May 4, 2006: Legal And Illegal Immigration in Britain and The U.S. Fractures Social Cohesion and Causes An Economic Disaster For Many
PRESS RELEASE
The two key questions that many immigrant-receiving countries have to ask are the following:
(1) Why are we bringing in so many immigrants and doing little to stop illegal immigration?
(2) Is this inflow having a negative effect on our own population and on the living space of our own citizens? In other words, is a “better life” for newcomers often a “worse life” for our own citizens?
Immigration Watch Canada notes two economic and cultural examples, one from Britain and one from the U.S.
The British example is shocking because it comes from a key British Labour MP who admits that immigration has been used by Britain's Labour government (supposedly the champion of the working class) to provide North American-style “cheap labour”. The cultural impact has been to “fracture community cohesion and to pose fundamental questions around identity”.
The British government's ignoring of these efects has alienated many British voters and could cost both the British Labour and Conservative parties severely in this month's municipal elections. In an epilogue to a recent Joseph Rowntree study in Britain, Labour MP Jon Cruddas, a former key adviser of Prime Minister Blair, admits that “population inflows into (the London area) are extraordinary”.
Migration Watch UK states that “Even the official figures show that 120,000 extra immigrants arrive in London every year while 100,000 British residents head out of the city over the same period.
“Yet this takes no account of illegal immigrants. Though the Government admits to a total of nearly half a million illegals in the country, the real figure is at least three-quarters of a million and many will be in London.
“Mr Cruddas candidly accepts that 'the baseline of public policy-making [by the government] severely understates the actual population of London.'
“You might think that this was another way of saying that the Government has lost control of our borders. But it has done more than that. As Mr Cruddas shows, it has deliberately stimulated immigration for its own political ends, for example by quadrupling the number of work permits issued every year.
“The impact in some areas has been huge. 'Rapid diversification within what was a stable, white, working class community fractures community cohesion and poses fundamental questions around identity,' writes Mr Cruddas.
“And Mr Cruddas continues, saying that 'the State cannot keep pace with these dynamic movements of people in global cities such as London. Its decision-making is years out date and is just too slow.'
“But why should Labour have deliberately encouraged immigration? What political benefit could there be? The explanation is as shocking as it is revealing.
” 'This government has', says Cruddas, 'tacitly used immigration to help forge the preferred flexible North American labour market. Especially in London, legal and illegal immigration has been central in replenishing the stock of cheap labour across the public and private services, construction and civil engineering.'
” 'Immigrant labour', he tells us, 'is the axis for the domestic agenda of the Government'.”
The American example comes in the midst of extensive turmoil caused by millions of illegal Mexican immigrants demanding to be given legal status in the U.S. The cultural conflict continues to grow. As Nicholas Mills, Professor of American Studies at Sarah Lawrence, points out, so does the economic injustice “for those with centuries-old roots in the United States who are still doing badly”.
” What unchecked illegal immigration has done is give the country – and most particularly those who employ low-skilled workers – a way to ignore the economic disaster that is occurring in black America.
“Since the 1990s ended, the share of young black men without jobs has been growing. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20s were jobless. By 2004 the figure had reached 72 percent and was made worse by the rise in the incarceration rate for blacks. By 2004, 21 percent of black men in their 20s who did not attend college had spent time in jail or prison.
“The result, as recent studies at Harvard, Princeton and Columbia show, is that poorly educated young black men have become more disconnected from mainstream society than comparable whites or Hispanics.
“(Frederick) Douglass, whose Life and Times was first published in 1881, was not the only 19th century black leader to worry about immigration. In his famous 'Atlanta Exposition Address' of 1895, Booker T. Washington, the founder of Tuskegee Institute, took on the same subject, calling on white Southerners 'who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South' to turn instead to native-born blacks for their workforce. 'Cast down your bucket among these people,' Washington pleaded, 'who have tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities.'
“From today's perspective, Washington's plea, made at a time when the South's Jim Crow laws were about to get worse and lynching was on the increase, seems naively idealistic. But what lies behind his and Douglass' call to make black employment a priority is anything but naive. We need, once again, to appreciate the historic force behind it.
“Before we talk about opening up the country to more immigration, we need to talk about justice for those with centuries-old roots in the United States who are still doing badly. Then, and only then, can we discuss bringing newcomers to this nation and not be guilty of hypocrisy.”
The great “humanitarians” all through Canada's political system, who have willingly sacrificed the economic and cultural interests of Canadian citizens, should take careful note.
END OF PRESS RELEASE
NOTE: British quotations are taken from “The BNP And How Labour Sacrificed The Working Class”, a press release by Sir Anthony Green of Migration Watch UK. American quotations are taken from the column, “Make Black Employment A Priority” by Professor Nicholas Mills in The Los Angeles Times. Both are available at www.ImmigrationWatchCanada.org in the “News Articles”, British and “News Articles”, American sections.
