Enlightened Ruminations on the “Citizenally Challenged”

Readers of this humble “weblog” may well have noticed that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have not discussed the recent political firestorm surrounding illegal immigration. In itself, this is odd: We’re not the types of folk who shy away from hard-hitting issues. Why, we’ve even tackled such incendiary topics as the word “moist.”

Yet, to be honest, dear reader, we haven’t felt particularly inspired to dilate on illegal immigration. We suppose we don’t feel very strongly about it, and informal polling around the office water cooler suggests that most of us find ourselves in the squishy middle on this issue.

And yet a recent article on illegal immigration in the May 1 number of Britain’s left-leaning New Statesman got us sufficiently worked up, and we feel we must take a poke at the subject. Penned by one Andrew Stephen—whose name reads like a rather uninspired porn star’s nom de guerre—the article is curiously titled “The Latino Giant Awakes.”

The Latino Giant? Has Mr. Stephen (or is that Mr. Andrew?) ever seen any Latinos? They’re not exactly known for their gigantic size.

Anyway, the sub-header of the article pretty much sums up its author’s modus scribendi: “The new political and economic power of Hispanic immigrants is fuelling an ugly mood of racism in America, where ‘illegals’ are accused of taking healthcare, jobs and housing.”

We particularly savored the use of scare-quotes around the word illegals, as if it were merely a meaningless term. Mr. Stephen explains: “…there is an ugly mood of racism sweeping this country in which the casually brutal word ‘illegal’ is used as a noun, even by the most enlightened, to describe fellow human beings who live and work here but do not have the documentation to do so legally.”

Uh, gee, Mr. Enlightened: What do you propose we call those who live here illegally? What kind of politically-correct moniker can you drum up? How about “citizenally challenged”? Or how does “differently citizened” grab you? You stupid dolt.

Basically, Mr. Stephen uses the issue of illegal immigration to demonstrate that America is a country chock-a-block with racists. More to the point, Mr. Stephen opines that America’s treatment of the “citizenally challenged” is far worse than anything the Brits would concoct.

According to Mr. Stephen: “Nor is there any good reason why America cannot take a limitless number of…immigrants for the foreseeable future: it is a land so huge that there are still only 30 people on average living in each square kilometre, compared with 243 for (say) Britain.” Ah, you see: Americans are odious racists, and the Limeys are not.

We hate to ruin Mr. Stephen’s well thought out people-per-square-kilometer thesis, but we have the sneaking suspicion that the issue of illegal immigration is a bit more complicated than the number of people you can fit in rural Idaho. There’s this little matter of the economy, Mr. Stephen, and although New Statesman leftists such as yourself don’t know much about it, it winds up being kind of important.

Anyone with a modicum of economic sense wouldn’t write this sentence, Mr. Stephen: “Illegal workers, after all, are needed to do jobs that Americans spurn: housecleaning, fruit-picking, and looking after rich white brats.” No, no, Mr. Stephen: Americans don’t want to do these jobs at ridiculously low wages. If the pay increased, US citizens would be glad to do them.

But, hey, Mr. Stephen, you must be really proud of using a left-wing platform to advance the interests of corporate fat-cats who’ll pay your beloved illegals starvation wages.