In a recent post, Peter spoke of “what appears to be the continued knee-jerk commitment of Jewish organizations to facilitating the immivasion”. It is interesting to compare the American case with that of France, which has Europe’s largest Jewish community (estimated, much like in the US, at around 2% of the total population).

As in the US, French Jews until recently generally voted left and generally supported liberal immigration policies. Lately, however, an important part of the Jewish vote has shifted right in response to continued mass immigration and persistent tensions in the Middle East.

Not coincidentally, France also has Europe’s largest Muslim population. For quite a few French Jews, yesterday’s policies no longer fit today’s realities.

Alain Finkielkraut is a prominent case in point. A leading French-Jewish intellectual and much denounced “new reactionary”, Finkielkraut recently made headlines with remarks at a Tel-Aviv think tank. There, he is reported to have said (Yair Sheleg, Haaretz, “A Racist Attack”):

“There is a future for Jews in France only if France is a nation, but there is no future for Jews in a multi-cultural society, because then the power of anti-Jewish groups is liable to be greater.”

Finkielkraut’s remarks nicely illustrate what I take to be a central aspect of the immigration debate: with rare exceptions, the politics of immigration is an exquisitely positional affair. Mass immigration can change the political balance in unexpected and sometimes undesired ways and a policy that once seemed to advance group interests can, given a little time, just as well undermine them.

It’s something that America’s leading Jewish organizations, for the moment united behind open borders, may wish to consider.

I have an interview scheduled with George Putnam, the Dean of Talk Radio, on April 6th, at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time. The most likely topic of discussion is my recent Celebrity Citizenship article, but when I’m on George’s show we can wind up talking about anything. You can listen here.

Ron Hira writes at the Economic Policy Institute:

The most significant design flaw is the absence of a labor market test. The U.S. Department of Labor recently expressed the practical implications of this fact in a straightforward manner when it stated that “H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker.” Simply put, an employer does not have to test the labor market before hiring a foreign worker on an H-1B.

Now, these points have been made before. What is important news here is these things are being said on the web site of the Economic Policy Institute–a major Democratic think tank.

I think it is starting to dawn on the Democratic leadership that they may soon control both houses of congress, and the presidency for quite a while-unless they make some big mistakes. What the conservatives in the GOP missed is that there are fundamentally different expectations from folks that are firmly in control. They have to actually deliver something meaningful to the folks that labored long and hard to get them into power.

The last national election, the GOP lost the votes of college educated white males-their traditional core constituency. It looks to me that the GOP now has a choice: to future loose that constituency for a longer time-or to get real on the issue of skilled worker immigration.

Now, the uber rich in the US are largely money seeking robots-with neither the aptitude or inclination to sustainably run an actual government.
Their voices in congress like McCain are but minions that ultimately do what they are told. That means the chance of the GOP adapting on this issue rapidly enough is very, very small. That means that 2008 is likely to be more than just a GOP defeat-but an embarrassment as large as Watergate that fundamentally changes the balance of power in the GOP–because the GOP will have to reform to remain a viable party.

That means it is time for the Democrats to stand and deliver. Imagine for a moment if the Carter presidency had been a truly serious, long term embarrassment(as the Nixon resignation was-and George W Bush’s rule is shaping up to be). Reagan got elected with a scant 51%(though his victory was assured by the 7% John Anderson got). Carter, whatever his flaws, managed to run degree of affection from Democrats as a good ex-president.

The US government is resilient–but after the presidencies of Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford and Carter which all failed to complete two terms, there really was a need for a truly popular, stable presidency. Nostalgia for the Clinton years may assure a Democratic victory in 2008–but the conditions for the kind of leadership Clinton managed are fundamentally different.

A Democratic president elected in 2008 will have a much more free hand-and will also be facing a country with far greater concentration of wealth and disposable income than his last predecessor. Economic issues will become more important-and for Democrats that means they have to deliver good jobs to a lot of voters.

Hira’s article shows me that major elements of the Democratic leadership are prepared to back down on H-1b—or at least lack the will to maintain that assault much longer. What I think they are missing is just how deep a wound the policies of the last 9 years have created–and just how difficult it will be to undo this massive damage to the American government and society.

When people talk about the benefit of illegals to the economy, they’re talking about the benefit to employers like the Western Growers Association, or an immigration enthusiast named Helen Krieble, who owns a horse farm, and doesn’t want to pay American wages to her stableboys. But Americans who aren’t employers of cheap labor are worse off.

One group that’ s worse off is taxpayers. We’ve been saying this for years,(see, for example - How Much Is That Strawberry In The Window?, by Linda Thom) and now the Heritage Foundation is agreeing with us.

Low-skilled aliens exact a burden

By S.A. Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 5, 2007

Immigration reforms that increase the number of low-skilled workers entering the United States threaten to impose a high cost on taxpayers, says a study being released today.
The Heritage Foundation report calculates that for every $1 unskilled workers pay in taxes they receive about $3 in government benefits, including Medicaid, food stamps, public housing and other welfare programs.

It should serve as a warning to President Bush and lawmakers proposing to give illegal aliens a so-called path to citizenship or what critics call amnesty, said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, which handles immigration bills.

You can (a) read the whole thing, including quotes from Brian Bilbray, and (b) check out the underlying study, which is neither named nor linked to in the Washington Times story.

The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Households to the U.S. Taxpayer April 4, 2007 by Robert E. Rector, Christine Kim and Shanea Watkins, Ph.D. Special Report #12

I have no idea why journalists do that–write a carefully reported story about a study, call two US Congressmen for quotes, and then not mention the name of the study, but you’ll never see that on VDARE.com.