Illegal immigration, the rule of law, and culture

Victor Davis Hanson has produced another masterpiece.  Here's an excerpt.

... contemplate what happens in a social, cultural, and economic context when several million immigrants arrive from one of the poorest areas in the world (e.g., Oaxaca) to one of the most affluent (e.g., California) ... The first casualty is the law. I am not referring to the collapse of federal immigration enforcement, but rather the ripples that must follow from it. When someone ignores a federal statute, then it is naturally easy to flout more ... when there is no federal law, no one has any idea how several million arrive in the U.S., much less what exactly they were doing before their illegal arrival.

. . .

There is no “broken windows” notion that ... small infractions lead to much larger ones. To read the local Fresno Bee is to collate a daily tally of stabbings, shootings, gang violence, carjackings, thefts, and chop shops—without any exegesis why this is so. Cuts in law enforcement? Therapeutic approach to the law? A complete failure to integrate and assimilate the second generation of illegal immigrants? The inability to offer jobs in a command state economy?

. . .

The answers to all these challenges are time-honored assimilation and integration. But tragically, illegal immigration coincided with the cult of multiculturalism. How strange that those who vote with their feet to abandon their own country for an entirely different cultural and economic system are mostly greeted with propaganda about how woeful is their new home and how wonderful is what was rejected. I am pessimistic: to return to the melting pot and ethnically blind admissions and hiring, and rigorous classical education would de facto mean the end of a huge grievance industry—and with it hundreds of thousands of well-paid government jobs for second- and third-generation hyphenated careerists.

. . .

Where does all this lead? I suggest we open our eyes and watch it in progress. Mass flight either out of state, or to coastal enclaves, where liberalism and abstract progressive utopianism can be indulged safety without worries over the concrete ramifications that follow from one’s own idealism. If deeds trump words, then the real racists or exclusionists are those in the mostly affluent coastal enclaves who suddenly want no part of the California that they have helped to create.

There's more at the link.  Highly recommended reading.  It also explains why Donald Trump is getting so much support for his presidential campaign - because voters are not blind, and can see these realities for themselves.  They're not dumb.

Peter