Mexican Opinion Poll Raises Profound Questions

How many is too many?

It's died down a bit in recent months, what with the bad economy, Olympic lobbying, taxpayer-funded brothels, and other pressing matters to occupy our attention, but the ongoing issue of illegal immigration still simmers just below the surface.  True, some illegal immigrants have been self-deporting because they can't find jobs, but there are still many millions here "in the shadows," as the saying goes, and presumably this recession won't go on forever.

The American people are overwhelmingly sick and tired of official tolerance of illegal immigrants; poll after poll has shown that they want them gone.  At the same time, vote after vote and speech after speech has demonstrated that our elites of both parties will only stop welcoming illegals when an electoral gun is put to their head, and often not even then.

Forgotten in all this has been the opinions of the illegal immigrants themselves - and more particularly, potential illegal immigrants who have not yet sneaked across our borders but might.  Zogby polls decided to investigate this fascinating subject, and the results are nothing short of astounding.

How Full Is Full?

The first issue is the obvious one: Zogby asked Mexicans if they'd like to immigrate to the United States.  This number gives us the potential total of Mexican immigration.  Of course, the people who were asked this question are still in Mexico; they have not come here by means legal or otherwise.

Interest in going to the United States remains strong even in the current recession, with 36 percent of Mexicans (39 million people) saying they would move to the United States if they could.  [emphasis added]

Sit down and consider this for a moment.  We already have a great many Mexicans in the United States - anywhere between 15 to 30 million.  Hispanics, who are mostly but not entirely Mexicans, are projected shortly to outnumber blacks, who've held steady at around 12% of the population for many years.  The number of Hispanics in our country is held down only by our border.

If it became known that we no longer even attempted to defend our border or enforce our immigration laws, America's population would immediately increase by somewhere around 12%.  Look at it this way: for every black American, there would be one more Mexican added, in addition to those already here.

The point is not that there is something particularly unique or bad about Mexicans or Hispanics as people.  The point is, surely somewhere there is a limit to how many people we'd like to jam into this country.  Surely somewhere there is a limit to how many ill-educated, mostly illiterate, unskilled laborers we'd like to add to our underclass.

Yet, the Mexicans still in Mexico who want to come here are human beings just like anyone else.  Open-borders advocates love to appeal to the humanity of our existing illegal-immigrant population as a reason why they should be allowed to pursue their dreams and live their lives in ongoing violation of our laws.

What's special about them?  Only the fact that they've managed to get here illegally.  Wouldn't the same argument apply just as much to those who haven't made it here, but want to?

It boils down to this: if our immigrations laws are immoral and ought not be enforced, they ought not be enforced or exist at all.  In which case, we'll be immediately overrun by a mass migration of gargantuan proportions.

Is that what morality demands?  Is that what our elites want?  Is that what the American people want?  Is that what the American voter should want?  If so, why?  And if not, why not?

Either it is moral to control who comes across our borders, or it is not.  If we're going to do it, we ought to darn well do it.  If not, then not - and brace yourself for the result.

The Melting Pot Officially Over

Quickly comes the response, "But we had millions of Irish immigrants come a hundred years ago, and there were a few bumps along the way, but today they've assimilated just fine."  Indeed they have: most Irish-Americans are Irish on St. Patrick's Day, and American the other 364.

There is a history of how they got that way: they were ridiculed and often abused for their differences, forcing them over time into the mold of every other American.  Diversity then was not an ideal, but a fearsome threat to be wiped out as rapidly as possible.  Yes, the early Irish immigrants suffered abuse, but the result was our Founding Father's dream of "E pluribus, unum" - Out of many, one people.

Today, in contrast, we "celebrate diversity."  You can come to this country and not change one single thing about your way of life: you can use your own language even in the voting booth, wear your own clothes, eat your own food, preach your own culture, even beat your own wife according to your religious customs.  Because it's part of your culture and no culture is any better than any other culture, we dare say nothing against it.

Rather than be more American than their parents, today's children of immigrants tend to be even more loyal to their homeland than their parents were.  It's easy to understand why: the actual immigrants had a good reason for leaving home, but their American-born children have only ever heard the pleasant stories and occasional wistful homesickness.  They hear the good, they don't experience the bad.

What does Zogby have to say about this?

An overwhelming majority (69 percent) of people in Mexico thought that the primary loyalty of Mexican-Americans (Mexico- and U.S.-born) should be to Mexico. Just 20 percent said it should be to the United States. The rest were unsure.  [emphasis added]

Again, stop and think this through.  When the Irish came over, they knew they were leaving home forever: there was no way they could go back, and the only available communication was via unreliable and extremely slow letter.  Today's immigrants can pick up the phone and call home anytime they please, fly home for a visit for a few hundred bucks, and in the case of Mexico even see their relatives through the border fence.

It is perfectly feasible for them to stay just as connected to their Mexican village and the people in it as most Americans do to their own parents in another state.  Mexico even encourages its emigrants to vote in Mexican elections via absentee ballot or by visiting their local Mexican consulate in an American city.

Become Americans?  No - for all too many Mexican immigrants, they live here, they work here, but they aren't "from" here because they have no wish to be.

Is it any wonder that major companies appeal to a Mexican desire to repossess large chunks of the United States?

Again, there's nothing wrong with familial or national loyalty, it's perfectly natural.  Is it, however, wise to invite tens of millions of people into one's country, who are loyal to a different, neighboring country?

Throughout the entire sweep of human history, without exception, this has always proven to be a Very Bad Idea.  What unprecedented change about the world and the human condition has taken place in the past fifty years to make this safe now, where it never was before?

The advocates of open borders have a lot of explaining to do.  They cannot say that relatively few Mexicans still want to come; clearly, vast numbers of them do.  They cannot say that immigrants want to assimilate and become Americans; clearly, they overwhelmingly wish to retain their traditional loyalty to their homeland even as they live here and take advantage of the ways in which American is not Mexico.

Oh, and concerning an amnesty to solve the problem once and for all?  Not a prayer:

Of Mexicans with a member of their immediate household in the United States, 65 percent said a legalization program would make people they know more likely to go to America illegally.

The debate is over.  The people - American and Mexican alike - have spoken.  We know what the Mexicans want.

The only remaining question is, will we simply give it to them?

Petrarch is a contributing editor for Scragged.  Read other Scragged.com articles by Petrarch or other articles on Immigration.
Reader Comments
I don't care if they are here.. doing jobs no white man (or woman) wants- that is what freedom is all about-- if you don't like 'em, that's your problem, don't make the rest of us pay to solve your personal issues

considering we annexed about 50% of Mexico in 1847 (Texas in 1836) it seems weird we complain about an open border...
as far as loyalty goes, who wants to be loyal to an American regime that in the past nearly nine yrs has invaded our privacy, continues to proscribe our rights as citizens, incarcerate those who disagree, especially non-citizens in Gitmo without trial, let alone pressing charges: I would never sign a loyalty oath to the thieves and slave drivers in Washington
¡ Viva la Revolución !




October 20, 2009 10:35 AM
@ irvin

Somehow, you manage to sound more ignorant with every comment.

Freedom is not "all about" entering, working in and stealing taxpayer-funded subsidies from a country that you aren't a citizen of. The word "freedom" actually means something.

Start here and read the whole series: http://www.scragged.com/articles/the-wrongs-of-rights-1-human-rights.aspx

Would you be allowed to illegally enter, work in and steal taxpayer money from Germany, France, Japan, Russia, Canada or Sweden (or Mexico for that matter)?

(Never mind the fact that the past administration - the one you hate so much - opposed the GOP base in tolerating illegal immigration and actually wanted complete and total amnesty. Oops, I guess you liked THAT part of the last 8 years.)
October 20, 2009 11:05 AM
Thank you twibi. Irwin truly must be ignorant - and naive. He has surely never tried to immigrate to another country (i.e. Australia, as I have, and where my husband is from. The paper work and the wait and the buracracy run-around is tremendous.). It is still a free country, as is France, with all of her assimilation policies. And so are we.
As for Gitmo: in my opinion, they are POWs and should be freed when our jihadist enemy vows to not attempt to annilate the infidels.
October 21, 2009 10:40 AM
thanx for the epitaphs... I have married to foreign nationals (USSR and unified Germany)- the former was pretty easy for her to enter, and the US feds did't care about my legitimacy; in the second case- during the Bush administration- they wanted my tax returns for the past ten yrs, bank statements, letters of recommendation: and the question of the woman's origin and legitimacy were secondary to my references.
I question the legitimacy of the Feds: as I am am an ignoramus, I wonder why they require tax and bank records, as they seek nowadays citizenship when opening a bank account or obtaining loans: which the &*^ are they trying to prove, do the feds own the banks now? There is no privacy between consenting adults w/o the government being "concerned" ~!
If the Gitmo prisoners are POWs why are they being tortured?
Why is it Bush apologists cannot realise how far they have pushed the American ppl down the road to a totalitarian state?
You see, I am ignorant.. and scared the time for a real Amerikan Revolution may be nigh...
lest our freedoms be just a memory of our grandparents...





October 21, 2009 11:14 AM
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October 23, 2009 3:52 AM
Only white people have to show the paperwork you mentioned Irvn. Mexicans can come freely into this country and head right to the welfare office with a big outstretched hand. I don't think you realize how much of a burden they are, until you are stuck living in states where all you see around you is greasy, illiterate illegals. When all your money is stolen to pay for the healthcare they require maybe you will stop grinning like a ninny.
March 16, 2010 12:00 AM
@bookerb:All the Mexicans i know go to the job site...
Yo creo que los trabajeros no saben donde está la oficina.. and none are greasy either; your hatred only belittles your defence.
My work is not threatened by anyone's presence other than OSHA, the FTC, and other "disinterested" bureaucrats- if yours is, get a real job which greasy ignorant unskilled "aliens" are incapable of comprehending- and quit selecting politicians who advocate government meddling in our affairs, be it personal or business, social or financial: they'll all the same.


March 16, 2010 2:27 AM
@twibi; RE: "Would you be allowed to illegally enter, ...
(Never mind ...you liked THAT part of the last 8 years.)"

Sir: i do not care what other regimes practice, other than their disregard for human liberty..i do not think it is any business who works where, but it is the business of tzpayers who see their $$ spent of servicing welfare recipients & other public expenditures: change the laws, or better yet, rescind taxes-- I mean really, take a realistic approach rather than just a blanket condemnation.. Laws have been changed, governments toppled for disrespecting their citizenry. given the penchant for politicians to choose re-election over moral, let alone legal, principles, this may not happen in the US unless there is the threat of massive intervention by the people against the thugs that dominate government.
you choose to tolerate these thieves.. i cannot.
regarding the last 8.. or 30.. yrs, I have been brain dead [though you may say i still am~!] until the farce that is Obama came to light, and i realised that he is the logical heir of the socialist policies that Mr Bush implemented, to say nothing of gross stupidity of the wars, the TSA & Homeland Security farce, bailouts, the Enron laws invading business privacy, et cetera
March 18, 2010 12:53 AM
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