A paper that is the final word, exposing the fraudulent arguments that have opened America’s borders to the world
Anyone who has followed or participated in America’s long-runningimmigration debate knows that opposing the open-immigration ideology islike wrestling with Proteus: as soon as you think you have youradversary pinned, he changes his shape, maybe into a bird orsea-monster, and escapes your grasp. As a result of this mercurialquality of the open-borders arguments, there never seems to be anyclosure in the immigration debate, even on the most obvious andirrefutable points.
For example, one of the perennial assertions of open-borders wisdom isthat “current immigration is not high by historical standards,” aplausible-sounding statement which has the effect on many people ofsweeping away, or at least of silencing, all doubts they may have onthe subject.
But as a matter of fact the statement is untrue,because the “historical standards” it refers to are based on just twodecades of exceptionally high immigration at the turn of the twentiethcentury. It is also irrelevant, since large-scale immigration in thepast tells us nothing about how much immigration we should have today.But no matter how many times the “not high by historical standards”slogan is discredited, the open-immigration advocates will just turnaround and say that America is a nation of immigrants, or thatimmigration is a historical force that cannot be stopped, or thatimmigration restrictionists are intolerant and racist. And as soon asthe next opportunity presents itself, the mass-immigration advocateswill come back and repeat the argument that “immigration is not high byhistorical standards,” and with the same triumphant, conclusory air.
Itis not only immigration reform activists who find themselvesdiscouraged at times by the inexhaustible energy (backed by theseemingly inexhaustible funds) of the open-borders lobby. A largemajority of Americans are deeply troubled by current immigration andwould like to see it reduced, but they are perplexed and intimidated bythe never-ending stream of clichés, myths, catch-phrases and fallacies,disseminated by the news media, the political parties, and otherpowerful institutions, that are used to promote it. In the followingpages I will critically examine a number of these slogans from avariety of angles. While I will go into some topics at length, thediscussion as a whole will be neither systematic nor exhaustive. Thinkof it rather as an attempt to pin the open-borders Proteus to theground even as he keeps changing his shape before our eyes. Or think ofit as a series of forays against the outposts of an occupying army, inwhich I will seek to expose the false premises, the deceptiveassertions, the illogical leaps of thought, and the brain-numbingsentiments by which the open immigrationists have kept America inthrall.