by Rod D. Martin
May 24, 2006

Larry Kudlow rightly pointed out on his show the other day that if, as is alledged, the Senate’s bill were to allow in 100 million new immigrants over the next 20 years or so, that would do nothing more than replace the babies we’ve killed through abortion.

Staying even is important. We are weakened by every loss. Our unemployment is at its lowest rate in three and a half decades, showing clearly that we have more jobs than we can do (remember: Americans work harder and longer hours than any country on Earth). And our chief 21st Century rivals — China and India — have five and four times our population, respectively. China alone graduated 600,000 new engineers this year.

The barbaric One Child Policy will eventually produce a Chinese demographic collapse. But not yet.

America needs more people, a point which would have been well understood by kings of an earlier age. All other things being equal, population is the measure of national strength, and we’re entering an age when other things are getting all too equal indeed.

What we do NOT need is illegal immigration. America must control its borders, must determine who may and may not come in, must determine the terms of their coming. Americans have a right to expect that newcomers learn the language and join the culture. They will bring many good things with them, linguistically, culturally, and every other way. We welcome that heritage. But anyone who comes here seeking to be a “hyphenated American” or something even less than that should not be allowed on our shores.

These two concepts are not hard to reconcile, and they are a lot bigger than just Mexico. It’s time Americans come to grips with both concepts, something which would be a lot easier if the Senate would come to grips with the need for real border security. Once that’s done, we can get on with the hard but vital business of maintaining American values and American leadership in the century ahead.