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Air Date: October 20, 2014
Host: Jim Schneider
Guest: Mark Krikorian
Mark Krikorian is a nationally recognized expert on immigration issues who has served as executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies since 1995. The center is an independent, non-partisan research organization that examines and critiques the impact of immigration on the United States. His knowledge and expertise in the immigration issue has brought him many times before Congress to testify. He has written numerous articles and has authored two books, “The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal” and “How Obama is Transforming America Through Immigration.”
1 in 5 U.S. residents speaks a foreign language at home. This amounts to 61.8 million people. Immigration is the reason for this and according to Mark, too much of it becomes a problem for national unity.
Why? Mark went on to note that Spanish speaking immigrants make up about half of our total immigration flow. About 100 years ago we had people from many nations coming here from the various nations of Europe who spoke different languages and who often had different religious beliefs. This diversity was actually more conducive to assimilation compared to today where we have the least diverse immigration flow in America’s history.
The reason a lack of diversity results in a large slowdown of assimilation is because when a very high percentage of your immigration population speaks only one language, the potential exists for creating an alternative mainstream culture. Hence, as Jim pointed out, we begin to see things like voting ballots showing up in both English and Spanish.
With one million legal immigrants coming to our shores every year (speaking primarily one language), businesses are going to respond in their own way. So while the general population may respond with calls to make English the official language of America, some businesses have been responding by projecting themselves as bilingual by asking you to pick a language choice when you call them. The government isn’t mandating that businesses offer such options but they have fostered the environment that created them through excessive immigration.
As the program continued, the following points were discussed:
–How “protective” is the fencing we have on the southern border?
–Was Representative Duncan Hunter right when he said that ISIS militants have been caught crossing our southern border?
–Why are local law enforcement agencies frustrating efforts at the federal level to detain and deport criminal illegal immigrants?
–What disease scenario could cause mass migration of people into the United States?
–Why do some people see an Ebola-based travel ban as controversial?
There’s much more from Jim, Mark and Crosstalk callers when you review this timely broadcast.
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Center for Immigration Studies
