Immigration v. Non-interventionism and the single issue sweepstakes

By Dylan Hales

In the new American Conservative magazine, the always controversial Fred Reed argues that mass illegal immigration is in large part the fault of Americans. Though a similar theme has been explored before by my friend the Southern Avenger (http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A41016), Reed, who himself is an American immigrant to Mexico, takes things a step farther by suggesting that most Americans WANT mass immigration. I'll leave it to AmCon readers to bitch about that particular nugget from Reed, but I do want to briefly touch on the third rail of immigration politics, namely U.S. interventionism.

One of the primary criticisms of the Ron Paul campaign, by traditional conservatives and paleos was that he was not strong on the national identity question. While it is true that Ron Paul is not Tom Tancredo (only Ralph Nader compares), he is clearly a friend to restrictionists and others concerned about illegal immigration. After all, Ron Paul was the only candidate to do an interview with VDare.com (http://www.vdare.com/pb/070912_paul.htm) and the only candidate to make opposition to birth right citizenship the primary component of his immigration plank.

That said, Paul is a friend to the immigration hawks for another reason, namely his unrepentant non-interventionism.

For years now I have said that immigration is a much more complex issue than traditional conservatives are willing to admit. While I am deeply sympathetic to efforts to suspend immigration wholesale, I am not willing to allow a totalitarian state on our shores to achieve this goal. Very little thought is put into HOW a restrictionist campaign would work and what its consequences might be. Even less thought has been put into how rabid anti-communism and a submission to totalitarian military empire left us with this problem.

As far as I know only the great eco-Anarchist, Edward Abbey, has ever really spent time on the relationship between U.S. foreign policy and mass illegal immigration. As Abbey noted, the proxy wars in Central America, and the propping up of the one party Mexican state, did much to ravage countries that were on the verge of (and sometimes in the middle of) social and political revolutions. While most conservatives reflexively cringe when they hear the word "revolution", they ought to break down and cry when they think of what plutocratic corporate capitalism has done to the Latin American world...and if the tears aren't worth sparing on Hispanics, they ought to be worth sparing on the Americans that are the victims of policy blowback once again.

That's right I said "blowback". While the term has come to be associated almost entirely with U.S. policy in the Middle East, the very real "blowback" of illegal immigration, may yet be the more serious threat to a cohesive U.S. nation. After all, there is no waive of Saudi or Iraqi immigration depressing U.S. wages, degrading the enviornment, expanding sprawl and the welfare state, et.

Is it presumptuous to assume that the revolutions of Latin America would have yielded better results without U.S. involvement? In a word yes, but that is not the issue at hand. The real heart of the matter is that by propping up dictatorships and authoritarian governments just south of our borders, the U.S. government bred resentment of our culture and institutions, at the very same time that it provided the closest escape route for those looking to find a safe haven from the terror states set up and endorsed by our policies. This irony is not lost on the many illegal immigrants who view their new home as a decadent country, run by racist warmongers. Is it any wonder that assimilation is looked at as "selling out"?

It is common in the paleo movement to encounter folks who will freely admit to being single issue voters when it comes to illegal immigration. Over at www.conservativetimes.org there is a post right now were one of their bloggers admits as much. Bay Buchanans endorsement of Tancredo and then Romney seems to have been entirely based on immigration. When this writer called into a local radio show to speak with vdare and takimag.com writer Marcus Epstein, I raised the point that Ron Paul was the only candidate who has graced such websites with an interview. Epstein's response was that Ron Paul wasn't running a single issue immigration campaign the way Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo were, and that worried him regarding the prospects for the issue long term. The message seems to be "illegal immigration is the single issue for paleoconservatives".

Even if that is true though, it is hard to see why Tom Tancredo jetsetting the country inserting the "immigration question" into every issue, is any better than Ron Paul doing the same with foreign policy. After all, a non-interventionist platform would end many of the incentives for immigration, restore american honor, and bring the troops home where many restrictionist think they should be guarding the borders. Not only that, but the lessons of interventionism and blowback have shown us that the foreign policy promoted by the Duncan Hunters and Tom Tancredos of the world, would make the goal of cutting off illegal immigration significantly harder..if not outright impossible.