National Security and Immigration Reform: A Commingling of Fears
Robert Sorensen
The politics of fear influence the problem of immigration in the US, mainly because post 9/11 security concerns have now incorporated the issue of border vulnerability. The anti-immigration argument is linked to the penetrability of our vast frontiers, and thus it becomes part of the broader discourse of national security. Fear of internal terrorism carried out by border-crashing aliens makes a compelling case for immigration restriction. Immigration historian, Mae Ngai, in a recent interview characterized an immigration official's effort to frame the problem of national security.
Two summers ago "the House Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation held public hearings on Border Vulnerabilities and International Terrorism. The goal was to build support for the enforcement-focused immigration-reform legislation passed by the House in December 2005. At the hearings, a border-patrol officer warned that terrorists would try to enter the United States disguised as Mexican illegal aliens. They might, he suggested, spend a few months in Mexico learning Spanish and tanning their skin. Then, dressed like Mexicans, they would use established alien-smuggling networks to sneak across the border into the United States."
The above representation seems extreme, but it characterizes the reach of the politics of fear. National security has become a potential justification for extreme measures of immigration reform. Along with the terrorist threat there is another forceful argument against current US immigration policy. Public attention is also focused on the presence of millions of economic immigrants that have fled Latin America. The standard complaint (subject to its own debate) is that large numbers of foreign aliens exact a net drain on the nation's financial resources. The net drain argument ebbs and flows according to the demand for labor.
The financial argument is supported by widespread anxiety that immigrants are detrimental to the American way of life. Many English speaking Anglo-Protestants resist ongoing multicultural change fearing that uncontrolled influxes from the Third World threaten the American way of life. The cultural dimension of the immigration debate is argued more fiercely in the regions of the country where aliens congregate. According to Ngai, US immigration policy has been relatively permissive since the 1980's when Congress raised the ceiling to accommodate our economy's growing labor demands. Since the September 11th attacks there has been increasing call for restriction. Fear of physical attack from the outside is compounded by fear of societal disintegration from within.
Antagonists in the debate on immigration gain power from a political representation that the US suffers an internal resource drain attributable to excessive Third World immigration. Ngai submits that hostility toward the alien outsider is often linked to national security concerns. Today, the arguments supporting restriction of immigration evoke an ideologically loaded image that terrorists are living off our welfare system. The debate favors tighter control because powerful US interests enlisted the politics of fear to link the 9-11 aftermaths with danger from Latin America. Perceptions of danger reactivated nativist reaction against immigration. The extreme notion of "wetback-al-Qaedas-on-food-stamps" signifies the blurring of two discourses. With this articulation of the problem, the groundwork is laid for the basest appeals to the politics of fear and exclusion amidst a life and death clash between "us" and "them." Meanwhile, the fabricated meta-debate remains a "lightning rod in domestic national politics."
Many feel that the solution to the immigration problem is not one of humanitarianism, but rather it is one of safeguarding America and the American lifestyle. Some scholars say that a strong security stance erodes civil liberties. Moreover, with the country divided politically and ideologically, a protectionist anti-alien position is problematic to civil libertarians like David Cole. Cole defends the civil rights of aliens already in the US. Cole's concern is that the war on terror has been waged internally through anti-immigrant measures that are in violation of constitutional privileges. Cole also thinks that the US government was too fast to equate Arab males with terrorism in the "war on terror." By targeting thousands of young Arab males in the security dragnet, Attorney General Ashcroft unnecessarily alienated the Muslim community. David Cole says, "Ashcroft could have done the opposite." Cole's grievance is that Ashcroft authorized preventative detentions by dragnets and legal procedures in defiant disregard to the Bill of Rights. The first casualties of the war on terror are civil liberties.
Cole argues that the internal war on terror includes a lesser standard of constitutional protection for aliens. This is largely due to anti-immigrant measures installed by the Bush administration in the name of defending America from terror. Ngai also argues that immigration policy has been an internal security policy. She writes that authorities employ a wide range of security strategies like restriction, exclusion, deportation, and even denaturalization. The southern border immigration issue was tied in to the national security debate by the assumption that Arabs were sneaking over with fruit pickers.
The range of protectionism since the 9-11 attacks has expanded to search for strategies of control to curtail the influx of illegal aliens. Mae Ngai, in her book Impossible Subjects, situates the public immigration debate with her argument that US policy comes from an embedded regime of qualitative and quantitative restriction on legal immigration. She points out that quotas and bureaucratic screening actually beget illegal immigration. Unrealistically small quotas for Western Hemisphere countries prompted emigrants in neighboring countries to take fate into their own hands by hazarding the Central America to US land route.
Illegal aliens, also known as illegals and undocument-eds manage to enter US territory primarily because of border porosity; and will continue to come in for two reasons. There are infinite opportunities to make a living and illegals by their nature possess the grit to make the voyage. They share determination that is similar to that of the original English colonists, according to nativist Samuel Huntington in his book Who are We? He defines "national security" as sovereignty-by-political-control. His security definition contains the distinction that "societal security" is sustainable culturally through a strong national identity.
Although from a different political viewpoint, Bauman warns of sovereignty's erosion in "Europe of Strangers." He writes that "identity" is nowhere near offering the standard of security that it once set. Huntington fears that the greatest threat to the societal security of nations comes from immigration. Other course authors have written that all sovereign states, including the United States must guard against diluted authority. A nation should be able to control who and what comes across its borders.
The estimate number of illegals caught in recent apprehensions is ominous. Huntington estimates that 1.2 million aliens were apprehended trying to illegally enter the US in 2005. According to him, out of control immigration is ruining the Anglo-Protestant culture. In contrast, Rupert in his book Globalization and International Political Economy criticizes Huntington for being too simplistic and reductive. According to him, Huntington discounts the role of non-Anglo participants in the creation of America. Rupert feels that Huntington should broaden the debate by giving a structural account of immigration emphasizing its causes and effects. He argues that restrictionists should consider neoliberalism's creation of a flexible and desperate labor pool - by my means of advantageous financial restructure in Latin America. Vast numbers of immigrants are the result of global economics. The socially disruptive nature of capitalism impels the influx.
The dominant political agenda would have the public fear that terrorists freely enter the country among the throng of economic immigrants. Zigmunt Bauman relates two fears: fear of plundering immigrants and fear of transnational terrorists. In an article separate from his book, Bauman portrays a composite immigrant in the form of a specter; "In our world of massive migration…the already anxious…eye is…likely…to frame the unfamiliar workmates…into ill-willed and threatening…alien figures. The power of the two fears would have the already anxious public surrender-over total consent in exchange for state security assurances. Bauman writes that even though government can't guarantee its citizens a secure existence, it can diffuse public anxiety over uncertain socio-economic conditions by waging a war against foreign job-seekers. Rupert assures that there is no evidence that those who would do us great harm are braving the obstacles in front of crossing the southern border. Efforts to restrict immigration are a tactic directed at softening the labor pool. If post 9-11 immigrants are devalued and scorned, then why do they come?
In spite of logistic, linguistic, and cultural challenges, the reason immigrants take such an enormous physical risk is seductively waiting inside US territory. Here Rupert concurs with the findings of Ngai. They argue that millions have migrated to the US – pushed by difficult economic circumstances at home and pulled by the steady supply of employment in construction and agriculture. These industries would be devastated if the cheap sources of labor stopped. Ngai's makes it clear in her book that the influx of illegals has been to fulfill the US agricultural industry's insatiable appetite for immigrant labor.
Neoliberal economics create an impossible situation for the immigrant. The unsolvable riddle of immigration is that the US wants tight borders, but the economy demands a steady supply of cheap labor, especially labor supplied by illegal aliens. Columnist Jack Miles discusses the alternative of choice. He emphatically states that people just don't blow into our country like the weather. We let them in and we have reasons for doing so. For this reason, Ngai calls US immigration policy schizophrenic. We want their labor to support our lifestyle, but we do not want them. We want them simultaneously here and not here.
Faced with stark choices immigrants are pushed by macroeconomics to flee the South in order to escape misery and starvation. David Harvey argues in A Brief History of Neoliberal Economics that global economics does harm by creating asymmetrical prosperity for a few while depriving the poor of the right to make a living. Overall, large scale immigration generates an abundant, exploitable, and vulnerable labor pool, especially among the undocumented. Compliant labor is always nearby because the restrictions on immigration keep the labor pool from acquiring any sort of effective bargaining power. The US cannot expect them not to come.[1] The US is a magnet. "Everyone, it is said, wants to live in or be like the US." Illegal immigration is "allowed" because it serves the capitalist's purposes.
In his book Wasted Lives, Zigmunt Bauman characterizes the bastardization of global migration by citing journalist Naomi Klein. Klein contends that America bases part of its security strategy on a European solution for border control. Bauman calls it Fortress America: Klein defines an economic stronghold where favorable trade terms including human capital are extracted from neighboring countries, and yet borders are patrolled to regulate incoming human flows. Mae Ngai tells of the period of nearly unrestricted immigration during the last quarter of the 20th century. Practically everyone in the southwestern economy was benefiting from the services of undocumented labor.
Even Zoe Baird, President Clinton's original nominee for Attorney General was discovered to have two illegal Peruvians on her home staff . That era was the "golden age" of illegal immigration with well over one million per year entering the country. During the decades of the 1980-90's illegal immigrants seemed to self-incorporate a sense of entitlement – perhaps inspiring the "resources drain" argument. After the immigration reform passed in 1986, almost 2.7 million who had previously entered illegally gained amnesty during the presidency of Reagan. As the economy continued to grow prospects for liberal immigration from Mexico were favorable up until the moment of the September 11th attacks.
The act marked an immediate change in global conditions and put an immediate halt to the trend toward an open border. The events of 9-11 instead consummated the marriage between the two discourses on national security and immigration. Somber apprehensions about Arabs turned into sinister premonitions about threats by mysterious forces signifying border plunderers without fixed addresses. The merged discourses ideate a false consciousness of urgency within a dialect of impending doom between the President and the public. The President insists that we are in constant peril – a proclamation of fear that has worked politically. The sober question is whether it is terrorism we fear or the political manipulation of fears about terrorism.
Hysterics following the Twin Towers attacks fueled our fears and with uncommon fervor. The agenda of fear had the support of the broadcast media. America ideates her predominant fears through the eyes of the media. Broadcast television maintains a culture of enhanced fear by reinforcing the characterization of fundamental Islam as our national nightmare. Barry Glassner's book argues that since 9-11, newscasts continue to inflame political fear. Glassner elaborates by citing anthropologist Mary Douglas, "Dangers get selected for special emphasis within public discourse; fears proliferate…" Douglas' means that political interests would exploit the attacks to proliferate an ongoing climate of fear. Maintaining the fear level secures a docile population that is grateful to a magnanimous government for its benevolent protection.
Kanishka Jayasuriya argues that fear and insecurity supply some strong tools for quelling outside debate over elite agendas. The guarded agenda in this case is signified by the Bush administration's long-cherished dream of US global military supremacy. After the 9-11 attack, in an attempt to spread his "bring-on-Armageddon" mentality, the President unleashed the "Axis of evil" concept. This construct sought global ideological consolidation with that aimed to unilaterally condemn dissent. The President sealed the deal by telling the world that "you are either with us or you are with the terrorists." It was us versus them. The government's plan was to continue to securitize and militarize here and abroad. The country was running scared - for fear of physical harm. David Harvey argues in his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, that public concern for individual physical security is manipulated for political gain by the dominant interests.
Zygmunt Bauman agrees that a heightened sense of urgency provides government with an opportunity to exploit public insecurity, suggesting that disasters divert attention away from market-force insecurity. Wide spread fear of future terror attacks obtained consent for heightened security measures and they were eagerly installed. Bauman's words about Europe can apply to America. Europeans are Americans who refused to take the boat Huntington. Bauman's words are adapted to serve the purpose of this essay; "the government cannot…promise its citizens a secure existence, but they unload ... the … anxiety…by demonstrating…energy and determination in the war against…alien gate-crashers."
The politics of fear exacerbate public fear for the purpose of political control. Uncertainty, insecurity, and lack of safety are widespread and overwhelming. Kanishka Jayasuriya, in an article concerning state-sponsored fear argues that the problem of post 9-11 security was quickly picked up by political actors that recognized a windfall of political opportunity. Governments try to use disasters to shape public ideology because under negative social conditions brought on by market forces they are less able to provide real security for their subjects. Government crafts an official or institutional fear. They must create the illusion of being a protector.
In May 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft warned that al Qaeda could "hit hard" in the next few months and said that 90 percent of the arrangements for an attack on U.S. soil were complete. That fall, Newsweek reported that it was "practically an article of faith among counterterrorism officials" that al Qaeda would strike in the run-up to the November 2004 election.[2] Homeland Security intones, "Today's terrorists can strike at any place, at any time, and with virtually any weapon." One possible rationale for Ashcroft's alarmist posturing was aptly debunked by Bauman in Wasted Lives: "The extent of dangers to personal safety must be intensely advertised and painted in the darkest of colors so that the non-materialization of threats can be applauded as an extraordinary event, as result of the vigilance and good-will of the government."
The 9-11 attacks made us aware of our vulnerability as a nation. In response, the administration suspended constitutional rights and expanded the capacity of law enforcement. The spell of fear served to persuade the citizenry to give consent during the frenzy. The executive branch used the fear of future attack to appropriate unchecked emergency powers by the over-representation of the urgency of the national security problem. "America will act against…emerging threats before they are fully formed." This statement characterizes the national security strategy of the executive branch.
Fear of terrorism was first and foremost a fear of an outside force, but not to be overlooked was the post 9-11 political fear that internally divided the nation. The government opportunistically reinforced its hold on fear by exaggerating the threat of an internal terrorist enemy. After 9-11, the executive branch of the US government hastily saw to the enactment of the nearly 350-page the Patriot Act. The argument against the legitimacy of the new law, according to David Cole is based on the law's subjection of alien residents to lessened Bill of Rights' protection. Citizens outside the elite executive circle take exception to many of its provisions of law. To many the law is highly refutable because of its double standard of justice. It symbolizes America's exceptionalism where US rules apply to the rest of the globe, however the US need not be subject to its own rules. As an implementation of constitutional exceptionalism, the Patriot Act deprives foreign-born persons of specific rights. The domestic war on terror has been waged largely through anti-immigrant measures.
Under the law people can be targeted for their political - even cultural associations. Cole criticizes the Patriot Act because it subjects aliens to a lower standard of constitutional protection and has been shown to punish the innocent and repress political dissent. The Patriot Act goes out of its way to alienate Arabs and Muslims. It is not in our interest to trade immigrant's rights for security because the double standards employed in doing so undermine security by detracting from the legitimacy of the war on terror. Cole's presupposition that our double standards are actually making us less secure became true when applied to the external war on terror. Sorrowfully, the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib illustrates Cole's contention. The double standard practice by the US arguably solidified terrorist resolve.
Anything goes to defend American values against terrorism. David Harvey writes in his "brief history" that securitization and militarization have become the norm under the Bush regime of governance. Harvey writes that the freedoms defended by the permanent war on terror are closely tied to freedom of the market. His critique portrays the 9-11 attacks as having legitimized both internal and external militarization without debate. The rise of surveillance, policing, and carceralization[3] characterize the new face of social control under the national security discourse. Officials that dictate US national security utilize the politics of fear in order to create consent for the militarization that protects market-oil-flow. Harvey and Bauman both argue that dominant powers create dangers that putatively require force to protect citizens from physical harm – when their "higher purpose" is to protection commerce.
Since 9-11, continuation of US hegemony has endured by universal deployment that assumes responsibility for combating terror. Apart from the Middle East, repression of threats perceived to be in opposition to free flow of commerce become problems of national security. This claim is supported by consideration of regional examples such as the unending war on drugs in Latin America. Harvey contends that economic imperialism figures into national security strategy. Bloody interventions are justified to secure the free world. Hardliner Bush elements exploited the atmosphere of the 9-11 attacks to justify pre-emptive military force in any part of the globe where democracy is questioned. Global order must be based on US military pre-eminence to unquestionably preserve America's benevolent hegemony.
Jayasuriya recalls that global securitization and its anti-political rationale were already in motion before the 9-11. The attacks provided a situation advantageous to the elite in order to depoliticize issues as well as a means to conceal its (imperialist) agenda. Harvey states that fears can be mobilized to mask other realities. Harvey reinforces the commonly held belief that the executive branch of the US government is beholden to oil interests. Rupert says that "blood for oil" stories are oversimplified – but they do point to a more nuanced dynamic. He theorizes that the executive branch is a ruling class instrumentalist who orchestrated a common "national interest" to form a common ideology. The legitimacy of the administration depended on ideological control of a divided US citizenry. The war on terror in the Middle East provided an opportunity to assure the frightened citizenry at home that the business abroad was just. The strategy worked. Fear and national insecurity were a deciding factor in the elections. In terms of winning consent, the invocation of fear blackmails the lukewarm into compliance. One of Cole's arguments is that the executive branch will always want more power in the name of national security. Business elite have commandeered the government through the executive branch. The Bush government conveniently mixed oil-acquisition with its national security strategy. According to Harvey, all post 9-11 pro-neoliberal decisions have favored elite interests. The use of the politics of fear continues to pave the way for the ongoing securitization of the globe.
When fear is high the government is liable to err on the side of security by targeting the innocent. Elemental to Cole's argument is that anti-alien sentiment is the key to political repression. Treatment of non citizens as unwholesome alien-others is the start of a dangerous mentality that can lead to state sanctioned discrimination by race, religion, and politics. Future humanitarian treatment of immigrant-aliens is restricted by fear based on the grounds of future dangerousness.
Presently, however, there have been no additional alien attacks on the country. Myths about the urgency of the war have been progressively debunked over the past five years. Terror-cells are either hiding, dispersed, incarcerated, or out of existence. Islamic fundamentalists threaten us only insofar as they can get here. If any are in the US they are under possible scrutiny. We either may be more secure, or are under the false assumption that we are more secure. Some of our leaders still seem to benefit by making us feel vulnerable. But real danger is not at the level that it had originally been represented to be. Cole reminds us that no terrorists have been convicted as a result of the security dragnets. Yet the pretext of danger is still used to legitimize a xenophobic double standard that distinguishes human rights for aliens from inalienable human rights.
In October of 2006, the President signed a congressional bill known as the Military Commissions Act. The bill facilitates bringing justice to terrorists and other unlawful enemy combatants through "full and fair trials" by military commissions. The bill disallows invocation of the Geneva Convention and denies habeas corpus to aliens and US citizens that are deemed to be enemy combatants. These measures present serious problems for those concerned with human rights.
The Department of Homeland Security and its color-coded terror alert assumed the responsibility of taking special actions to safeguard our security. The daily terror level updates have faded away. America lived for months under the tension of a suspense thriller-movie, but the ominous sleeper cells didn't strike. Homeland security is a boondoggle. The expensive homeland security apparatus erected since 9-11 may be persecuting some, spying on many, inconveniencing most, and taxing all to defend the US against a domestic enemy that scarcely exists.
Beefed up national security did not squelch the anthrax scare nor did it stand out in the Katrina disaster. Our nation-fortress cannot win the war on drugs nor can it keep immigrants from crossing our borders. National security measures are not the solution to the immigration problem. However, post 9-11 security has been successful at claiming credit for non-occurrences while maintaining an atmosphere impending disaster. The discourse on national security and the immigration discourse have been instrumental in consolidating fear for the use of the elites. Even today alarmists still attempt to politically benefit from fear mongering. David Cole reminds us that the domestic terror hunt has not resulted in a single conviction for a terrorist crime. Nor has a single al Qaeda sleeper cell has been apprehended at the border.
National security and the immigration problem are linked internally and externally with paranoid representations of foreign-born evil. Together they present meta-discourse of danger and power. The resultant securitization exponentially replicates the fear that drives it. Under the umbrella of national security we are both secure and insecure at the same time. Our immigration policy is both inclusionist and exclusionist. We are both humanitarian and restrictionist.
Despite the presence of immigration laws, we are still shaky on enforcing them due to the vastness of our borders. Congress is proposing to keep out immigrants. While a wall may seem appropriated to keep out invaders who want to wipe us out, it is going to be less useful in keeping out those who would pick our fruit and build our buildings. The issue at hand is more complicated than controlling immigration. The perceived threat to America is intensified by the belief that Latino immigrants are crashing the border at will for the purpose of diluting our culture, cheating our tax-base, and using up all the social funding. While future immigration restriction is a possibility it should be noted that scapegoating the alien-other is a staple of the kinds of economic and cultural nationalisms that reassert themselves in defense of neoliberalization.
Prior to the attacks, the border was relatively open for immigrant crossing because our country needed agricultural labor. Immigrants providing illegal labor crossed the border with relative impunity. But the Post 9-11 political climate has changed the immigration debate in favor of immigration restriction. The effects of restriction can even be seen locally as tightened border security created a shortage of harvest labor in eastern Washington. Huntington concedes that meaningful restriction would disrupt agricultural and other businesses. Traditional nativist arguments for restriction are represented by Huntington's position in the immigration debate. Nativist ideology is seen by Ngai and others as racially and ethnically charged. In an economic sense nativism can be an "instrumentalist" ideology. When there is work to be done, the restrictionist voice is hushed by capitalist endeavor. During good times ethno-cultural differences are ameliorated by the spirit of industry.
Earlier above, Huntington situated the cultural problem of immigration into the discourse of national security. Borrowing from a European theory, Huntington expressed fears that the greatest threat to societal security comes from immigration. Huntington maintains that since this is an Anglo-Protestant country, close assimilation into the same culture by all immigrants is the best defense against a serious threat posed by immigration. Framed by Huntington, the problem becomes one of what to do about the millions that are in the country already. He argues non-assimilation contributes to the internal breakdown of the purity of American cultural tradition.
In the 1950's Senator McCarran viewed immigration policy a matter of internal security. As if defending against impending peril he stated, "If this oasis of the world shall be overrun, perverted, contaminated, or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be extinguished." The economic and political interests of the nation are often fueled by historically lodged ethno-racial biases. Many can not accept the terms of rapid political change. Ngai book is essential for a complete understanding of the politics of immigration. She recalls symbols of deep-rooted nativism and nationalism through out US history.
Huntington suggests in his book that America could be doomed as a nation. America may have been born to die in the tradition of Rome and Sparta, but it can postpone its historically-defined fate by maintaining a strong national identity. At stake is whether America will continue to be a country with a single national language and a common Anglo-Protestant mainstream culture. Immigrant populations have the effect of adulterating the true American identity – an identity based on the American creed etched by the founding fathers. A quotation from another prominent American, Teddy Roosevelt presages Huntington, "Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all."
Immigrants and multiculturalism are seen as threats against the continuation of traditional American society. Under a multicultural ideology assimilation may not be possible. The problem for Huntington's goal of assimilation is that the century-old ideology that promoted assimilation is replaced by one that promotes cultural differences.
Huntington sees multiculturalism as an erosion of American identity. He is supported by more conservative viewpoints. Irving Kristol argues that multiculturalism is a threat to the West equal to Nazism and Stalinism. Kristol and Nathan Glazer maintain that multiculturalism is ethno-racial revenge for educational deficiencies still unresolved after the civil rights movement. Huntington explains that multiculturalists promoted the equality of non-native groups from the cultural standpoint that Americanization was un-American.
Huntington is certain that a beneficial social change for the preservation of the culture would be total assimilation of Latino immigrants. Isolated immigrant communities work against the interests of our national security. He notes that there are ethno-specific challenges that affect the speed and degree of assimilation. For example; demographics allow for the Spanish speaking community to be self-contained. Latin American immigrants, especially Mexicans, are seen as less unwilling to assimilate. Huntington attributes this in part to their tendency to congregate in regions like Miami and southern California. While Huntington favors assimilation into Protestantism, most Latinos are devout Catholics. In spite of his distinction, the fact that America is a Christian country should make them easier to facilitate than Muslims.
Huntington argues that dispersion is key to assimilation. He writes that Arab Muslims in America particularly resist assimilation for the some of the same reasons language, religion, and congregation. Huntington notes that Arab Muslims are slow to assimilate. Everywhere else in the world, they are known to be "indigestible" by non-Muslim societies. This stance is problematic if one considers Ngai's implicit comparison to the once-official unassimilablity of Orientals. Insistence on Arab Muslim assimilation may be to expect too much in any case. Huntington's prognosis for Muslim assimilability stops at this point. Huntington remains firm that the issue at stake is whether or not America will continue to be a country with a single national language and a common Anglo-Protestant mainstream culture.
Rupert writes Huntington off as a person that is afraid of ethnic stereotypes. Martha Farnsworth Riche explains it in terms of psychology. The older white academics are facing a shift in power so they denying reality by saying that minorities should assimilate. They are in denial that their world is disappearing. Huntington and many others have said that Mexican immigration in to US is leading toward the reconquista of a once lost territory.
Huntington's fear for America's demise may be premature, if considered in the context of Robert Park's findings that articulate the three gradual phases of assimilation. He breaks down the immigrant's trajectory into three stages. They are periods of antagonization, accommodation, and assimilation. This appears to constitute ascension over the course of only three generations - the eventual solution that Huntington advocates. He acknowledges that assimilation today is somewhat slower due to the nature of the immigrant's culture of origin. According to Huntington some categories of Europeans have been easier to assimilate. Fukuyama questions that assumption; "the notion that non-European immigrants are a threat to American cultural values is puzzling.
One vehicle to assimilation includes the concept of amalgamation within a developed sense of people-hood with the host society. The three requisites for assimilation are mastering of English, acceptance of the American creed, and adherence to the ethic of Anglo-Protestant tradition. Another path to assimilation is the loyalty proven to America by fighting in our wars. Assimilation means absolute conversion to the American creed and belief system. This cannot be forced. Huntington doubts that old style assimilation by present day immigrants will ever be achieved. He speculates that the former is possible only within the scenario of bringing Mexican immigration to a complete halt in sort of re-enactment of 1924 restriction policy. If this were to happen, the flow of immigrants would again become diverse and increase incentives for all immigrants to learn English and absorb American culture. Under these circumstances the large in-house Mexican population would catch up to assimilation - presumably after the three generations that include antagonism, accommodation, and ultimate assimilation. If Mexican assimilation comes to fruition, the threat to our cultural and political integrity would diminish.
According to Fukuyama in Arguing Immigration, the central fight should not be over keeping newcomers out, but over the question of assimilation itself…whether there is enough left of American culture for newcomers to absorb. It is important to recall that the ideology that promoted assimilation in the past has changed to one of accommodating differences. Fukuyama writes that even though cultural decay is around us the last persons to be blamed are recent immigrants. He places the responsibility for America's cultural demise squarely upon internal sources that he identifies as the elite. Bauman's philosophy disparages the Huntington's seemingly fatalist admonishment for cultural assimilation. Bauman suggests total resignation to the alien-other, if not acceptance. Nations must welcome the reality of poly-cultural peoples. That is the humanitarian side of globalism. The future depends on learning to live with cultural diversity. Fukuyama concludes that the real danger is not that the elites will become corrupted by the habits and practices of immigrants, but rather that the immigrants will become corrupted by them. The bottom line for Americans and for immigrants that come to America is simply that we are no longer willing to be freely manipulated by the global elite. Just exactly what measures would be necessary to escape domination is subject to future discourse.
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