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Mitchell in Oakland's avatar

The author has a good point -- but he's up against those who characterize illegal immigration as merely "undocumented" (as if shoplifting is merely "undocumented shopping") -- and the tendency of immigration PROPONENTS to cast the issue in terms of "whiteness" vs "people of color." It'll be difficult to resolve this situation as long as progressives consider "assimilation" a pejorative term.

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Greg Millard's avatar

Since most immigrants are (a) law-abiding (b) employed (c) not security threats, the only possible basis for real-life concern is (d) language acquisition - and even there, I would be surprised if most immigrants can’t at least function in the dominant language. And yet, despite these realities, we have all this right-wing opposition to immigration. What the author overlooks, therefore, is that facts are immaterial; misinformation machines will continue to grind out nativist hysteria regardless of reality and a critical mass of citizens will continue to believe it. My guess is that this nativist hysteria would only be assuaged by invisible immigration: i.e., immigrants who speak with no strong accent and have no conspicuous markers of difference. Such a genus doesn’t exist, of course.

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