Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 (Tek) 9/26/83; site shark.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!tekecs!shark!sdb
From: sdb@shark.UUCP (Steven Den Beste)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Unlimited immigration? I don't think so...
Message-ID: <23@shark.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Oct-83 23:12:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: shark.23
Posted: Tue Oct 11 23:12:30 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Oct-83 10:25:59 EDT
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 98

A recent article mentioned the fact that the U.S. treated "political
refugee" as being synonomous with "person fleeing from a communist
european country". There is some truth to that, and I think much of
it is based on racial prejudice. (However, the vast majority of "legal"
refugees accepted here in the last decade were from Cuba and South
Vietnam - hardly European comunists...)

I would like to argue a point that underlies this one, which will
seem objectively objectionable (say that three times fast), and will
provoke outcry (the purpose of this news-group). Ready? (cringe):

We cannot accept everyone who wants to enter the U.S. from elsewhere
in the world. We do not have theability to accept everyone from Mexico
and points south who wants to come here - *whether they are fleeing
from political oppression or not*.

I agree that our acts disagree with our rhetoric, and I do not condone
hypocrisy.

I think that the rhetoric should change. I think our policy *must* be
that simply fleeing from the threat of death for political reasons
is not a sufficient reason to be granted legal status here. I know that
this sounds hard-hearted - but damn-it - we cannot handle 20 million
refugees a year! (You know, I think given the chance that half the
people in Mexico would come here!)

To put myself out further on the cracking ice, I will propose the
criteria I think that we should use instead: I think the major criteria
should be the ability of an immigrant to make a substantial contribution
to our society/culture/economy - with a certain extra weight being
given to those fleeing from oppression.

If people are illiterate and uneducated, speak no english and have
no useful skills or talents, I don't see why we want them.



Now, there are several cheap shots that can be taken at my point of
view. Let's see if I cannot anticipate some of them.

Would my ancestors have passed this criteria? Probably not. Dirt-poor
farmers from Holland?

Does that make me a hypocrite? Well, depends on your point of view.
I don't think that the problem we have now applied when my folks came
over (about 80 years ago). In any case, the fact that a policy worked
50 years ago doesn't mean that we must continue the policy for another
four hundred - times and circumstances change.


Another would be to get very pious and start spouting stuff like "The
U.S. is the world bastion of *freedom* and *democracy* - and that means
that we must uphold those principles in all ways or we are morally
bankrupt." That sounds really good, and would make a good speech on
the floor of the House if Tip O'Neil ever lets them consider the immigration
issue), but if you are going to propose that point of view, you better
have an answer to the following question: What are we going to do with
20 million non-english-speaking immigrants a year? In the case of the
Cubans, most of them ended up in (so I have heard) either Miami or
Chicago and have been treated as a local problem by the U.S. government.
I think that that is even worse hypocrisy - and that was only about a
hundred thousand. What are we going to do with 200 times that many,
and not once but *every year*?


"Who is going to decide which person is *useful*? Such things could
not possibly be handled fairly." Well, life is a bitch. The system
we have now isn't fair either. I think that some basic standards could
be set down in statute. Just for the hell of it, I will make a first
pass at a description I think I could support:

"***Admit the person if they fit at least one of the following criteria:

If the person has the equivalent of a high-school education and is
literate in at least one language,
OR
the person is fluent in three languages including English
OR
the person is a recognized artist/performer/athlete
OR
the person is a leader of a politically out-of-favor movement in the
native land and is in serious danger of arrest/assassination in there

**Except, don't admit the person if they are guilty or under heavy
suspicion of having violated a law in their home country which would
be considered constitutional under the U.S. constitution."

Hokay - it has holes. This is the result of a whole half hour's thought,
and is worth what I put into it. But at least it is a start. To really
work, it would probably have to be changed somewhat. For one thing, I
have just made it legal for more than half the world to immigrate
into the U.S. - so maybe quotas have to be set up, too.


Well, folks, what do you say?

   Steve Den Beste