California High School Valedictorian to Be Deported
We are sending the wrong message to those who want to come live, work, and study in the US. I know that some of you feel that no immigrants at all should come here, even if they can contribute greatly and are willing to assimilate into our culture. But you are not doing the math. Without immigrants we would be a dying society just as immigrant-shy Russia is slowly dying. Russia with 142 million comrades is expected to lose another 30% (1) of its population by 2050.
So who will bother to try to be here legally when they read this headline:
McClatchy DC, 4.0 grade point, valedictorian — and soon a deportee
Arthur Mkoyan's 4.0 grade-point average has made him a valedictorian at Bullard High School in Fresno and qualified him to enter one of the state's top universities.
But while his classmates look forward to dorm food and college courses this fall, Arthur Mkoyan may not make it.
He is being deported.
Arthur, 17, and his mother have been ordered out of the country. By late June, they may be headed to Armenia.
Arthur hasn't seen Armenia since he was 2, and he doesn't want to return. The thin, rather shy teenager doesn't speak Armenian and barely understands the language when it's spoken to him.
"Hopefully, I can somehow stay here and continue my studies here," he said. "It would be hard if I go back."
The family fled from the old Soviet Union and has been seeking asylum since 1992. The appeals ran out this year.
Why should it be easier for an ignorant, violent, criminal immigrant to stay in this country illegally than this smart young man who I have no doubt is already assimilated into American culture?
We need immigrants like this young man. Americans are not reproducing fast enough to keep our Social Security system funded. That's right, without immigrants there will not be enough workers to keep the social security system functioning. In fact, the 2005 Economic Report of the President estimates that over the last 10 years as much as 58 percent of employment growth in the U.S. and 51 percent of growth in the working age population has been due to new immigrants [Social Security Advisory Board PDF].
I am opposed to illegal immigration, but I also realize that if we cut off all immigration to this country we will die as a nation. Let's consider what will happen to the demographics of this country if we actually were able to restrict all new immigration to this country. We have a few million Muslims already living here and unless we deport them all their high fertility rate and the low infidel birth rate ensures that eventually Muslims will be the majority population in this country. Even Hispanic fertility rates of 99 births per thousand women [Child Trends Databank PDF] isn't high enough to keep non-Muslims from being overwhelmed.
Can't happen? One of the reasons that France and Germany opposed the US invasion of Iraq was because of nervousness about their 10 million strong (and growing) Muslim street at home (2).
As for Russia, her declining population is only half the problem. There is a segment of their population that is growing and growing very fast: yes, again Muslims. In twelve years Muslims will account for one-fifth of the entire population (3). By 2050, Muslims will be the majority population in Russia (4).
So we can try to shut our borders entirely to new immigration but that will only lead to economic stagnation and the eventual disappearance of the Judeo-Christian culture in this country.
We are alerted to a story coming out of Toronto this week about a group of students who want a campus-wide ban on any pro-life student clubs at the University there:
The New York Sun, The Fallen Heroine
Enlightened progressives take it for granted that social progress is like technological progress — that women’s rights are like the internal combustion engine or the jet aeroplane: once invented they can’t be uninvented. But that’s a careless assumption. There was a small, nothing story out of Toronto this week — the York University Federation of Students wants a campus-wide ban on any pro-life student clubs. Henceforth, students would be permitted to debate abortion only “within a pro-choice realm”, as the vice-president Gilary Massa put it. Nothing unusual there. A distressing number of student groups are inimical to free speech these days. But then I saw a picture of the gung-ho abortion absolutist: Gilary Massa is a young Muslim woman covered in a hijab.
For those readers who do not know, abortion is forbidden to Muslims. Of course, there is nothing wrong with Muslims promoting abortions by non-Muslims. Muslims - you gotta love 'em.
ENDNOTES
(1):
RIA Novosti, Russia's population down 0.17% in 2007 to 142 mln
Russia's government has launched several programs aimed at tackling the acute demographic problem, including a system of incentive payments for second births. The United Nations predicted that Russia's population could fall by 30% by the middle of the century.
The statistics service said that last year the mortality rate in Russia declined 4% compared to 2006, reaching some 2 million deaths, while the birth rate grew 8.3% year-on-year to an estimated 1.6 million live births.
(2):
Brookings Institution, Europe's Muslim Street
Islam may still be a faraway religion for millions of Americans. But for Europeans it is local politics. The 15 million Muslims of the European Union (EU)—up to three times as many as live in the United States—are becoming a more powerful political force than the fabled Arab street. Europe?s Muslims hail from different countries and display diverse religious tendencies, but the common denominator that links them to the Muslim world is their sympathy for Palestine and Palestinians. And unlike most of their Arab brethren, growing numbers of Europe?s Muslims can vote in elections that count.
This political ascendance threatens to exacerbate existing strains within the trans-Atlantic relationship. The presence of nearly 10 million Muslims versus only 700,000 Jews in France and Germany alone helps explain why continental Europe might look at the Middle East from a different angle than does the United States. Indeed, French and German concerns about a unilateral U.S. attack on Iraq or Washington?s blind support for Israel are at least partly related to nervousness about the Muslim street at home.
Whether Brussels, Berlin, Paris, or Washington like it or not, Europe?s Muslim constituencies are likely to become an even more vocal foreign policy lobby. Two trends are empowering Europe?s Muslim street: demographics and opportunities for full citizenship.
(3):
Al Jazeera English, 13 Jan 2007, Russia sees Muslim population boom
The return of long-denied religious freedoms in Russia has seen Islam flourish. As a result, many ethnic Russians fear their country is losing its national identity. There are around 25 million Muslims in Russia today, a rise of 40 per cent since 1989.
The Muslim population could outnumber
ethnic Russians within 30 yearsBy 2020, with the continued growth rate, Muslims will account for one-fifth of the entire population.
(4):
WindowonEurasia, 23 Aug 2007, Window on Eurasia: Russia to Have Muslim Majority by 2050, Putin Advisor Says
More than half of the population of the Russian Federation in 2050 will consist of Muslims, a trend that means Moscow must devote even more attention to its relations with the Islamic world in the future than it has in the past, according to an expert-advisor to the Administration of President Vladimir Putin.
In an interview posted online yesterday, Vladimir Dergachyov said differences in growth rates of Christian and Muslim groups in Russia along with the arrival of Muslim immigrants from abroad will boost the percentage of Muslims there from 10 percent now to 50 percent by 2050
