It is counterintuitive but the humanitarian urge to accommodate newcomers has made immigrants unwelcome.  People who care about immigrants are making it more difficult for them to come to the US either legally or illegally.  The unintended consequence of accommodation policies like bilingual ballots has been a sharp decline in the public’s willingness to accept new immigrants. 

 Overt accommodation of new immigrants results in passage of laws like California’s Proposition 187 in 1994 and Arizona’s 2007 anti-immigrant law.  Both of which were passed with overwhelming public support and were intended to curb immigration and force acculturation.

The social elites who care about new immigrants, who are among the least privileged people in our society, have historically wanted to accommodate their unique need.  They fight for multi-lingual ballots and bilingual education.  They think it is all right if newcomers keep their old customs and they ask the settled people to accommodate them.  The accommodators want the safety net (welfare, food stamps, social services etc) to be extended to every new arrival, with no waiting period.  

From one point of view the accommodations outlined above seem to be benign attempts to weave the newcomers gently into the fabric of American society.  But from the point of view of the settled people accommodation infringes on their sense of territory.  Being asked to “press two for English” when you call the Social Security office is a mild irritant and a reminder that our society is accommodating itself to the newcomers. This results in people voting for things like prop 187 and Congress doubling the size of the immigration enforcement paramilitary.  

Victor Davis Hanson says in an essay in The Immigrant Solution that “During the heyday of multiculturalism and political correctness in the 1980’s the response of us, the hosts, was not to insist upon the traditional assimilation of the newcomer but rather to accommodate the illegal alien with official Spanish-language documents, bilingual education and ethnic boosterism in our media, politics, and education.”  Hanson makes this point as one of his arguments for a freeze on immigration until the current wave are absorbed.  Whether there is too much or too little accommodation is not really the point it is whether the voting public thinks there is too much.  

The unintended consequence of overt accommodation is restrictions on immigration.  If instead the social elites demanded that new immigrants make an effort to acculturate then the voting public would become more willing to accept them.

If newcomers were offered the chance to gain the skills needed to acculturate.  If they were required to attend something like Israel’s ulpan where they learned the underlying principles of the American experiment, were taught basic English and how our judiciary works then in a very short time the people who now reject them would accept them as neighbors.  How do we know this?  Our history shows it to be true.  The sign “No Irish Need Apply” was common in the New York City a hundred years ago.  Now being Irish is an identifier like being a Patriots fan.  

So how do we get more Mexicans the opportunity to become Americans?  We have to be meaner to them.  We have to charge them fees and make them acculturate.  We have to print everything official, that is not safety related, in English only.  We have to say to them that the fruits of our culture are what attracted you, now you have to adopt that culture.  We need to say to new immigrants that you have to follow something like the immigrants code .  If we do this over time more immigrants will be welcomed into our country and there will be a net increase of wellbeing and freedom in the world.  

  Ulpan

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