Thursday, May 11, 2006

Stanley Renshon's Getting Fired-Up About the Illegal Immigration Crisis

Stanley Renshon's a political scientist at the City University of New York and he's been running quite a few posts at his Political Psychology blog on the illegal immigration crisis. Here's a segment from one of his posts, which once again indicates not only the unfairness and unreasonableness of the illegal alien demands, but also what he argues is the clear lack of American citizens' participation in the marches:
The marches and boycott are more accurately seen as an orchestrated attempt by people with no legal standing in American politics and their allies to shout over and drown out the views that Americans have been expressing about illegal immigration with increasing strength in the last twenty years: Stop illegal immigration and stop offering incentives, like eased paths to citizenship, that fuel it. No amount of artifice or straddle will turn that lead into gold. How many American citizens marched in favor of easier paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants? March supporters don’t say. How many of those who marched were actually American citizens? March supporters didn’t count. I am willing to bet that both those numbers are extremely small. That means that the demonstrations and the boycott were carried out by those who have broken our immigration laws and who are attempting to pressure Congress into excusing, and then rewarding, their behavior. Does that seem like something a governor ought to legitimize by providing misplaced psychological excuses?
This is a different take on the issue, but probably more of a hunch than a scientific hypothesis, since polling data show significant public pragmatism on the deportation issue -- that is, mass deportation's impractical, and thus some type of earned legalization is likely in order (hopefully one of the tougher versions of the proposed legislation), whether or not Americans are out there manning the barricades with the reconquistas.

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