Is American culture at risk?
Ask Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana and a GOP presidential candidate. His parents immigrated to the United States 45 years ago from India. They adopted the values of U.S. culture, he said. "They did not come here to be hyphenated Americans."
For Jindal, American culture is worth protecting. "Immigration without assimilation is invasion," Jindal said.
Some these days will see such comments as racially insensitive or raise claims of xenophobia. I would call it patriotism.
The United States, according to many estimates, has more than 11 million people within its borders who are not legally authorized to be in this country. A lot of them are fine family-oriented people who came to our country for economic opportunity. Many of them fit this description, and my preference is that nothing unfortunate happens in their lives.
Their presence -- or more accurately, an expectation that someone in the country illegally should be viewed as having a right to stay -- does irk me when I see someone going through the complex process of legal immigration. We hear too little about these law-abiding folks who want to be in the United States legally. Kudos to them.
Just as most laws are put in place to deal with those who are dishonest or violent or murderous, a nation's immigration laws cannot be designed only to deal with fine family-oriented people just looking for a better way of life. Laws must anticipate that people illegally entering or residing in a nation do not necessarily have the best interests of that nation on their minds.
Such concerns are at play in Europe, which is reeling from the flow of Syrian refugees. Some suggest the compassionate thing to do is to open borders and let the refugees flood into areas of western Europe where they might find better, and almost certainly safer, futures. The European Union, however, is getting resistance from some of its 28 nations.
Slovakia, Cyprus and Hungary have expressed concern, at times outright resistance, with regard to allowing Syrian Muslims into their countries, preferring instead to accept only Christians. Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, said he wants to "keep Europe Christian." When your nation is a couple of stones' throw from the Middle East and all its perennial violence -- and the dominant source of violence is a radical, Muslim-based anti-Western group with visions of overtaking the world in the name of Islam -- one can understand being a bit hesitant about building up a Muslim community through refugee resettlement.
The Daily Mail in Great Britain reported recently that ISIS fighters and others are able to buy Syrian identity documents that allow them to hide among refugees flowing across Europe. One of its reporters paid $2,000 for the genuine documents, which were modified with his picture and used the identity of a Syrian man who had been killed earlier. The forger told the newspaper's reporter: "Everyone wants to be Syrian now -- beause now everyone welcomes Syrians."
Is that a security concern for other nations? Is that a reason to have secure borders?
Tony Abbott, until recently Australia's prime minister, has taken a tough stance on illegal immigration, acting aggressively to shut down the pipeline of people entering the country without authority. In the Times of London, British Conservative Party activist and blogger Tim Montgomerie wrote that Abbott "understood what John Howard, one of Australia's most successful prime ministers, had understood before him. National security is 'about having an uncompromising view about the fundamental right of this country to protect its borders.' The Australian people, Howard declared in 2001, 'are a generous open-hearted people, taking more refugees on a per capita basis than any nation except Canada ... but we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come."
In a perfect world, people in a war-torn country could flee to a better place. People in difficult economic conditions would be able to find work and an ability to thrive. It's troublesome to hear some Syrian refugees, and some advocates for illegal immigrants elsewhere, speak as though they have an inherent right to cross into whatever country they should choose.
Hungary put up a wall on its border to stem the flow of refugees and its police have acted harshly against a surging throng. Even as Hungarian leaders view that wall as protection, it's entirely understandable that desperate Syrians view those walls as those of a prison. It's also entirely understandable a nation would not want to lose control of its own borders.
Croatia was at first accommodating, pledging to help refugees make their way deeper into Western Europe. Late last week, they were overwhelmed. "Don't come here anymore," Crotatian Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said Thursday. "This is not the road to Europe."
The issue is one of control, not forever barring people from entry. Australia, by the way, agreed to take 14,000 Syrian refugees, then agreed to take another 12,000 on top of that. Would it be so eager to help if it had not stopped the tide of illegal immigrants into the country?
What Americans need is some sense that our United States government is in control, that it's not just acquiescing to the presence of a massive group of people because it doesn't know what else to do.
Commentary on 09/21/2015