immigration have obscured the most basic question the state government and the media should be openly discussing: how many more people can the state take?

The answer may be found in the devolution of California over the past four decades, from a sun-dappled state that could provide its people an enviable quality of life to a gritty jumble of jammed public schools, failing emergency rooms, overwhelmed social services, vanishing green space and suburban sprawl so vast that three hour commutes to and from work are now a reality.

As Hull noted on Tuesday, the overpopulating of California occurred not with popular support, but rather amid a collective slumber.

“The state became a pilot project in a failed social experiment that no one had agreed to beforehand,” she said. “All around us there were more people, more traffic, more crowds, more long waits, more houses and more shopping centers…but never enough.”

The resulting dislocations caused by a deteriorating quality of life, which has seen large numbers of Californian’s fleeing the state, has been more than made up for by surging net gains in the population fueled by immigration.

Yet amazingly, the nation’s bi-partisan leadership at virtually every level of the federal government seems unwilling to learn from what has happened to California, but to the contrary seem more than prepared to let California’s fate become America’s future.

Despite four decades of hard evidence of the potentially catastrophic impacts—particularly for the environment—of unmanaged population growth, Hull said the nation’s leaders have been shamefully silent.

“As demographic momentum accelerated, the pace of this growth and the changes it wrought were never systematically observed and monitored, nor even officially acknowledged,” she said. “And little interest was shown in evaluating outcomes.”

Those outcomes are evident everyday now in California, from the implosion of trauma centers across Los Angeles County to the bulldozing of some of the most fertile farmland in the Central Valley to make way for more homes.

“The two very worst outcomes are that infrastructure over-use wears everything out faster than we can replace it,” Hull said. “And there is an insatiable demand on natural resources that are now unable to replenish themselves.”

ABOUT CALIFORNIANS FOR POPULATION STABILIZATION (CAPS)

Californians for Population Stabilization is a non-profit organization dedicated to formulating and advancing policies and programs designed to stabilize the population of California at a level which will preserve a good quality of life for all Californians; www.capsweb.org.

Speech to the Miami Rotary Club by Rep. Tom Tancredo that was cancelled because of a bomb threat

In case you wondered what the fuss was all about with Rep. Tom
Tancredo's cancelled address to Miami Rotarians due to a bomb threat if
the invitation was not withdrawn.....

First Amendment rights are evidently reserved for ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, La Raza, MALDEF, LULAC, PRLDEF, & Catholic Church advocates, ONLY! (Did I leave anyone out?)
Get the picture?
  
Remarks by Representative Tom Tancredo
Miami Rotary Club
Miami, Florida
December 14, 2006
 
Thank you for the kind introduction. Your own congressional representative, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, wanted to be here and was the first Miami resident to invite me to visit. I would love to have her visit Colorado, but first she has to do or say something controversial.
 
If, for example, she would propose new federal legislation that prohibits Californians from emigrating to Colorado, she would be very popular in Colorado. Probably Denver Rotary or Kiwanis would invite her to speak.
 
I appreciate the invitation and the opportunity to speak to Miami Rotarians today. I am very familiar with the traditions of this organization and the numerous civic contributions of Rotary International.
 
I think it is fair to say that I was invited here because of my recent reported remarks calling Miami a "Third World country." The remark did receive a lot of publicity, and I have now become pen pals with Miami-Dade Mayor Alvarez and Governor Bush, among other Florida residents.
 
Seriously, I do appreciate the opportunity to visit Miami again and to explain why I said what I said and what I meant by it. I hope that after hearing my views more fully, you will agree that the issues of cultural assimilation and bilingualism deserve a more serious
public debate than they have received to date.
 
Miami is certainly a unique place in some respects. Since 1960, our nation has welcomed the refugees from Castro's communist dictatorship, and Miami has been a natural destination for untold thousands of those refugees since then.
 
But Miami is unique in a deeper sense as well. Most of the first generation Cubans who fled Castro's tyranny and settled in Miami thought of themselves not as immigrants but as exiles. They maintained their identity and their language and community because they
intended to return to Cuba someday. Thus, since 1960 Miami has been both a new home and an exile community, and Americans accommodated to it.
 
I have three concerns about the evolution of this Miami experiment over the past halfcentury, the magnet it has become for illegal immigration, and the dangers that multiculturalism poses for our future as a nation.
 
My first concern is that we must understand the limits of American generosity and the need to enforce those limits through immigration laws and secure borders. We cannot simply open the doors to everyone who wants to come to America, because without limit
and without a viable system of assimilation, America will cease to be America.
 
Without secure borders, America will come to mirror the problems of poverty and corruption that afflict so much of the world from which people wish to escape.
 
America has welcomed the refugees from the communist tyranny in Cuba, just as it welcomed refugees from the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and from the communist take over in Vietnam and Laos. Those are POLITICAL refugees, people fleeing out of fear for their lives and for religious freedom.
 
But America cannot be a sanctuary for the literally billions of people who may wish to flee poverty or simply want a better life than can be found in other nations. America cannot even be asked to open its doors to EVERY person in the world fleeing political persecution….After all, there are more than a billion people in China alone living under the yoke of totalitarianism, not to mention North Korea and Iran.
 
If America was to open its doors to every person seeking a better job or a more favorable business climate or a better political system, literally billions of people will come – and we cannot accommodate them all. Humanitarian values must be tempered by prudence.
 
My concern here is that because of the generous treatment of Cuban exiles and refugees, Florida and Miami have become magnets for illegal aliens fleeing dozens of countries for purely economic reasons. Thousands also come to engage in criminal activities, and Florida taxpayers in 2004 were hit with a bill of over $120 million for the cost of incarcerating illegal alien criminals. The total taxpayer cost of social services provided to illegal immigrants in Florida in 2005 —in public schools, hospital emergency rooms, and law enforcement-- was estimated at over one billion dollars.
 
The high crime rate in Miami is a major factor driving native-born residents out of the city.
 
· In 2003, violent crimes in Miami were 3.14 times the national rate and triple the rate of some larger cities like Denver.
· The murder rate in 2003 was 2.53 times the national rate and double the rate of another large city in the region, Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
· In 1999, 26% of all youth arrested aged 15 to 26 in Miami tested positive for cocaine.
· Greater Miami’s cocaine-based emergency room admissions are three times the national average.
· The good news is Miami no longer has the highest crime rate in the US—it is improved to be only #3. Perhaps the mayor will declare a holiday.
· Last month the Palm Beach Post reported that the U.S. Justice Department calls South Florida the "public corruption capital of the nation," outranking New York City, Detroit, and Los Angeles. In the ten year period 1996-2005, 576 individuals were prosecuted on public corruption charges in South Florida.
 
Yes, I know, there has always been some corruption in every large city and in many small towns as well. The difference is this. In a Third World country, corruption is a way of life, it is accepted, it is routine way of doing business. Mexico has its "mordida" and
Russia has a violent mafia and so forth. In America by contrast, it is a scandal and someone is thrown out of office. So, I ask you: Is corruption becoming a way of life in Miami?
 
Undoubtedly, many of Miami’s problems are derived from its high poverty rate. The 2002 Census found Miami to have the highest poverty rate in the US for cities of its size—31%. For all of Miami-Dade it is 18%. That ranking has improved modestly, but Miami is now attracting more low-wage immigrants than high-tech workers, so what is the trend line? The illegal immigrants of today are not the doctors and lawyers and engineers of the Cuban exodus of the 1960s, and our open borders are in fact “importing poverty” as a national policy.
 
Forbes magazine reports in a recent edition that since 2002, a net of 151,000 Miami residents, most of them middle-class, have left Miami for other parts of the country, and 238,000 new Miami residents have arrived from other nations, mostly Central and South America. Miami-Dade County now has a foreign-born population of 51.4%, the highest in the country for a large city.
 
The Inter-American Development Bank reports on remittances sent home by immigrants working in the US. In 2004, 47% of Florida’s adult immigrant population sent $2.45 billion to relatives and friends in Latin America. Remittances have been increasing at more than 10% annually, so by 2006 almost three billion dollars in earnings are leaving Florida and do not contribute to the Florida economy. Thus, if Miami-Dade has 20% of the state’s immigrants, Miami’s economy is exporting about $600 million annually through remittances.
 
My second concern is for our nation's security with open borders and a broken immigration system. We must recognize we live in a different world than the 1960s. And we must adjust our approach to immigration accordingly. In public policy, many times the appropriate solution to a problem in one era is the cause of problems in another.
 
Today we have real enemies in the world of Islamo-fascism, enemies who are actively planning acts of terror against our cities and our monuments and our people. The FBI says Hezbollah is active in Mexico, and we know that networks used to smuggle drugs and Guatemalan workers can also be used to smuggle terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. We cannot continue our lackadaisical approach to border security in this environment.
 
My third concern is actually my main worry, and it goes beyond numbers or threats to our national security. When millions of people are coming to the United States each year – many of them from the same geographic area and without any desire to become Americans– how do we preserve and perpetuate the “American identity”?
 
By the American identity I mean those qualities that make us Americans, make our country the envy of the world and the beacon of hope for freedom loving people everywhere. If we lose those qualities, if we start to look like and act like the rest of the world, where will the next generation of political refugees seek asylum?
 
Throughout history, America has absorbed waves of immigration and preserved a shared national identity by assimilating newcomers into the great “melting pot.” But many Americans have begun to wonder whether or not the “melting pot” is still melting – or if it has been replaced by a “salad bowl.”
 
Indeed, your current mayor was for many years an active member and advocate for the “SALAD” organization—the Spanish American League Against Discrimination. His first job out of college was serving as that group’s paid executive director. That organization has explicitly rejected the melting pot in favor of the “salad.” In a salad, each ingredient retains its unique flavor instead of blending into the melting pot.
 
The “melting pot” has taken on all comers since the 19th century – and the melting pot has always won. But the current scope, duration, and wave of immigration (both legal and illegal) presents a challenge for the melting pot like none ever seen before.
 
In the first place, never before has America taken on such a disproportionate amount of immigrants from one geographic part of the world. Nearly half of our legal immigration and about 90% of our illegal immigration is from Central and South America and is Spanish speaking.
 
This is an important fact because a common language is one of the few ties that bind Americans of vastly different races, religions, creeds, educational and economic backgrounds together. Advocates of multiculturalism truly do not understand that a common language is the cement that holds these different parts together.
 
I need to explain this briefly, because my views on bilingualism have been the target for much demagoguery by the political correctness police who like to throw around such words as "racist" and "bigot" quite liberally.
 
The debate over bilingualism has nothing whatever to do with race, but it does have something to do with our ability to converse in the public square and reason together about the future of our communities—the future of our schools, our libraries, our hospitals, our jobs, the direction of technology, and yes, our borders and our national security.
 
If you want to see a nation that has a 200-year experience with bilingualism and its consequences, look at our neighbor to the north, Canada. I do not think we want to follow that path and experience those consequences. I think we want to remain a nation where citizens in Miami can talk with citizens in Denver or Duluth, Atlanta or Austin – where all citizens can debate the great issues of our time because we all speak the same language.
 
Before we can begin to articulate any notion of “shared values,” we must first have a shared language.
 
Bilingualism is an asset to an individual, and people who can speak two or three languages have an advantage in commerce and travel and trade – but it is a great curse when imposed on a whole society.
 
About ten years ago, the Miami Herald launched a Spanish language newspaper – EL NUEVO HERALD-- in recognition of the fact that 30% of the 2.1 million residents of Miami-Dade County either spoke only Spanish or mainly Spanish in their homes.
 
What made the Herald's decision unusual was that it was not launching a new paper or magazine to augment its daily newspaper. It was launching a SUBSTITUTE newspaper, an alternative newspaper that would compete with itself. Pardon me, but I think it is a good thing if all the citizens of a community can read the same newspaper. Is it really a good idea to tell citizens they do not need to learn English to be a full member of the community?
 
Twenty-five years ago, the mayor of Miami, Maurice Ferre, predicted that in ten years Spanish would become the dominant language of Miami and suggested that residents who did not want to learn Spanish should leave. Such statements by public officials do not encourage new immigrants from New York, Michigan or Japan or Germany. In fact, they suggest that the only immigrants Miami wants are Spanish-speaking immigrants from Latin America, and Miami's "sanctuary city" policy tells illegal immigrants they will be treated as equals to legal immigrants.
 
The eminent Stanford University sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset put it this way:
 
“The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy.”
 
He is right, and America is fast approaching the crossroads where we must choose greater assimilation – or greater fragmentation.
 
If we do not choose assimilation, and pursue aggressive policies to accomplish it, we will continue to see increasing alienation and fragmentation.
 
Assimilation must once again become a cornerstone of our national immigration policy. We must encourage, nourish, and support institutions that promote assimilation, and a key pillar of successful assimilation is becoming proficient in the English language.
 
Theodore Roosevelt understood the need for the assimilation of the “melting pot.” And Teddy knew something about immigration – he served as both Governor of New York and President of the United States during one of America’s largest and most famous waves of immigration.
 
“Let us say to the immigrant NOT that we hope he will learn English, but that he has GOT to learn it. Let the immigrant who will not learn it go back. He must be made to consider the interest of these United States or he should not stay here. He must be made to see that his opportunities in this country depend on it. He must be made to see that his opportunities in this country depend on knowing English and observing American standards. And employers cannot be permitted to regard him as only industrial asset.”
 
Roosevelt went on to say, “The effort to keep our citizenship divided against itself by the use of the hyphen along the lines of national origin is certain to breed a spirit of bitterness and prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens.”
 
So, when I look out on this audience, I do not see “Cuban-Americans” or Puerto Rican-Americans or Mexican-Americans, I see only Americans, just as when I spoke at a dinner commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, I did not see “Hungarian-Americans,” I saw only Americans.
 
Previous generations of immigrants had to come a long way to get to the United States. The option of returning home for something like a family gathering wasn’t an option. They had to completely embrace America and the notion of becoming an American.
 
Most of today’s immigrants take a much shorter trip to get here, and live close enough to their country of origin that they can go home for the weekend. Some even maintain dual citizenship and vote in American elections as well as the election in their home country. This phenomenon has become so commonplace that the President of Mexico recently campaigned in U.S. cities in the lead up to the Mexican election.
 
The pressure to assimilate that Roosevelt recognized as so critical at the turn of the twentieth century has nearly disappeared in some cities here in the twenty-first.
 
If we do not demand that immigrants get into the great melting pot – if immigrants are permitted to continue to form their own independent cultural, political and linguistic enclaves – if we fail to instill in new arrivals the language, culture, and values that bind America together as a nation, we will soon cease to have a nation. At best, we will be little more than an economy. And at worst, the “melting pot” will have been replaced with a “pressure cooker.”
 
· So, when I read in a TIME magazine from 1994 that a local professor in Miami thinks it is a badge of honor that in Miami, "there is no pressure to become American," I worry about that.
 
· I worry when I read an interview with the very influential founder of the Cuban American National Foundation, Jorge Mas Canosa, who told the Miami Herald in 1992: "I have never assimilated. I never intend to. I am a Cuban first. I live here only as an extension of Cuba." I think it is fair to say that Canosa was speaking for many in his generation of exiles, and I worry whether that attitude is still widespread.
 
· When I read that in Miami, most business and commerce is conducted in Spanish, I worry about that.
 
· When I read that some years ago the Miami-Dade school district made bilingualism mandatory-- all students must learn Spanish unless a parent signs a waiver-- I worry about that. Students and parents should decide what foreign languages students learn, not the school board.
 
· When I read that in a recent random poll of Miami residents, when asked to name the number one value in Miami, the value that makes Miami unique, the number one answer was "corruption"--- yes, I worry about that.
 
· I am concerned when the political leaders of Miami cannot discuss the crime rate without using evasive language like "The crime rate is down." Down from number one in the nation to number three or number five?
 
Governor Bush sent me a letter in which he bragged about the high number of Advance Placement students graduating from one of Miami's high schools. I do not doubt those numbers. But his letter did not take note of the 55% dropout rate for the Miami-Dade School District.
 
I challenge you to ask the schools to break that number down and find out the true dropout rate for students who are not proficient in English. I assure you it will be higher than the 55% average for all students.
 
My friends, I recognize that bilingualism in Miami has its roots in the Cuban exile community and that there are historical and political reasons why those Cubans originally wanted to maintain their identity and their culture. But friends, amigos, this is 2006 and three generations of Cuban immigrants have become Americans.
 
Even if Castro dies tomorrow and his brother Raul transforms himself into a Cuban Gorbachev and institutes economic and political reforms, the large majority of Americans of Cuban extraction will not go back to Cuba. They may invest there, may visit or vacation there, but they will remain Americans because they have made America their home.
 
I think it is clear that their future is in America, not in Cuba, and in America, we speak English. We also speak Italian, German, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hmong, Farsi, Bantu, Spanish and a hundred other languages, but English is our language of commerce, our language of education, our language of professional sports, and most important of all, it is our language of political debate and active citizenship. It is the language of the American nation.
 
25 years ago, the Puerto-Rican born Mayor of Miami Maurice Ferre predicted that "Cubans will eventually have to decide to either become Americans or remain an exile community." He was right, and it is a mistake to think that bilingualism allows a kind of dual loyalty or dual citizenship. It does not. That is an illusion. Bilingualism promotes disunity, ethnic resentments and balkanization, and nowhere on earth has that been a healthy or successful thing.
 
I do not think most citizens of Miami want it to be mistaken for a Third World Country, especially if that term is interpreted to mean a city rife with poverty, crime and corruption. Yet the dominance of Spanish as the language of commerce, of entertainment, and increasingly the language of the civic culture creates the impression that you have some ambivalence about America and its institutions.
 
A city populated by tens of thousands of newly arriving immigrants needs to put ADDITIONAL value on learning English, not less, so that new citizens can more fully engage and interact with fellow Americans not just in Miami, but across this great nation.
 
Like the immigrants of the 19th century and the 20th century, immigrants today must also choose, and when they choose to become an American-- no longer an exile or a guest worker or a visiting sports superstar, but an American citizen -- they must also choose to speak the language of America, not the language of the nations from which they fled. English is the language of American democracy, and for that reason we should embrace it and use it to serve and protect our precious heritage of freedom.

Economist Milton Friedman said, "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

For the same reason, "There's no such thing as cheap labor" -- not when it comes to illegal aliens.

Vernon Robinson, a GOP congressional candidate in North Carolina, summarized the problems posed by 12 million illegal immigrants:

"These illegal aliens are taking jobs away from American citizens and they're sponging off the American taxpayer. They're overflowing our public schools and colleges for a FREE EDUCATION, scamming our welfare and food stamp programs for a FREE HAND-OUT, filling our court rooms as criminal defendants, swarming our hospital emergency rooms for FREE MEDICAL CARE, and clogging the line at the DMV."

Perhaps you think Robinson is being a little harsh but to understand what he is talking about, let's look at how the Senate amnesty bill would benefit a fictional family of six illegal aliens.

The head of the household fraudulently obtained a Social Security number years ago but NEVER filed an income tax return. However, since the Senate amnesty bill requires him to "pay" some of his back taxes, he files an income tax return.

And -- because he worked for ABC Corporation at a ridiculously low wage -- he receives an "earned income credit" of up to $3,200 for each filing year! That's a clear profit of $1,200 over the so-called $2,000 fine he'll have to pay. And that's just for one year's worth of taxes. That money comes out of YOUR pocket.

In addition, this family of illegal aliens also receives low-cost Section 8 housing and federal help with the rent. Once again, you foot the bill.

This family of six will also receive food stamps, free medical care under Medicaid and free school lunches. Once again, you pay.

In other words, ABC Corporation gets cheap labor and the American taxpayer foots the bill.
 

Ryan M. Horn holds a master's degree in Public Administration from Cornell University. He specializes in the fields of international relations and public policy analysis. Mr. Horn is a freelance writer and is the editor-at-large of The Cornell American.