The idea of a merit-based immigration policy originated on the political left. It was first proposed by a blue ribbon panel, chaired by a civil rights movement icon, Barbara Jordan, in the 1990s. The commission’s recommendations for an immigration overhaul were immediately endorsed by President Bill Clinton and other leading Democrats and Republicans of the day and then, just as quickly, mothballed due to objections from ethnic interest advocacy groups and powerful cheap labor business interests.
In last Thursday’s debate, former Vice-President Joe Biden promised that, if elected, he will create “a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people.” While most of the pundits focused on how such a massive amnesty would impact America, there is also much disagreement surrounding the question of how many illegal aliens actually reside in the country. So where did Biden get his “11 million [illegal aliens]” figure? And is it accurate?
Few national policy issues have the long-term impact that immigration does. It determines our future: Quality of our schools, livability of our communities, solvency of our government, integrity of our civic culture, cohesion of our traditions and understandings, size of our carbon footprint, health of our infrastructure, equity in our labor force, the viability of the rule of law, and just about anything else of importance to the American people. Immigration levels determine whether we can achieve population stability, or race toward an unstoppable one billion by the end of the century.
The United States, under President Joe Biden, is sailing into uncharted waters. Democrats, for much of the past half century, have leaned in the direction of moving the United States toward the Scandinavian model of the “nanny state,” in which citizens surrender some of their freedoms and significant chunks of their paychecks in exchange for cradle-to-grave security.