Forbidden Editorial: Supporting Immigration

A few days after the New Hampshire primary, I was reading through the reaction blogs and editorials trying to figure out what the results really meant.

Of course, some bloggers never change; they just change the name of the new state. After awhile you can almost figure out what perspective a newspaper or blogger are going to come up with.

I happened to catch an editorial a friend of mine sent me from the Colorado Springs Gazette. The title caught my eye immediately as I read, “Forbidden topic: How immigration could save us.”

I was surprised as I read the Gazette editorial. The editorial took the position that the voters were rewarding the candidates for ignoring the immigration issue. “And that’s too bad, because immigration may be the most important issue pertaining to our country’s economic plight.” Wow, was this the Gazette?

“Anti-immigrant tough talk has failed, once again, as it did in the 2006 election. The toughest of the tough-on-immigration candidates — Colorado’s Tom Tancredo — didn’t get to New Hampshire before his campaign fizzled. John McCain and Hillary Clinton, two of the weakest tough-on-immigration candidates, stole the show in New Hampshire, where immigration never became an issue.”

Now as most of you know, Colorado Springs is practically the home of every far right wing Evangelical organization. For one, Dobson’s strictly by the Bible, “Focus on the Family” is located here. This was the home base of National Evangelical Association leader Ted Haggard before he was booted out of his New Life Church after he allegedly had been caught paying for sex and drugs with a male prostitute.

Needless to say, the news about one of their own Evangelical right wing icons falling from grace was hard to take, and it left followers stunned.

So with this backdrop, the traditionalist Gazette had never wandered away from the strict values of its conservative base, much less taken a position that most Colorado Springs Evangelical leaders simply couldn’t do – support immigration.

The Gazette had just interviewed a prominent financial planner, James Lonny, author of “Surviving the Storm; Investment Strategies that Help You Maximize Profit and Control Risk during the Coming Economic Winter.”

Lonny says the coming economic winter is coming. He points to a weakened Wall Street, mortgage lenders on the brink of financial ruin, and the drop in value of the dollar against the euro or the yen among other warning signs.

The Gazette editorial went on to say. “Massive immigration, legal or not, is nothing other than a demand of our economy — a force powered by the wants and needs of some 300 million consumers who vote with their dollars every day.”

“Politicians such as Tancredo mistake the immigration influx as exploitation of America by a poorer class, believing that our country has tolerated the influx as a favor to Latin Americans. They fail to grasp the American economy as a self-serving, self-correcting entity so powerful and sophisticated that market forces of correction mimic gravity, or the suction of a vacuous void, regardless of political whim.”

The economy pulls immigrants in to give us a working class, and a base of consumers to help support the businesses and fill the homes that resulted from a large class of baby boomers, most of whom are moving past their most consumptive and productive years.”

The editorial stated that most Americans are confused about the immigration issue. Tancredo did his best to whip it up in an emotional message of fear and anxiety before his campaign went belly up. He was scaring the American voter with his one issue campaign.

The editorial ends with this poignant warning and plea for a better understanding of how immigrants are a positive economic force, by adding value to our economy, not simply taking advantage of the good life.

“Presidential candidates will probably continue ignoring the debate, viewed as a proven campaign failure. As a result, the country will continue with inane immigration laws that mischaracterize a legitimate reaction to economic demand as a dark and unlawful attack on our country.”

“Open, honest political dialogue about the causes and benefits of immigrant consumers and workers — and ways to curtail the liabilities associated with them — could be the first step in saving us from recession, or worse. Unfortunately, such conversations don’t conform to the emotional and expedient nature of presidential politics. Neither, however, does tough-guy anti-immigrant talk.”

And yes folks, it was the Colorado Springs Gazette that I had just finished reading.


http://www.gazette.com/opinion/immigration_31796___article.html/economy_americans.html