Xenophobia: As American As Apple Pie

Bob Novak carries the standard this week for the "Come On Down!" Republican crowd.  I really like Bob's political analyses, so it is disappointing to see him fall back on the disingenuous, tired, half-baked comparisons to the past.  Take this quote:

When I asked [Sen. Lindsey] Graham, he quoted from a federal government report on the new arrivals to this country, "largely unskilled laborers" and heavily illiterate: "The new immigration has provoked a widespread feeling of apprehension as to its effect on the economic and social welfare of the country." The report, by the U.S. Immigration Commission, was dated 1911.

This charming blast from the past is supposed to illustrate that our xenophobic bleating is the same ol', same ol' and should be ignored.  I mean, it does sound the same, right?  And we are all agreed that America became the world's great power in the decades since 1911: unparalleled military might, industrial economy, prosperity (mostly), and freedoms that the rest of the world could only dream of.  So allowing "largely unskilled" and "heavily illiterate" immigrants to pour over our borders unchecked to take advantage of all of the government-funded social services, health care, social security, public education, etc.  is a recipe for success, right?

Uh, helloooo, Bob: the illegal immigration to the United States was negligible in 1911: real laws restricting immigration weren't passed until 1924.  And strangely, the country did very well indeed in the subsequent decades with enforced immigration laws.  There were no social services to speak of, except public school where reading, writing and arithmetic was taught in English (Neanderthals!).  Additionally, even among native Americans, graduating from high school wasn't nearly as common as it was soon to become, so there was much less of a disparity in education than there is now between illegal immigrants and the native population.   Bob, we expect better.  You and Fred Barnes need to stop sniffing about the "strong anti-immigrant strain" that you detect in the Rule of Law wing of the Conservative/Liberal Coalition of the American People.

• Read here Robert Rector's report on the economic cost of importing an underclass.  
• Read the Educational Testing Service Policy Research Center's report, America's Perfect Storm about the  socioeconomic changes that are putting an unprecedented strain on our public school system and threaten our entire economy and our competitiveness.  Click on the Executive Summary (pdf) and go to page 5 for some jaw-dropping stats on the immigrant educational profile.  Page two has a breakdown of prose literacy by ethnicity as well.
  

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Mr. Steyn comments on the fatuity of the Republicans, and the Senate in general: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTNlYjkwZWUyMTZkMzk3YmZhOWFjMzE1NjZhZGQ1ZTI=