Rich Lowry, the young Republican publicist who was appointed editor of National Review after John O'Sullivan was fired for unauthorized deviation from the neoconservative line on immigration and for generally overshadowing Bill Buckley, recently wrote his syndicated column about a story in the New York Times (what else would NR editors read?) that Muslim illegal aliens were deporting themselves in response to increased enforcement. ["Do-it-yourself deportation," June 10, 2003]
Lowry [send him email] quotes CIS's Mark Krikorian, comparing this effect to the "broken windows" school of crime control.
This comparison was famously made, earlier and better, by Michelle Malkin. But, curiously, Lowry didn't mention her. Probably he wanted to puff Krikorian, who seems to have triangulated his way into a post as NR's official immigration beard. (Well done, Mark!)
The fact that immigrants leave as well as arrive is an important discovery.
But while Lowry is, with visible relief, trumpeting the Muslim illegals who have left voluntarily (the only reason they can leave voluntarily is because the US Government won't deport them), he doesn't mention any solution to the main problem: massive Mexican and Central American immigration, illegal and legal, across an open border, where the windows, gates, and doors are all broken, and no one's repairing them.
Lowry does say that "Eventually, the new culture of enforcement must apply to illegals from Mexico and Latin America as well."
It must? Watch out, Rich - better check with Karl Rove and President Bush!
You don't want to finish up with John O'Sullivan - wherever he is now!
Finally, Lowry says that it's "heart-rending to read of immigrants with no connection to terrorism tearing up what roots they had planted here."
It may rend his heart, but not mine. Some days my heart just declines to bleed for illegal immigrants - especially from terror-sponsoring countries.
Obviously, I'm not as sensitive as the National Review editorial board.
Reference the above piece using this permanent URL: /articles/rich-is-relieved-etc#lowry
I got a clip from a reader about a local, county and federal effort to deal with the Gangs of Long Island in Huntington, New York. [Officials Focus On Suffolk Gangs, By Zachary R. Dowdy, Newsday, June10, 2003]
The reader suggested "limiting immigration" would be a better way of dealing with this phenomenon.
Now if all you had to go by is the Newsday story, you might wonder what the connection was. Newsday didn't mention immigration at all. (But then Newsday never does.)
Who are these gangs? Well, they include the Crips and Bloods, African-American gangs that originated on the West Coast, but also MS-13 and SWP.
The MS in MS-13 stands for "mara salvatrucha."
It's a Salvadorian gang, with connections to the criminal gangs and left-wing terrorists in El Salvador. SWP is "Salvadorians with Pride."
Both gangs are dangerous. MS-13 members were charged with a truly horrifying crime in Massachusetts: two deaf girls, one with cerebral palsy were raped by up to six members of the gang.
"'My daughter's got cerebral palsy and she's deaf. How could someone do something like this?' one girl's outraged mother said outside the courtroom where three men were arraigned on aggravated rape charges. 'She couldn't even scream.'"
Long Island social worker Paule T. Pachter wrote in a local paper in January that gangs are nothing new in America, citing Scorsese's Gangs Of New York - totally ignoring the fact that, then as now, this is the result of US government policy i.e. immigration.
Pachter also gave the usual liberal reasons for crime:
"There are also as many social factors that can contribute to rebellious or violent behaviors on the part of young people. Some of these might include racism, poverty and a lack of a support network, exposure to drug and alcohol abuse, violent family history and overexposure to violent images in the media."
Hmm. How about instead of a "violent family history" we substitute a whole violent country: El Salvador, you know, where the civil war was.
Alternatively, you could substitute a whole violent continent: South America, home of crime, poverty, and revolutionary violence.
In 2000, investigator Al Valdez, of the Orange County DA's office wrote on the website of the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Associations (!) that
"Law enforcement and the courts have used two primary methods to deal with criminal activity by MS: arrest/incarceration and deportation. Between April 1994 and August 1995, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) arrested and deported more than 100 MS gang members to El Salvador."
But Mara Salvatrucha members were "concerned about deportation" because of their fear of Salvadoran death squads. The
"existence or belief in the existence of these death squads could also be a chief motivation for hardcore MS gang members to come to the United States."
Which is to say that sometimes a refugee is the same thing as a fugitive from justice.
But of course, the Salvadoran gangsters needn't worry about being deported - because there's an amnesty in the works which will make them U.S. citizens, forever undeportable.
By the way, when I first saw the Newsday "Gangs of Long Island," story. I said "Huntington. Isn't that where John Derbyshire lives?"
Yes, it is.
In his somewhat defeatist essay of June 10th, Derbyshire says that
"Probably we are storing up untold trouble for ourselves. The latest news in my own neighborhood is that an exceptionally vicious Central American gang named Mara Salvatrucha is now entrenched here on Long Island. ("Working as landscapers and busboys by day and criminals at night," says the New York Post. Which puts those cheery lawn-service workers in a new light.)"
It does indeed. The Wall Street Journal asked why we should deport illegals who "bus tables." The Gangs of Long Island are part of the answer.
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