"Blame an Immigrant"?
[John Wall, our house environmentalist, red-pencils The New York
Times attack on the Federation for American
Immigration Reform’s sprawl ads.]
The New York Times Editorial,
"Blaming Immigrants", October 14,
2000, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/14/opinion/14SAT3.html)
Next time you are stuck in traffic, blame an
immigrant. [Immigration
enthusiasts always say opponents of mass immigration
are "blaming immigrants."]
FAIR's broadcast and print ads highlight the
ills associated with suburban sprawl, then point
to immigration as the underlying culprit. [I'm shocked! A completely
true sentence about a New York Times adversary
in a Times editorial! This is news that's truly
"fit to print." Images of
advertisements run by FAIR, the Federation for
American Immigration Reform, in Loudoun County,
Virginia (west bank of the Potomac River from
about Great Falls to Harper's Ferry) are posted
on FAIR's website at http://www.fairus.org/loudoun/advertising.html.
See below for text.] FAIR ran
anti-sprawl commercials earlier this year in
Iowa and South Carolina during the primary
season, and is now concentrating on the
Washington D.C. area. [which
is rapidly turning into Los Angeles East as a
result of mass immigration.]
The notion that foreign immigrants are
primarily responsible for out-of-control sprawl
in American cities is absurd. [i.e. true. Population growth is
the predominant cause of urban sprawl.
Immigration and the high immigrant birth rates
are the cause of population growth. (See, e.g., "Sprawl
in California - A Report on Quantifying the Role
of the State's Population Boom", by Leon
Kolankiewicz and Roy Beck; NumbersUSA
website - "Who
were the 68 Million people added to the United
States since 1970?") Most immigrants
move to already-congested metropolitan areas,
displacing many of the native residents. Nearly
all Americans refuse to live like The New York
Times editorial writers, crammed into high-rise
apartment buildings on the Upper West Side of
Manhattan, where Communists outnumber
Republicans. When their neighborhoods are
overrun with high-birthrate, subsidized
foreigners, Americans move away.]
Cities experiencing no population growth also
grapple with excessive sprawl, which suggests
that faulty urban planning, demand for new
housing and tax and transportation policies are
the real culprits. [Kolankiewicz
and Beck found:
(1) "California's
population boom has been the no. 1 factor in the
state's relentless urban sprawl, even though
most anti-sprawl efforts exclusively target
consumption factors";
(2) "The
supposedly gluttonous appetite of California
citizens for more and more urban space per
resident has in fact played little role in the
sprawl. In most Urbanized Areas, land per
resident did not grow at all -- and it usually
shrank in both the central city and in the
suburbs. Thus, the average Californian was
consuming land in an increasingly
environmentally responsible way; but there were
so many more Californians each year that sprawl
marched ever outward";
(3) "The volatile
growth of California's population far outweighed
the sprawl effect of all other factors
combined."]
Immigrants, in any case, congregate in city
centers and older suburbs. [You can find immigrant clusters
anywhere. Some personal examples:
(1) I made a wrong turn
north of New London, CT and wound up in an
isolated Haitian housing project.
(2) The Walmart in
Germantown, Maryland is surrounded by ugly, high
density housing that must be full of immigrants,
as they comprise the majority of people observed
in the store. By contrast, the local trailer
park, not long ago an eyesore amongst fields and
woodland, now looks quite appealing with its
remnant patch of mature trees.
(3) When I was birding
in rural Loudoun County, Virginia, a pickup
stopped, and the driver asked for directions in
Spanish.]
Last May The Times reported that FAIR had run
tasteless [not to most
Americans] ads in Michigan suggesting
that Senator Spencer Abraham's pro-immigration
stance would make it easier for terrorists like
Osama bin Laden to attack America. Such
preposterous ads [Preposterous?
Has The Times forgotten the bombing of the World
Trade Center, carried out by Islamic immigrants
operating quite openly out of a New Jersey
mosque?] clearly spring from a sense
of desperation among anti-immigration groups. [The desperation is among the
immigration enthusiasts. Even though they
control the networks, the major newspapers, the
largest corporations, and the best-financed
websites, public opinion is not on their side,
because it's impossible for people to reconcile
their personal experiences with what they are
constantly told they have to believe. (See Sailer on "Racial
Profiling" for another example of the
same phenomenon.)] Stoking
anti-immigration rage is not an easy task when
the nation's unemployment rate has dipped below
4 percent, and when the job market is eagerly
seeking not only cheap labor for menial tasks
but also skilled foreigners to keep the
high-tech revolution in gear. [Anti-immigration rage doesn't
need to be stoked. It exists because of the
personal experiences of millions of Americans,
whose quality of life has been diminished by
overpopulation fueled by mass immigration and
widespread discrimination in favor of
immigrants.] Indeed, last week
Congress voted to nearly double the number of
visas for foreign workers with high-tech skills.
[After successfully
milking the beneficiary billionaires for
millions of dollars in campaign contributions.]
In the early 1990's, groups like FAIR and
politicians like Patrick Buchanan and Pete
Wilson attacked immigration as a threat to the
economic security of millions of Americans. [The issue was blacked out by the
media combine. In the Internet era, it's much
more difficult for them to suppress facts they
don't like. Thus the current media clamor for
"hate crimes" legislation to limit
First Amendment protection for politically
incorrect ideas. (See "A Racist Attack, A
Town Plagued", The New York Times, October
15, 2000, about a reverse Bernard Goetz case,
quoting with implicit approval a lawyer whose
family is from India: "If somebody is
waving a Confederate flag in this town, the
police should be called." http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/15/national/15HATE.html)]
Today such claims ring hollow, and Gov. George
W. Bush of Texas deserves credit for altering
the tenor of his party's rhetoric on
immigration. [I wonder
how many low-wage immigrants wait on the Bushes?]
Rather than await the next economic downturn
to vilify immigration once again, FAIR is trying
to piggyback onto a legitimate concern to stir
up anti-immigrant sentiment. [Twice in the same editorial! I
know the script says you have to call opponents
"anti-immigrant", but as we say in New
York, "enough is too much already."]
Do not be surprised if it next blames immigrants
for air traffic congestion [Of course population increases
due to immigration contribute to air traffic
hotspots. Furthermore, I've flown across the
country with a plane-load of obviously illegal,
non-English speaking, lower class Hispanics on
what must have been a regular immigrant
smugglers' route.] and high fuel
prices. [Of course gas
guzzling vans full of illegal immigrants and
houses packed with immigrants in places such as
Mt. Kisco and Brewster, New York have an impact
on demand for fuel.]
Following are transcriptions of FAIR's print
advertisements from their website:
FAIR Ad 1 http://www.fairus.org/loudoun/sprawlad.jpg
Loudoun County residents spend a lot of time
in their cars. Not because they want to. But
because of massive traffic congestion. And
almost daily gridlock. For many people, commutes
to work and school and daycare take up to three
hours a day. And according to traffic management
experts, it's only going to get worse. It's the
same situation in Loudoun County with our
schools, our public utilities, even our water
resources. In a recent survey of Northern
Virginia residents, 72% of respondents agreed
that runaway population growth threatens the
very quality of life they came here for in the
first place. But nobody seems to know what to do
about it. We can help. We're the nation's
leading expert on population and immigration
trends and growth. Call now to learn more and
find out one way you can help. Because waiting
hours in your car is one pastime you can do
without.
FAIR Ad 2 http://www.fairus.org/loudoun/sprawlad2.jpg
For generations, Loudoun County has been
America's horse country. With its gently rolling
hills and abundant pastures. Hand-laid stone
fences and world class horse farms. But Loudoun
County is losing its horse country and becoming
just another over-crowded, over-developed
Northern Virginia suburb. In fact, the county
has earned the dubious distinction as one of
America's fastest growing counties. While the
Chamber of Commerce likes that questionable
honor, most people in Loudoun don't. According
to a recent poll most residents want to stop
explosive population from turning pastures into
shopping malls. They're tired of seeing farms
turned into office parks. And they prefer
rolling hills to concrete highways and bypasses.
We can't do much about the damage already done.
But we can do something about preserving what's
left of Loudoun County for future generations.
Call FAIR to find out one way you can help. So
the people of Loudoun County stand a fighting
chance.
FAIR Ad 3 http://www.fairus.org/loudoun/sprawlad3.jpg
Bulldozer sales in Loudoun County are
booming. Road builders need them to level the
county's rolling hills into concrete
interchanges and bypasses. Developers need them
to turn farm land into housing developments and
shopping malls. You can find big earth-moving
equipment throughout Loudoun, turning Virginia's
most picturesque county into another example of
suburban sprawl while adding to one of the worst
traffic problems in the nation. But traffic is
just one of the problems facing Loudoun County
as a result of population growth wildly out of
control. Schools are crowded and public
utilities are under great stress. Property taxes
are on the rise. Yet the bulldozers keep on
coming. Ripping up one of the most beautiful
places in the world. And turning it into a
concrete and asphalt suburb. Just like much of
Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland. There's
not much we can do to reclaim the thousands of
acres already destroyed. But we can do something
about what's left. Call FAIR to find out one way
you can help.
In addition, Numbers USA has been
running advertisements linking mass immigration
and sprawl. See their ad that appeared in The
Washington Post:
Driving these days can make anyone angry. But
don't get angry with your fellow drivers. Get
angry at the cause of the problem; the U.S.
Congress. You see, overpopulation has been found
to be the number one factor in sprawl. We're
growing at a rate of about 25 million people
every 10 years! And the primary cause of
overpopulation, according to the U.S. Census
Bureau, is Congress. A Congress that has
quadrupled immigration through amnesties, chain
migration and lotteries. So, more immigration,
more people, more problems with sprawl and
congestion. It's that simple. But don't blame
immigrants for our problems. They're simply
taking advantage of policies that keep raising
the numbers. Blame Congress. We must demand that
Congress reduce immigration to previous
sustainable levels that have contributed so much
to the rich fabric of our country. Contact us to
find out how you can redirect your anger to make
a difference.
703-816-8820
www.NumbersUSA.com
