Amnesty Fails, But
Demographic
Upheaval Continues
lthough
efforts by U.S. elites to accelerate the transformation
of America's racial and ethnic composition suffered a setback
with the defeat of amnesty for illegal aliens, the demographic
upheaval they aim for continues to steadily unfold.
The number of legal immigrants seeking to remain in the
U.S. permanently by becoming citizens has surged dramatically,
according to federal statistics.
Although illegal aliens have dominated the headlines and
the popular imagination in the immigration debate, legal
immigration -- of mostly non-white populations -- remains
at historically high levels and is destined to overturn
America's European-derived heritage.
The numbers of newly naturalized citizens has steadily grown
to more than 700,000 this year, up from 460,000 in 2003.
This year's large number has mounted as the number of applications
increased each month, reaching 115,175 in May, compared
to 65,782 last December.
At a single ceremony in July, about 1,000 legal immigrants
from 75 diferent countries became citizens at an event staged
at Cinderella's Castle at Walt Disney World in Lake Beuna
Vista, Florida.
Immigrants are being mobilized by left-wing activists and
ethnic pressure groups to apply for citizenship in a transparent
effort to bolster their political influence as a counter-weight
against white native-born Americans. Univision, the national
Spanish-language television network, launched such a campaign
in January in California. Promoted by personalities like
Eduardo Sotelo, a radio host in Los Angeles known as El
Piolin, the campaign has urged immigrants to go to 350 foreign-language
workshops run by churches and federally-funded multiculturalist
community organizations in 22 cities to learn how to become
citizens.
One of the Mexican immigrants, Angel Ivan Alvarez, 24, told
the New York Times he did not think of becoming a citizen
until he heard the radio campaign aimed at Hispanics. Living
in Whittier, California, Alvarez attended one of the workshops
and decided to apply for naturalization to push the ethnic
interests of what he called "my people."
"I realized that I want to be able to vote and speak
up for my people because they are not getting enough support,"
he told the Times.
If present levels of legal and illegal immigration continue,
the U.S. will become a majority non-white country by 2050,
according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Margaret Farnsworth
Riche, who was director of the bureau in 1991, said that
non-white immigrants will soon overcome native-born whites.
"We have left the time when the non-white, non-Western
part of our population could be expected to assimilate to
the dominant majority. In the future, the white Western
majority will have to do some assimilation of its own,"
she said.
Immigrants and their children -- legal and illegal -- already
account for more than two-thirds of America's rapid population
growth.
