Will Carter on Immigration

A friend of mine wrote the following:

While Washington D.C. dithers over immigration "reform," the illegal invasion of America continues. I live and work at the "front lines" of this invasion, doing the work most Americans won't do: I teach in California, holding class in the same rooms where my father attended high school some fifty five years ago.

But the "old" school is hardly recognizable today. Whereas 87% of my father's class was "white" and exclusively English-speaking, fully 97% of the present student body is "brown" and mostly Spanish-speaking.

Those distinctions would be inconsequential, but for other differences.

A disturbing number of my "main-stream" students cannot count. Simple math is an impenetrable mystery for them. Even with a calculator, they cannot sum or subtract, multiply or divide. For these, numbers remain mostly meaningless.

This may be attributed, to some extent, to language deficiencies. (I cannot count in Cantonese, for that matter!) But our school district recently lost its lawsuit demanding that our students be tested in Spanish rather than in English. And administrators must now be quietly rejoicing, for had they won their suit, the results certainly would have been doubly dismaying. For, remarkably, much of our population is largely illiterate in either language.

Coming as they do from mostly impoverished, largely illiterate homes -- sometimes bypassing elementary education altogether – many never adequately learn to read or write. Consequently, textbooks (and written tests) are virtually incomprehensible to them. Classwork and homework (at grade level) remain uncompleted and the majority of students, freshman and seniors alike, cannot cobble together a cogent, coherent sentence, let alone an essay.

By allowing such gross inadequacy to persist in our public schools, we have created a culture in which mediocrity and ignorance have prevailed and become the norm; failure and apathy are now entrenched; and half our student population drops out or "transfers" before graduation. Were it not for rampant grade inflation and the "dumbing down" of core curricula, the drop-out and failure rates would be even higher. The results of standardized tests, administered over several decades, have borne this out.

We have imported a "servant-class" nation of often hard-working, usually congenial, but mostly illiterate peasants who fled, understandably, from corrupt and despotic regimes under whose reign these foreign-born brothers and sisters have had little hope of prospering and for whom mere survival has become a challenge. Yet the children of these immigrants, born here and abroad, lack understanding. They have been raised in an impoverished environment which has pragmatically accommodated lawlessness and political corruption.

What wholesome culture can arise among those who lurk in the shadows of illegality? who thrive in anonymity or depend upon pay-offs, bribes, and false (or stolen) identities for survival? Failure to assimilate affords criminals protection from accountability, especially when cities (like the one in which I work) institutionally provide "sanctuary" for those who reside here illegally.

The consequences of lawlessness and illegality may seem trivial to some, insulated as they may be by wealth and privilege. Yet the average American citizen suspects that a disproportionate number of crimes are being committed by illegal immigrants living and working "under the radar." For most of us, it is obvious that the quality of "domestic tranquility" has deteriorated in recent years. Crimes of violence; vandalism; theft; uninsured, hit-and-run and drunken driving; depressed wages; higher taxes; growing slums; overburdened social systems; and plummeting academic scores all correspond with increasing numbers of "undocumented workers."

For thousands of illegal immigrants who murder, maim and plunder in our midst, Mexico and beyond remains a refuge of "last resort" to which one may furtively retire to avoid accountability for one's crimes committed here. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of such criminals, here illegally, never make it to the border and rot in U.S. jails at taxpayer's expense.

Two illegal aliens that aren't in jail -- one age 29, the other age 24 – raped my foster daughters last year. With the help of the police one Sunday morning, I apprehended them, hiding, half-dressed, in a child's closet in my neighbor's house. In the presence of these officers, the men admitted their guilt, apologizing for having sex with the 15- and 17-year-old girls. I left the scene, confident that the perpetrators would be taken into custody and held accountable for their crimes.

But I was mistaken. Imagine my surprise when the police told me they had let the rapists go! They didn't even finger-print or photograph them! "Why?" I asked. "We didn't know the men had had sex with them, or that the girls were underage," the officer said. "But you were there! You heard their confessions! They admitted it right in front of you! The girls came out of the bedroom half naked!" "We don't speak Spanish," the officer told me. (Apparently, the police are trained well enough to say, "Salgan de alli! Manos arriba!" but that's about it.)

Both girls were Latinas. A rape kit was administered to the 15-year-old. The 17-year-old was already pregnant – with her third child conceived in foster care (another monumental scandal of which Californians are utterly unaware). But the perpetrators were long gone, allowed to simply walk away. "Why don't you go pick them up?" I asked. "We don't know who they are or where they live," the police explained. "They had no identification. No address." The police couldn't even talk to them. So they let them go.

Over a hundred years ago, when my ancestors came to this country (legally), they embraced America's culture, celebrated her holidays, learned her common language (English), called themselves "Americans" (not "hyphenated" Americans), waved the American flag, abided by America's laws, and assimilated into American society.

The current crop of immigrants (particularly from Latin America) doesn't seem to be doing that. They wave foreign flags, speak a foreign language, and demand U.S. rights even as they break U.S. laws. They come to this country largely illiterate and often illegally, undereducated and unprepared to assimilate into American society. Meanwhile, they overwhelm our social services, lower our school's academic performance, and radically change our way of life. Perhaps that "change" is more evident in the classroom than anywhere else. But it is a profound change, nonetheless.

While Americans have compassion for those striving to come here in search of a better life and while we sympathize with those suffering poverty and lack of opportunity elsewhere in the world, still, it is inappropriate that the legitimate needs and concerns of native Americans (meaning those born to Americans or who are otherwise naturalized citizens of the U.S.) should be now suppressed and ignored in favor of illegal immigrants. It is wrong that Americans are now compelled, under the guise of "political correctness," to keep silent in the face of this radical transformation of American culture, even the loss of American sovereignty. Anyone who speaks up or dares speak out against the current invasion is immediately branded a racist, a bigot, or a xenophobe.

I, for one, do not consider it racist, bigoted, or xenophobic to cherish one's heritage, to uphold the rule of law, or to protect and retain the American way of life. It is not incumbent upon us as Americans to give up what we hold dear simply because others want it for themselves or seek to destroy it. However, should we chose not to defend what is ours or protect what it means to be American, we shouldn't be surprised to wake up one day to discover that the America we know is gone.