3 Part Study on Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration, Liberal Elites, and Obama

By David Paulin - Part II of III

In the suburbs outside New York City, there are lots of towns like Westport, situated within an hour's train ride from the heart of New York City. They're popular abodes for well-to-do liberals, people who earn six figure salaries in business and finance, and even in big-time journalism. This is not to say that there are not some open-borders Republican elites living in these places, too.

Memories of Westport and its affluent and civic-minded residents drifted back to me while reading an article in the New York Times: "Texas Mayor Caught in Deportation Furor."  The article was part of the Times' ongoing "Remade in America" series on immigration, and it focused on efforts in Irving, a Dallas suburb, to crack down on illegal immigration.

Spinning its story around an open-borders agenda, the Times portrays Irving's residents (its white residents) as narrow-minded hicks. Yet even the Times cannot ignore some of the changes that have happened in Irving due to illegal immigration, primarily from Mexico. Residents of Danbury should pay close attention.

Back in 1970, Irving had a population of 100,000; 95 percent of its residents were white. Now, whites are a minority, as they are in Texas.  Hispanics comprise 45 percent or more of the population of 200,000 - and according to city officials, 20 percent of them may be illegal immigrants, noted the Times.

Hispanic birthrates have been explosive in Irving and across the nation. Many of these children are the offspring from millions of illegal immigrants whom Congress allowed to stay under an amnesty in the 1990s.  Today, Irving's future may be found in its public schools: 70 percent of kids enrolled in kindergarten through fifth grade are Hispanic, notes the Times. More than a few experts on immigration have expressed concern that the sons and daughters of these immigrants tend to do poorly in school, and dropout up until the fourth generation.  Indeed, compared to other immigrant groups, the children of Hispanic immigrant groups have the highest dropout rates, say experts. 

All of which underscores that culture is a powerful thing: It does not change easily, especially in sanctuary cities where "diversity" and "multiculturalism" are presumed to be virtues. "The people who come here illegally across the border are not educated people. They don't have any culture or any respect for ours," Sue Richardson, vice president of the Greater Irving Republican Club, tells the Times.

America is experiencing massive levels of immigration that are unprecedented in scale and fact that many of the newcomers are from the Third World, not Europe as in the past. The impact of this flood of immigrants is the subject of the Times series "Remade in America." Its underlying theme is that America is remaking the immigrants. But that's certainly not the case in Irving, parts of which now have the shabby look of Mexico.

Residents Fight Back

Two years ago, Irving's residents decided enough was enough; they demanded that America's immigration laws be upheld. Naturally, the Times is outraged.

So what did all those rubes in Irving do that was so shocking? Did they give the KKK a permit to march through town or ban people who look Hispanic from sitting at lunch counters? Have the city's rednecks and "white trash" been racing around in pick-ups? Shouting lewd insults at hapless Mexican women? Roughing up shabby-looking Mexicans? Or torching Mexican-American business?

No, it's much worse.

Irving Mayor Herbert A. Gears --  a well-known supporter of Hispanic groups and causes in the past -- did something truly despicable in what the Times calls a "once welcoming" city. The formerly "immigrant friendly Democrat" ordered Irving's police to start running "immigration checks" on everybody whom they arrested and tossed into Irving's lockup. Suspects found to be in the country illegally were turned over to immigration authorities and deported.

What's the upshot of all this? Last year, Irving's crime last dropped to a record-low level. And illegal immigrants appear to be steering clear of Irving. Following the immigration checks, Mexico's council in Dallas issued a warning advising its citizens to avoid Irving.

Yet to Irving's "Hispanic leaders" and open-borders defenders with whom the Times sympathizes, the immigration checks are unconscionable. Irving has abrogated a federal responsibility, they complain. Even worse, the deportations are "breaking up families." It's an argument the Times highlights by focusing sympathetically on the plight of a hapless 35-year-old Mexican, Oscar Urbina.

Last summer, Urbina's life as an allegedly model citizen unraveled when he ran into what the Times called "paperwork" problems when buying a Dodge Ram pickup. Urbina, it turns out, had been using a false Social Security number since immigrating illegally to America in 1993. Until then, he'd been a "portrait of domestic stability" -- a man "with a nice home, a thriving family and a steady contracting job," the Times claims.

Now, he faces deportation.