Excerpts from Dr. Stephen Steinlight’s March 16, 2010 speech entitled:

“Faith Traditions, the Social Justice Agenda and Immigration”

(Thanks to one of our members who wrote this for the newsletter.)

 

While Dr. Steinlight’s speech is a work of art that deserves to be read word-for-word in its entirety, many TFIR members may only have time to read a few revealing excerpts from his speech.

 

First and foremost, Dr. Steinlight wishes to emphasize that we, the supporters of enforcement of existing immigration policy, have the moral high ground and should make use of that advantage in the coming political debates about immigration. 

 

To illustrate that we already have the moral high ground, he starts off by identifying what supporters of amnesty are actually for.   What are they really promoting?

 

1)  extreme identity politics for Hispanics,

2)  a dual nationality country – always a formula for unending political, social and cultural crises (see Canada, Belgium, the Balkans, etc.),

3)  ceaseless ethnic pandering for partisan gain,

4)  the rejection of the legal and moral authority of the American nation state,

5)  the political ambitions and economic interests of Mexico,

 6)  raw economic greed for the corporate service-sector members of their alliance who seek to re-barbarize American capitalism, using cheap immigrant labor, legal and illegal, to create a permanent underclass as a lever to lower wages and working conditions for all American working people.”

   

Of course, supporters of amnesty rarely verbalize these shocking goals. 

Instead, in public, “they resort to a set of pseudo-arguments, with three predominating, each of them suffused with intense if insincere moralism.” 

1)  “Most often, they argue ad misericordiam, trying to guilt-trip ordinary Americans about the plight of illegal aliens for whom they wish to engender greater sympathy than for our own unemployed and impoverished fellow citizens.”

 

When facing the ad misericordiam argument, how does Dr. Steinlight suggest that we take back the moral high ground?  By supplying the factual context.  Watch this:

 

When I refuse to cave in to the sob stories and point out the sad personal consequences of bad judgment and law breaking cannot form the foundation of American jurisprudence and policy – the audience is nothing less than delighted.   I didn’t understand this at first: then it came to me in an epiphany.  I have just lifted a heavy burden from them by dispatching an argument that previously had made these nice, decent, empathetic Americans profoundly uncomfortable.  I’ve dispatched the monster of bogus empathy, and they are relieved and grateful.

Mexicans are the richest in the Third World.  Mexicans possess twice the income of the most wretched 3 billion and more than five billion of the seven.  There is no starvation in Mexico, no pandemics, no civil war, no unbridled tyranny.   There’s plenty of corruption and a rising death toll in the war among drug cartels and between the cartels and what passes for law enforcement, but life is better than in all of sub-Saharan Africa and virtually all of East Asia and South-East Asia.   In fact, as we all know, Mexico could provide a very good life to its citizens.  It is rich in oil, natural gas, agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, etc.   Its problem is that it has the most uneven distribution of wealth in the entire Western hemisphere, the widest gap between its richest and poorest citizens.  What Mexico needs is not a Marshall Plan; I’m always amused when some well-intentioned person offers the solution of American money to solve its problems.  No, the oligarchy that rules Mexico as if it were a family business is swimming in money.  What Mexico desperately requires is a major re-distribution of wealth downward and the replacement of its politics of clientismo with real democracy.  All of its public institutions are corrupt and it has essentially no civil society.  Mexico needs a social revolution, though I pray it will not be a violent one.  That will not only be a nightmare for Mexico, but it will also put enormous pressure to open our borders even wider.

 

2)      “The second of their three standard pseudo-arguments is to accuse those of us who disagree with them of bigotry, xenophobia, and racism, the allegation that is the moral equivalent of dropping a nuclear weapon in politically correct America. Little matter that Hispanics are not a race:  the word has magical power to discredit.” 

 

When accused of bigotry, xenophobia, and racism by bigots, xenophobes, and racists – how does Dr. Steinlight suggest that we take back the moral high ground?

 

“The consolation in this, and it is a large one, is knowing they recognize they can’t win the argument on the merits.” 

When they show themselves to be the true bigots, xenophobes, and racists – recognize their hypocrisy, point it out, and move on.  Remember – when they try to project their character flaws on us – we are winning the argument.  Ad hominem attacks have never yet won an argument.

 

3)      “The third pseudo-argument, one I feel we’re often negligent in answering, is unquestionably their most outrageous:  they assert Göt Mitt Uns, God is with us, engaging in advocacy exegesis, abusing Scripture to try hoodwinking a deeply religious nation.  They wish to portray us a cruel, Godless people with hearts of stone.”

 

If God is on the side of the supporters of amnesty, then how dare we oppose amnesty?   But – whose side is God on, and how does Dr. Steinlight suggest that we take back the moral high ground? 

 

It’s time to re-examine the abused Scriptures.  For example,

Our opponents – who cherry pick and infantilize sacred text – regard one Biblical passage as their trump card:  Leviticus 19:33-34.  I’ll recite it:

When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him.  The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born.  Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt.  I am the Lord your God. . . .

Does Leviticus 19:33 address – let alone endorse – “comprehensive immigration reform?”  Not by the most lenient interpretive standard.  It commands empathy, “love” for the “other,” for gentiles, asserting humanity’s oneness and God’s omnipotence.  It commands us to treat the “other” kindly, the stranger residing temporarily and lawfully among us.  It commands nothing more. 

Exploiting Leviticus to support amnesty requires conscious mistranslation.  This is not an esoteric quibble.  The word for stranger in the Hebrew Bible is Ger v'toh-shav – “sojourner” in English.  . . .  All English dictionaries define “to sojourn” as “to stay temporarily.”  Arguing some 11.5 million illegal aliens should remain permanently finds no support in Leviticus. 

In the Hebrew Bible, how does one adopt a new national identity?

The Book of Ruth is a rare narrative about adopting a new national identity.  Ruth, a Moabite, chooses to remain with her Israelite mother-in-law after her husband’s death and become an Israelite.   The primal assertion of national belonging Ruth expresses to Naomi contrasts sharply with the apparent indifference to national identity or loyalty to a competing one that characterizes many contemporary resident aliens.  Ruth says, “Wherever you go, I will go / And wherever you lodge, I will lodge / Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. / Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried.”  This is surely the most ancient expression of the ideal of patriotic assimilation.

Approximately 17% of our huge cohort of foreign-born Hispanics has naturalized, and that number dropped 62% last year because of a minor hike in the fee.  In Ruth we encounter an outsider’s total identification with an adopted nation and longing for complete absorption.  Among many contemporary transnational migrant workers (a more precise term than “immigrant”) we see the opposite.  Whether stemming from the anomie of the deracinated, economic calculation, unwillingness to choose between identities, or more likely, an abiding loyalty to Mexico – all Mexicans remain Mexican by Mexican law – there’s no indication of a parallel desire to embrace American identity.  That’s especially true since it requires paying a price for wholesale violations of American law, playing by the rules, and going to the back of the queue. 

Recent surveys by Zogby International find 69% of Mexicans believe their compatriots in the US owe Mexico primary loyalty; another shows 62% harbor irredentist attitudes, regarding the American Southwest as Mexican.  It’s also impossible to disaggregate these groups – Mexicans here, Mexicans there – given porous borders, their peregrinations, and Mexico’s unbroken hold – ideological and legal – on its children here.

The Hebrew Bible addresses inclusion of strangers/aliens in civil and legal terms. (See Exodus, 12:49; Leviticus, 24: 22; and Numbers, 15:14).  It proclaims: "One law for the citizen/native and the alien/stranger that dwells among you." 

But this is no Bill of Rights for sojourners.  It’s a demand for strict obedience to Israelite laws and norms.   Aliens gain rights only through lawful residency.  “Aliens” need not convert, but must embrace monotheism, the bedrock of Judaic civilization.  The punishment for idolatry is death.  Strangers had to pay taxes, demonstrate civic loyalty by making the annual pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem, and preserve social order.

The Bible draws a bright line between its religiously defined concept of being a full member – in Biblical Hebrew the word is ezrach – from a sojourner.  

To summarize, supporters of amnesty typically misinterpret Leviticus 19:33 in the following way:

Yes – “Leviticus 19:33 exhorts us to ‘Love the stranger.’ ” 

But – “ ‘Comprehensive Immigration Reform’ isn’t about love; it’s about exploiting cheap labor, building a second Mexican nation in the US, and creating a permanent Democratic political majority.”

So, just exactly how does “comprehensive immigration reform” exploit cheap labor, and why is that important for taking back the moral high ground in the upcoming political debate over immigration? 

I’ve spoken of the need to elevate our claim to the moral high ground in the immigration debate.  Demonstrating the brutal social costs of mass low-skill immigration on our most vulnerable fellow citizens is a highly effective means of challenging assumptions and winning converts among people of conscience in any community.  We must not permit ourselves to be portrayed or perceived – sometimes as a result of our own failure to make the case – as cold-hearted, chauvinistic nationalists with little concern for the poor and marginal among us:  indeed, we should make the protection of their interests one of the most important tenets of our movement. . . .

 

. . . our response to mass lowskill immigration makes the most moral sense:  it is the best, grownup, real world ethical choice. . . .

Contemporary immigration pits hard-pressed constituencies against each other:  poor illegal aliens against America’s unemployed, working poor and working class.  It creates brutally unfair competition for our fellow citizens who are poor or just get by, especially in these times of economic distress.  Our “jobless recovery” has given us a Federal U-6 unemployment/under-employment rate of 17.5% of the workforce.  While 6 citizens chase every job advertised, illegal aliens hold some 7 million jobs.  In this zero-sum game, our countrymen have first call on our loyalty:  our “charity truly begins at home.”  It must not end there, but it should begin there.

There’s a mountain of irrefutable, powerful data dramatizing those brutal consequences for our most vulnerable, and we must never tire of employing it.  The National Research Council of the American Academy of Sciences’ study New Americans: Economic, Demographic and Fiscal Effects of Immigrants finds the cheap labor of lowskill illegal aliens and impoverished immigrants caused 44% of the decrease in wages among the poorest Americans from 1980-1994.  These findings are dated:  recent ones would show more damaging effects.  Some 15-18 million workers, the poorest 12% of the American labor force, have suffered pay cuts, heavy job losses, and are falling deeper into poverty.  

 

For the past 25 years, real wages for American workers without a high school education have declined 22%; 11% for those with only a high school education.   The unceasing flow of impoverished immigrants into the workforce plays a significant role.

In the zero-sum game that’s immigration, it’s easy to identify winners and losers.  Big winners are owners of industries in the service-sector:  restaurant, retail, agriculture, construction, meatpacking and processing; and the garden industry.  They’re breaking the law and taking jobs away from Americans at the worst possible time.  They make fat profits on the cheap labor of poor immigrants who work for minimum or below minimum wage and receive zero benefits.  They treat immigrants like dogs while using the leverage of their cheap labor to assault the living standards of America’s working poor and working-class.  Unchecked, the outcome will be the creation of a vast permanent underclass of immigrant labor to drive down wages and worsen working conditions for all Americans.  

 

Those who suffer most are Americans at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder: the unemployed, working poor, seasonally employed, the elderly who still have to work, young people trying to start careers, African Americans and recent legal immigrants.  Immigrants gain because even the appalling wages and hideous working conditions are better than those in their countries of origin.

 

What is Dr. Steinlight’s final word on the abuse of Scripture to support “comprehensive immigration reform?” – “Distorting Scripture to support legislation designed to import cheap labor to depress the wages and worsen the working conditions of our vulnerable fellow citizens is nothing less than sacrilege.”

 

[Thank you, Dr. Steinlight – for speaking the truth, and for encouraging us to do so.]

 

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