(UPDATE: See my comment below) I was going to comment about this in the open thread, but in the light of today’s noise about the housing benefit shuffle in Newham causing “social cleansing” and allegedly inspiring right-wing extremism, I thought it was worth a full post. I’m talking about the BBC’s revelation that immigration from Mexico into the US is being reversed.
Mexico-US migration slips after 40 years of growth
The rate of Mexican immigration to the US has stalled or maybe even gone into reverse, an analysis shows, ending a four-decade-long trend.
Not may, it has. The Pew figures (NB: pdf file automatic download) quoted by the BBC pretty much show that. The reason I’m bringing it up is because of the illegal factor. It’s important to remember that the BBC has generally taken the activists’ line and used their language in reporting on the issue in the US. Remember Mark Mardell’s jaunt to the Arizona border (page 4 of the open thread) and the other reports trying to tell you it was all about racism against people with brown skin and a Mexican accent? Then there are the other reports siding with illegals and playing the race game. The fact that these people are in the US illegally is somehow not their fault, but the fault of unfair laws which magically make them illegal ex post facto or something. The real objection wasn’t, of course, about immigration of non-whites, but about illegal immigration.
Activists – mostly Hispanic – always play that qualifier down, if not wipe it from the discussion entirely. And the BBC played right along. So it must have come as something of a shock to the BBC News Online producer who had to skim through the Pew report and discover that last year there were more illegal Mexicans in the US than legal ones: 6.1 million to 5.8 million. So why didn’t the BBC ever discuss that disparity last year when they were freaking out about the Arizona law and all those other states trying to stem the tide of illegals? The rest of us knew the problem was about illegals, and said so at the time. Yet the BBC tried to play it as racism anyway. When Mark Mardell tries to whip up a little anger by shoving in your face Pat Buchanan’s racialist diatribe about losing “white America” to the Mexicans, it’s all part of this Narrative. Forget about the illegal issue and focus on race. It ends the debate before it begins. But the BBC approves when Hispanics vote for their own kind based solely on ethnicity.
It must also come as a shock to those who rely on the BBC for the news on US issues to learn that the first black President has in fact been deporting record numbers of illegals with brown skin back to Mexico. How can that be racism, BBC? Is He a puppet or something on this issue? I’d love to know how they square this with their belief in Him. I remember when Mardell was actually for a moment trying to defend the President (page 8 of the open thread) against charges that He wasn’t protecting the border properly. Obviously He wasn’t, since there were more illegals than legals last year. Mardell is silent, of course.
It’s important to make this distinction when reporting on the US issue of immigration law, because, as the Newham article doesn’t show, the problem in Britain is about mostly quite legal immigration. There’s a huge difference in the cause and effect in the UK from what’s been happening in the US. Which is why it’s wrong for the BBC to conflate the two situations and play racialist games.
If xenophobia is (I’m speaking hypothetically for the moment) a primary factor in British objection to seemingly unlimited legal immigration of third-world Mohammedans, this still has nothing to do with US objection to illegal immigration of Mexicans. There is a world of difference between the two. Why has the BBC been unable to make this distinction? I say it’s because they’re viscerally opposed to restrictions on immigration simply out of reflexive fealty to the abstract notions of diversity and multiculturalism, as well as a reflexive opposition to any nominally conservative policy.
I’ve previously mentioned how the BBC hired German immigrant Franz Strasser (middle of page 4 of the open thread) to tour the country reporting on immigration in the US in all its various colors. The reason I criticized every single report in that series was because he and his editor dishonestly censored the word “illegal” (middle of page 7) out of the whole picture. Even when he was doing reports from two different “Sanctuary Cities” (middle of page 4 of that same thread), which deliberately flouted US immigration law to harbor illegals. He acted as if this didn’t exist. The whole series was conceived and design to whitewash (see what I did there) the illegal issue so that you’d all think any objection to immigration had to be based in racism. Now here are hard figures to show that there really has been a problem with illegal immigration.
The BBC article about the Pew study notes that “immigration” is going to be a big issue in this election year, but still cannot bring themselves to add the “illegal” qualifier, which is actually what it’s all about. The situation is not the same, yet they still pretend it is.
Now that illegal immigration is down, even seeing a negative trend, one has to suspect that the policies have been working. Too bad Britain doesn’t even have the level of sovereignty that Arizona does. Oh, and I guess this means that Global Warming won’t be driving all of them into the US after all.
Still, it’s nice to see the BBC at last revealing even the tiniest bit of truth about what’s been going on over here. But it’s a shame that they don’t make an effort to correct the false impression they’ve been creating about the concern over illegal immigration in the US.
judging by the size of Mark Mardell I saw on the TV last night, has he been eating them?
Is the idea that if you don’t make it easy for unwelcome immigrants:
1) The message goes back home that life here in the promised land is hard and not worth the effort.
2) Those already there start going back as life there is too hard.
Again the lesson to learn is not to make them welcome, no housing no benefits, no handouts.
The point isn’t about immigrants in general being unwelcome: it’s about the illegality. Nobody is complaining about legal immigration. Nobody is complaining about violence and crime along border towns due to legal immigrants.
You never see any stats on how much of the UK welfare ‘budget’ (what a misnomer) is spent on people who were not born here. It’s certainly a topic you’d never hear discussed on the BBC, along with other concerns associated with immigration that are counter to their left-wing world view.
I”m making a distinction here between illegal and legal immigrants. The BBC deliberately conflates the two in order to stifle honest debate about EU- and Labour-driven mass legal immigration of third-world Mohammedans who self-segregate and subsume your culture in certain areas.
If I’m wrong, why they feel they have to be dishonest about the US situation is beyond me.
Fair point, and sorry to digress. As an answer to your query: ‘It must also come as a shock to those who rely on the BBC for the news on US issues to learn that the first black President has in fact been deporting record numbers of illegals with brown skin back to Mexico. How can that be racism, BBC?’, have a look at this news item from The Daily Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9221047/Black-people-cannot-be-racist-says-former-Ken-Livingstone-aide.html
Same mindset, so a link between The Obamessiah and an apparent (in the eyes of the BBC) racist policy will never be made, though I do wonder whether you yourself are saying a ‘black’ man (he is, in fact, half-white) can’t be racist?
I’d also go beyond your theory of the Beeb’s devotion to ‘diversity and multiculturalism’. The Master Plan of the Left (talking worldwide here, so it’s as per the UN template) is driven by egalitarianism, the green agenda and redistribution of wealth, all enabled through the movements of political correctness and global warming alarmism.
I’m definitely not saying the President can’t be racist due to His skin color. He does seem to be sympathetic to key aspects of Critical Race Theory, but that’s not the same thing as run-of-the-mill, visceral racism.
And you can stop wondering about me – I absolutely do not subscribe to the Jo Brand theory of racism:
Although, now that I think about it, if we’re to take Brand’s definition that it’s only about political power, the President surely has that power and is using it against Mexicans.
Which makes the BBC all the more pathetic because they don’t call Him out on it. I’d love to ask a Beeboid what that’s about.
“illegal immigration” it does exactly what it says on the tin doesnt it? Crime thrives, immigrants caught in a web of crime syndicate exploitation, unregistered and unprotected and prey to any criminal and organized crime gangs deal in guns and drugs and kidnapping and people trafficking. If they do get a job it has no protections, it lowers wages for every worker legal or not, its causes strife and resentment and poverty in the greater society.
These are a few of the problems illegal migration cause and yet it is the host nation that is demonized if they dare to protest, its a perverted way of thinking and highly damaging to those at the bottom of society who have to simply adjust and live with the damage and humiliation. Yet knowing all this the BBC still refuses to allow the truth to be aired, still doggedly sticks to the facile notion that illegal immigrants are victims and as such should be allowed free access to America.
David,
What sort of problems are the United States causing Mexico with their illegal ex-pats ?
Now far be it from me to suggest that the giant M&M doesn’t report impartially as the voice of the BBC but surely he must have noticed it’s not a two way street.
For every drug dealer/murderer/extortionist you send them, you seem to get back 10,000 in return.
Must make you long for the EU paradise we’re
notcurrently enjoying over here.Yes it`s that word “illegal” that turns out to be a bit certain, a bit judgemental-and, until it becomes a linguistic corkscrew for interpretation by Belarus and the ilk…rather open to interpretation, and will need a lot of trips to Strasbourg…just to tease it out!
That the likes of Qatada got in here illegally seems not to matter…we are where we are a,d the law is a moveable feast…indeed a teddy bears picnic if you like.
Ten Commandments my hat…mere guidelines and aspirational targets Pierre.
Brilliant post David. Really good and thorough. I just posted about Newnham on the Open thread, Grant Shapps having a go at the BBC and writing to Helen ‘it’s in our genes:
http://biasedbbc.tv/2012/04/22/new-open-thread-4/#comment-17634
UPDATE: The Supreme Court Justices are apparently showing signs that they’re sympathetic to the Arizona law allowing police to ask – not randomly, mind, but in suspicious situations – people they stop to see if they have legal immigration papers. Chief Justice Roberts said that it seems like the Administration doesn’t really want to know how many illegals there are in the country.
Even “wise Latina” Justice Sotomayor is questioning the President’s attack on AZ:
“You can see it’s not selling very well,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Obama administration Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.
This is an Hispanic Justice talking about what is supposedly a racist immigration policy because Hispanics are affected. Somewhere, a Beeboid’s head just exploded.
The Court will have to rule on whether or not the State of Arizona has or needs enough sovereignty to deal with the problem since the Federal Government obviously isn’t. States Rights is what’s at stake here, not the racial aspect. As usual, this is contrary to what the BBC has been telling you.
Note to defenders of the indefensible: don’t bother dismissing this because it’s from Fox News. These are direct quotes from the Justices, so attacking the source is a false argument.
The media, and the BBC particularly, used the same tactic over the Dale Farm gypsy site which was essentially a planning issue. It was turned into an issue of prejudice and race (although why someone is of a different race because they live in a mobile home, I’m not sure) and even the United Nations felt they had a role in protecting those who had built an illegal encampment.
Since it’s on topic, I may as well put this here. The BBC has done a second report – showing how much they’re worried about it, I think – on the poor showing the President’s Solicitor General has had defending His lawsuit against the State of Arizona. Poor guy, even the best trial lawyer can’t do much to defend the indefensible.
The BBC quotes the Administration’s argument points that the Constitution (note to BBC editors: that’s with a capital “C”, please) invests ultimate power over border control with the Federal Government, and adds the idiotic point about how they have to consider Mexico’s feelings. Not even the wise Latina bought that one.
The BBC does quote a couple of concerns expressed by the Justices, which shows that the Administration’s argument is not going well. However, the BBC does not actually quote any of Arizona’s legal arguments. Yes, the editor mentions a single reason why there’s an argument (illegals being a burden on resources), but censors the actual legal point that the Constitution actually doesn’t prevent the State from having the right to deal with things where the Federal Government can’t or won’t.
So you’re once again left without being informed properly, by a piece with more time spent on the Administration’s argument, and no mention at all of the actual argument of the defending State. To Beeboids, the US Constitution and the concept of States’ Rights must be one of those weird native customs they have to notice like anthropologists watching some tribal dance, but don’t need to understand and get right.