In April the White House unveiled a new plan for expediting the citizenship naturalization of nearly 9,000,000 legal immigrants (“Legal Permanent Resident” or “LPR” is the official term) in time for them to vote in the 2016 election. The announcement didn’t make headlines, but it should have.
With so much debate and controversy over illegal immigration, conservatives have been slow to recognize the Trojan Horse characteristics of a legal immigration system, which is as much out of control as our open borders. So, only a few people looked behind the curtain to see what is really happening here.
As with so many Obama policy initiatives, there are two stories here – first, what Obama is doing, and second, the dog that didn’t bark. The sleeping dog is the leadership of the Republican Party.
For starters think of the new terminology: The Task Force on New Americans report does not use the word “assimilation” even once; it is all about “integration,” not assimilation, and this represents far more than a semantic change. In government newspeak, integration means granting immigrants all of the benefits of citizenship without any assimilation to American values. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that today, in federal government circles, assimilation is the “N-word” that must not be spoken in polite company.
Welcoming new citizens should be non-controversial. As a congressman, I participated in at least a dozen public ceremonies where newly naturalized citizens were congratulated and warmly welcomed as equal partners in the American experiment in self-government. I commended the new Americans for doing it the right way, playing by the rules, learning English, passing the naturalization test.
The news that is not being reported in the mainstream media is that under Obama, our “transformational leader,” naturalization no longer includes assimilation. Assimilation has been abandoned as outdated and “unprogressive.” After all, asking immigrants to assimilate to American values implies American values are superior to other values in supporting and perpetuating American institutions. That idea is so uncool these days.
Yes, the blue-ribbon U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services task force that came up with this “new direction” was first launched by President Bush in 2006, and it made a report back in 2008. But Obama took it in a radically new direction.
Although the abandonment of assimilation has been a goal of the progressive left for decades, it could not be accomplished until Obama arrived on the scene. Under Obama, the globalists and far-left ideologues have their long-sought historic prize: White House endorsement of the official surrender of Americanism to multiculturalism.
Expecting and requiring foreign nationals to first understand and then accept American values in order to become an American citizen now has been officially discontinued as the public policy of the United States.
The official April report, “White House Task Force on New Americans,” states on page 24, that we are a “culture steeped in a history of immigration, integration, diversity, and cultural pluralism.” At no place in the 70-page document is there one word or description of the values that might be expected to unify our “diverse culture.” Apparently, Americans are unified only by our worship of diversity. A commitment to a belief in the unalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is not to be found among the 23,000 words of the task force document.
An April 14 memo by Leon Rodriguez, co-chairman of the task force, explained that USCIS will expend great efforts to encourage and facilitate these 8.8 million Legal Permanent Residents gaining full citizenship by November of 2016. Rodriguez deftly proclaims that the project aims to “strengthen existing pathways to naturalization and promote civic engagement.”
And where was Congress when this subversive transformation was taking place? Asleep at the wheel, as usual? The only two people who believe this White House project is not a blatant hijacking of our traditional naturalization process are Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell. Their silence speaks volumes about the moral and political bankruptcy of the Republican Party.
Tom Tancredo is the founder of the Rocky Mountain Foundation and founder and co-chairman of Team America PAC.He represented Colorado’s sixth congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2009, and he is a former presidential candidate.
He is the author of In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America’s Border and Security, and he can be heard every Monday on Grassroots Radio Colorado with Kris Cook (KLZ 560 AM).
