I’ve recently been cheering the fact that our country has awoken from its immigration slumbers and is now at last discussing the issue publicly in a reasoned, well-informed, grown-up way. Not ex-President George W. Bush, though. He's still mumbling out the threadbare slogans of fifteen years ago—slogans even the cheap-labor shills are now embarrassed to be heard repeating: "jobs that Americans won't do," "putting food on the table for their families,” “our broken immigration system” …

All that was missing from his recent $peech to a think-tank conference in the United Arab Emirates was a quote from Emma Lazarus.

W. scolded President Trump for rescinding DACA. Concerning the beneficiaries of that unconstitutional order, W proclaimed: "America's their home.”

It may be their home, W, but it's not their country. A country's only your country if you're a lawful citizen.

Guess what else W said?

There are people willing to do jobs that Americans won't do. Americans don't want to pick cotton at 105 degrees but there are people who want to put food on their family's tables and are willing to do that. We ought to say thank you and welcome them.

[ George W. Bush says Russia meddled in 2016 US election, by Jon Gambrell, AP, February 8, 2018]

Leaving aside the issue that picking cotton is almost entirely automated nowadays: Was that a trip down Memory Lane, or what?

I cringe to think I once voted for this moron.

• Still, there is Hope and Change: at a slightly higher level was this op-ed by Jason Riley in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal: Our Immigration Debate Is Older Than America Herself [February 7, 2018]

Jason Riley is the author of a 2008 book titled Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders. So again, we know pretty much where we are here.

Except that we don't, quite. Riley seems to have backslid somewhat from open-borders purism.

Great OpEd by @jasonrileywsj on how immigration issues go back before the founding of the U.S. Ben Franklin was worried about the "complexion" of Germans. What, they're too pale white?! The human tribal & xenophobic propensity never ceases to amaze me.https://t.co/ThsaMrzQgL pic.twitter.com/mBHV3J8zkl

— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) February 7, 2018

Most of the article is just polystyrene filling for the Journal's cheap-labor subscribers. It's decorated by a big picture of the Statue of Liberty, though Riley doesn't tell us what the Statue, a hundredth birthday present to our republic from France, has to do with immigration. Sample of the polystyrene text:

There is no typical immigrant. They aren't all gang members, and they aren't all microbiologists.

You don't say! Gosh, Jason, that would never have occurred to me if I hadn't read it in the Wall Street Journal!

But in among all the filler, you suddenly find yourself reading this:

Yes, humanitarianism ought to inform this debate, but ultimately U.S. immigration policy should prioritize the needs of the people already here, not the people trying to come.

That's way off the reservation for commentary in the broadsheet open-borders press. The people already here? What, Jason, you mean those worthless lazy hillbillies David Brooks [Email him] thinks are so irredeemably inferior to vibrant, energetic, entrepreneurial immigrants? You mean those ignorant, stupid, irreligious deplorables Bret Stephens [Email him]wants to replace with smart, fecund immigrants? Those people?

Are you serious?

"U.S. immigration policy should prioritize the needs of the people already here, not the people trying to come." They printed that in the Wall Street Journal?

It was a bit like reading your way through a Papal encyclical and suddenly coming across a sentence saying there isn't really a God or a Heaven and after you die it just gets real quiet.

Either elite opinion is waking up to something—or else Jason Riley will be looking for a new job about now. They're hiring at Home Depot, Jason.

• Finally, a headline guaranteed to raise a smile, if not a round of applause, from any immigration patriot. This is from CNS News, headline: Dreamers Threaten To Leave U.S. If DACA Deal Doesn't Allow Them To Stay [Craig Bannister, February 8, 2018]

The response to that is so obvious, I'll leave you to supply it yourselves

Congress will be debating immigration next week [After Brief Shutdown, Budget Passes, Immigration Fight Looms, by Caitlin Huey-Burns & James Arkin, RealClearPolitics, February 9, 2018].

If I was right in my speculations last week that President Trump's strategy is to position himself as the party of Americans, with the Democrats as the party of foreigners, that strategy is working better than I could have imagined.

Nancy Pelosi just delivered an eight-hour speech urging white people like herself to commit mass suicide so that vibrant brown people could take their rightful place as rulers of America.

I think that's what her speech was about, anyway, though I confess I didn't listen attentively to all eight hours. Wednesday's the day I express my dog's anal glands, and some things just have to be attended to.

The parts I did watch were so strange, I was expecting a couple of orderlies in lab coats to show up and escort the lady to a van outside.

Neil Munro over at Breitbart provided toe-curling extracts from Nancy's speech. Samples — you'd better have the barf bag handy:

We recognize that they are a blessing to America … the dreamers are all over our country, Mr. Speaker, they are a blessing so across the board … These are the best of the best. They are so fabulous … Each of them with their individual contribution to the greatness of America. So exciting, so proud of them … Recognize, recognize again the hard work ethic, the commitment to education, to community service, to faith, to family, to the United States of America. It's a beautiful thing … Am I not lucky to be able to become so familiar with so many of these beautiful dreamers? We want to send these people back? This talent, this rich talent, this achievement, this determination, this faith in the future, this patriotism for America? I don't think so … Let us acknowledge the dreamers and their optimism, their inspiration to make America more American

[Pelosi is entranced by 3 million ‘Dreamer’ illegals, insults Americans’ children, by Neil Munro, Breitbart, February 7, 2018].

Munro, who has a keen ear, did spot in that eight-hour gush of immigration romanticism, one reference to us American citizens, who live here legally:

Many of the great academic minds in our country came from another country. But then — at the same time America produced our own and that's a pretty exciting combination.

So Pelosi thinks we can bring forth people who are not totally worthless—but they only lose their worthlessness when in combination with those wonderful, beautiful, talented illegal aliens who have blessed us with their presence.

The speaker here is the leader of her party in the U.S. House of Representatives — a major party, that had a president in power until just over a year ago.

Chuck Schumer, the lady's Senate counterpart, is an intelligent man. He has to be racking his brains right now to think of some way he can get this Mrs. Rochester back into the attic … and lose the key.

One proposal that may be voted on was introduced Monday by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, NumbersUSA grade on recent legislation C-minus, career grade D, and Christopher Coons, Democrat of Delaware, F-minus on recent legislation, career grade F. [McCain, Coons to introduce new immigration bill that omits wall funding: report, By Julia Manchester, The Hill, February 4, 2018]

Yep, it's the old 1986 bait-and-switch: Amnesty for millions of foreign scofflaws in return for … what? [Crickets.]

That's pretty much it. There is of course language in the proposal to make it sound like we might get something in return for all that amnesty; but the language is so vaporously imprecise you could drive a coach and four through it without slowing down.

Oh, and the McCain-Coons proposal will “address the root causes of illegal immigration." Say what? What are the root causes of illegal immigration — other than lax border security, which, as noted, the proposal will do something or other about sometime or other, honestly, no kidding, promise promise promise!

The root causes of illegal immigration are the lack of a proper visa entry-exit tracking system, and the lack of universal E-Verify. Are McCain and Coons going to fix those things? Hel-lo?

Oh, they mean the root root causes — crappy life prospects in the outhouse countries that most of the illegals come from. What control does the U.S. government have over that?

But the cause of those crappy life prospects — the root root root cause of illegal immigration — is the low level of human capital in those countries.

Concerning which, to the best of my understanding, not only can Uncle Sam do nothing—nobody can do anything.

John Derbyshire [email him] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him. ) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com:FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT (also available in Kindle) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013.

For years he’s been podcasting at Radio Derb, now available at VDARE.com for no charge.His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com.

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