A decisive test of Hispanics’ patriotism

The main objection to the new law in Arizona appears to be that it will lead to “racial profiling,” in which any person who looks Hispanic will be singled out by police officers and asked for proof of legal residency. Since there must already be “lawful contact” between an officer and an individual before such an inquiry may be made, most such inquiries will probably take place during traffic stops. Officers will not be able to walk up to anyone on the street and ask for his ID.

Arizona’s current population is approximately 6.2 million, with 30 percent, or 1.86 million, being Hispanic. It is estimated that there are 460,000 illegal aliens in the state. Virtually all of those illegal aliens are Mexican or other Hispanic. This means that 25.5 percent of the Hispanic residents of Arizona are illegal aliens. Now, if you were a U.S. citizen or legal resident who had come originally from Mexico or whose parents had come from Mexico, and you were living in a state in which there had been a huge Mexican/Hispanic illegal alien invasion so that one quarter of the Hispanics in the state were illegals, and if you cared about America and were loyal to America and wanted to demonstrate your loyalty to America, how would you react to a law intended to stop this illegal alien invasion by removing the illegal aliens or encouraging them to leave on their own? You would welcome this law. You would recognize that because the illegal alien invasion was entirely Hispanic, legal Hispanic residents or citizens might be occasionally asked for their driver’s license as proof of legal residency, but that this was a very small price to pay for stopping this illegal alien invasion. If a police officer during a traffic stop asked you for your driver’s license (which an officer would do anyway), you would welcome this and you would be eager to cooperate, because you want to help the state end the invasion. You would be proud and happy to be living in a civilized country that defends its sovereignty and borders and enforces the rule of law.

But that has not been the response of the organized Hispanic/Mexican community in the U.S. Instead, the Hispanics are treating Arizona as a criminal, racist state that deserves to be punished.

What does this tell us? It tells us that Hispanics as an organized community (there are of course many individual exceptions, but they are not expressing themselves publicly as an organized commmunity and so don’t count politically) are not loyal to the United States. It tells us that they identify with illegal aliens from their native or ancestral country more than they identify with the United States, and that they regard Americans as racists if they undertake the most minimal measures to stop an illegal alien invasion. It tells us that Hispanics are hostile to the United States.

In a sane America, as distinct from the insane, alien-centric America in which we actually live, the object of obloquy would not be the State of Arizona for passing this law, but the Hispanics who are demonizing Arizona for passing it. There would be a flow of newspaper columns and TV commentaries questioning the loyalty of Hispanics who seem to support an illegal alien invasion by their co-ethnics, and pointing to the insanity of an immigration policy that had allowed into the United States a vast population that seems hostile to the United States. Of course there hasn’t been a single such column or TV commentary. There has, however, been a ceaseless flow of statements condemning Arizona as Nazi-like for initiating minimal measures to stop the illegal alien invasion.

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Mark Jaws writes:

I agree with you about “politically organized Hispanic America.” The La Raza and MEChA crowd is first and foremost “Latino,” and American second (or even third).

However, I do think you ought to be a tad more sympathetic to the millions of conservative Hispanics who display a loyalty to Ameica that is second to none. I talk to these people. They can see what life would be like for them across the border or in Puerto Rico had their grandparents not emigrated years ago. Those conservative Hispanic groups such as “You Don’t Speak For Me,” remain largely unfunded and fairly unorganized—just like us TEA Partyers. And as you well know, it takes mucho dinero and full time staff to organize politically. The unpleasant reality is that there are no right-wing George Soros or Ford Foundations providing the necessary funds for conservative Hispanics (or whites) to organize.

There is also the added pressure of coming out against your own. Please remember, that unlike whites, Hispanics do exhibit a sense of “la raza” and thus to go up against the political La Raza is to be labeled a “coconut,” brown on the outside but white on the inside. It is somewhat akin to being a southerner over 40 years ago and being sympathetic to civil rights for blacks. The peer pressure and stigma of being labeled as pro-black kept many a southern white liberal on the sidelines.

LA replies:

Then it still comes to the same thing. For whatever reasons—PC, lack of funding, racial loyalty—the Hispanic commuty is constituted such that there is no significant public organized voice representing Hispanics that supports the measures needed to stop the illegal alien invasion.

Of course there are millions of patriotic Hispanic Americans. But the overall voice and impact of Hispanics in the U.S. is such that we are justified in saying that the growth of the Hispanic population in this country via immigration means the growth of a community that is hostile to the sovereignty, laws, and national identity of the United States. Therefore this immigration should stop forthwith; all illegals should leave; and those legal residents and citizens who are more loyal to Latin America than the U.S. should go back to Latin America.

James N. writes:

I agree with you completely regarding the fact that the primary loyalty of Hispanic legal immigrants (and, to a lesser degree, Hispanic citizens) is to their illegal brothers and sisters, and not to the State of Arizona nor the US.

I’m not so sure that this is different from other ethnic immigrant enclaves, though—it’s just that there are more of them, and they have a long contiguous land border with their families.

I lived in Boston for 22 years. In the 1980s, economic conditions in Ireland were poor, and there were many illegal Irish immigrants living in and around Boston. Some were so well established that they had major businesses—my driveway was paved once by a company that had a fleet of their own trucks, name on the side and everything, all of whom were illegals (I found out by asking why I had to pay cash). The Irish-American community in Boston defended these people fiercely, not that they needed much defending from the Irish law enforcement bureaucracy. It got to be a political issue because the INS was quite active against illegal Haitians while pretty much leaving the Irish alone.

Allan Wall writes:

Regarding the Arizona law as a test of Hispanics’ patriotism, you are right on the money. If they are patriotic they would support the law, which in any case is likely to cause very little inconvenience to a legal, assimilated Hispanic. Really, I think it’s all about the power—Hispanics’ collective veto power over the National Question. Here’s my article at Vdare on the Arizona thing.

Hannon writes:

Mark Jaws mentions the group “Don’t Speak for Me” in his comment. Their website shows the most recent press release as being from August, 2007.

Silent opposition indeed.

LA replies:

I don’t know anything about the group, but August 2007 was two months after the 2007 version of comprehensivie reform died for a second and last time in the Senate, and the issue has not been on the front burner nationally since then. Maybe they will return to the fray now.

Paul K. writes:

It occurs to me that if McCain wins his primary battle he will return to the Senate as an even more dangerous enemy of America. If there is anything McCain despises, it is conservatism, and being forced to repudiate his signature political position in order to kowtow to conservative voters must be an unbearable humiliation. His consuming pride, which he calls his honor, will only be appeased if he can betray his conservative base at the earliest opportunity, as he has done so many times before.

What satisfaction it would give him to do so once he is safely back in office for what would probably be his last term! And what praise it would elicit from the liberals!

V. writes:

Just a reflection: I guess the problem with Hispanics that sympathize with the USA is that they do not put as much weight on their Hispanic identity as Hispanics that identify primarily as … Hispanic. Hence, they are not very likely to organize as, or to speak up in the capacity of being Hispanic.

Just one of the many benefits of identity politics taking center stage.

James P. writes:

You say, with respect to the AZ law,

Since there must already be “lawful contact” between an officer and an individual before such an inquiry may be made, most such inquiries will probably take place during traffic stops. Officers will not be able to walk up to anyone on the street and ask for his ID.

Arizona already had a “stop and identify” law, meaning that the police could walk up to anyone and ask for ID if they could assert “reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime.” Many states have such laws. In practice, this means the police can, in fact, walk up to anyone on the street and ask for ID, and you’d better comply, since you have no way to know whether or not they have such “reasonable suspicion”. Thus, in my view the new AZ law should not create any new fears for Hispanics. I have to show my ID all the time, for all kinds of reasons, so complaints on this score leave me unmoved.

I love the way that the Left dismissed as absurd any concerns about a great increase in state power or invasions of privacy when it came to Obamacare, but now howls about Nazis and Apartheid with respect to this AZ law.

Alan Wall writes:

You know, if present trends continue, by 2100 the U.S. will have a Hispanic majority and this whole question will be moot. That is, unless people wake up first.

Kathlene M. writes:

I find it interesting that the White House’s justice department plans to challenge the Arizona law based on its potential for abuse. “Arizona’s new law is subject to potential abuse, Holder told a news conference. The law—which takes effect this summer—allows police to question anyone about their immigration status if they have reason to suspect they are in the country illegally, and makes it a state crime if they are. ”

Why is it that this law should come under special scrutiny yet when Homeland Security frisks my toddler for the umpteenth time, that’s not considered a potential abuse? So American citizens are told two things: we need to produce our IDs, and expect to put up with constant frisking and surveillance when flying, yet there is no reasonable expectation that illegals should be singled out when police ask them to prove who they are when they are caught violating a law. Let me just add that when I violate a law (such as speeding or driving recklessly) I must produce ID and proof of insurance, so why are Hispanics, illegals, or any group exempt from producing their IDs when American citizens are expected to produce them when questioned by police? Furthermore, if I were a gringo wandering around in Mexico, and I didn’t produce my passport when police decided randomly to ask me, they could make my life very miserable.

The Dems are trying to frame this as an issue of fairness. Do they really want to go there? After all is it fair that law-abiding citizens must follow the law but those who flout the law aren’t expected to be questioned and prove their identity? The Republicans, if they are smart, should use the fairness question against the Dems, and also should point out that this is a national security issue. If we continue to allow “fairness” to override “security,” we’re going to pay the consequence with higher crime and violence. All they need to do is show violence at the border and the recent death of a rancher there by illegals, and they’ll make their point.

And if the Dems were smart, they’d continue work on the fence that the Bush administration had stalled.

Paul Nachman writes:

As with Allan Wall’s article, you might see my VDARE blog entry as relevant to your Hispanics discussion.

Tom Tancredo is the real deal. He returned to UNC and spoke.

Quotes within, by both Tancredo and the authors fit nicely with an excellent column about the techniques of the Left by Prager.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 28, 2010 07:31 AM | Send