The decreasing numbers of WASPs and their replacement by minorities, primarily Hispanics, will have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. economy, domestic and foreign policy, writes Richard Barton.
As you know, the fastest-growing population in the United States is Hispanic. And 60 percent of the Hispanic population is Mexican American. They’re an integral part of our history.
Biden, in remarks before a virtual meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, March 1 2021
The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 had an immediate and lasting impact.
The most decisive latest turning point that was to affect the U.S. ethnic make-up then, now and in the future was introduced by President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In fact, it was signed by President Lyndon Johnson on October 3, 1965 and is known as The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 also known as the Hart–Celler Act.
The most essential changes introduced by the act amounted to abolishing quotas based on national origin. That meant the end of preferences for northern and western Europeans and selecting immigrants on individual merit and not race or ethnic origin.
Apart from President Johnson, the proponents of the bill were Ted Kennedy, along with Attorney General and Senator Robert Kennedy, in part to honor their brother, the late president Kennedy. They did a lot to confuse the public. The lead supporter of the act Ted Kennedy for instance, while debating it in the Senate stated the following:
‘The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.’
After signing the act an electoral backlash against Republicans ensued. Yet in 1960, one-third of “non-white” voters (the vast majority of them, black) supported Richard Nixon, the Republican Party candidate. It wasn’t so four years later. The Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, an arch-conservative who also voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and whose law-and-order message may have struck many observers as a thinly veiled appeal to white backlash scored about 6% of non-white vote.
With the relentless inflow of Third World migrants exceeding one million a year in recent years it would be right to ask whether the 1965 Act had a decisive impact on the presidential election of 2016. Yes, it did have. Donald Trump won 52% of the white vote on a platform that writer and professor Josh Zeitz rightly classified as uniquely unappealing to minority voters. Hillary Clinton grabbed only 40% of the white vote. But as minorities grow in numbers and proportion of the U.S. population, the impact of the Hart–Celler Act will gain much more in significance. Any Democrat that will be a presidential candidate in 2024 is likely to have even more minorities to vote for him, and Trump (if he will be allowed to run for presidency) will face the depleted white vote if his program remains unchanged. To gain more votes his electoral platform will have to become minority inclusive.
Hispanics – the biggest electoral asset for Joe Biden
In view of the above, what is held in store for the future elections and the USA in general? It was for the first time in 2011 that non-Hispanic whites accounted for a minority of births in the U.S. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that minorities – defined as anyone who is not a single-race non-Hispanic white – made up 50.4% of the nation’s population younger than age 1 on 1 July, 2011. The growth, it was claimed, was fueled by immigration and births. One doesn’t have to strain his imagination to realize that once the old generations pass away the majority non-white population in the U.S. will become a reality. The Bureau says the change will occur in 2042. According to The Pew Research Center, whites in the U.S. will account for 47% of the population by 2050. Are the above forecast to satisfy power hungry democrats and liberals? Apparently not.
President Joe Biden policies are unlike those of his predecessor Donald Trump. He reversed and rolled back several of such policies, that amounted to freezing construction of the border wall and revoking the policy to separate migrant families crossing the border. Most importantly, he also disclosed plans to offer an eight-year pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the country. The response of Hispanics sounded enthusiastic.
All the above is steered and pushed onto U.S. society from behind the scenes by the American cosmopolitan elites. They must be rubbing their hands seeing such a grand intermixing of cultures, races and a far greater degree of control they gain over divided ordinary people. As the author of America Alone is sharp to notice, political scientist Francis Fukuyama made one more attempt to salvage his “end of history” thesis in hailing Europe not America as a model for the future. In fact, Fukuyama must have underplayed, using Samuel Huntington’s terminology, the fast rise of a cleft society in the U.S. consisting not only of Hispanic and Western but other less numerous civilizational groups. With a deep crisis affecting the U.S. democracy, the emergence of cleft American society within the next few decades Fukuyama will not have to worry much about American WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) religiosity, national sovereignty and use of military power.
However, there are other aspects related to not just implications for ethnic make up of the U.S. but above all near future electoral outcomes. What attracts particular attention in Biden’s promises about citizenship for Hispanic illegals is perhaps deliberate disinformation as to its real numbers in order not to scare some white voters away from voting for Democrats. For can anyone imagine that in the USA with so much surveillance present everywhere, President Biden does not now the real number of illegal Hispanics? I am not inclined to believe Biden’s numbers even if he makes a new effort to confirm that his figures are right. Indeed, the numbers of illegal Hispanics are at least double i.e. around 22 million.
If so, what does it mean? Firstly, the component of whites within the U.S. population will be much lower soon and depending on the speed on granting Hispanics citizenship whites will be a minority possibly in the next few years. It seems that the USA is about the only country in the world where you are en masse rewarded with citizenship for illegal crossing of the border! Secondly, grateful for citizenship, Mexicans and Latin Americans are very likely to vote for Democrats. Are Republicans to be routed by Democrats in future elections? If Joe Biden doesn’t get more “confused and disorientated” at some public events, such a possibility is there.
Right from the beginning of his first term President Biden was dead serious about getting the votes from minorities for his second term, especially from Hispanics. He sent a sweeping immigration reform bill to Congress on his first day in office, and immigrant-advocacy groups have been preparing individuals for a faster path to citizenship. To be more exact about it, Biden’s proposed immigration bill, called the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, in order to provide a faster path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. As if it wasn’t enough, Biden’s immigration proposal also seeks to provide funding to state and local governments and immigrant-advocacy groups to facilitate assistance to those seeking to become citizens. Under the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, DACA (Defered Action for Childhood Arrival) recipients would immediately receive green cards and be able to apply for citizenship after three years.
The matters related to securing the U.S. southern border have been discussed by Democrats and Republicans for the past two years to no avail. The latest rounds of negotiations haven’t achieved any breakthrough and Republicans blocked funds for Ukraine. Well, there is only one explanation for this. Namely, elderly Joe Biden wants to have his Hispanic electorate absolutely convinced that their stay in the USA will not be endangered even a bit.
In the meantime, the illegal influx through the southern border is about to beat all the former records. Some recent data quoted below provides the update. For instance, U.S. immigration agents processed more than 200,000 illegal migrants who crossed the U.S. southern border in September 2023. The 2.2 million total of migrant apprehensions in fiscal year 2022 remains the highest-ever annual tally. Another indicator of the relentless pressure on the U.S. southern border to come are crossings of the Darién Gap in Panama. As many as 75 thousand illegal migrants crossed the Gap on foot in September 2023 alone. All the tireless future illegals were heading to the U.S. southern border.
If Trump wins, he will be in charge of a cleft country
How would the November 4, 2024 presidential victory by Donald Trump change the migration and demographic trends in the USA?
First of all, considering any major ethnic and demographic changes is out of the question. If illegal Hispanic migrants are to be taken into account, white population may become a minority or is about to become a minority in the U.S. right now.
The fertility rates of Hispanics may be all-time low but they are higher than those of Whites, Blacks and Asians. At present, their total fertility rate (TFR) was at, 1.88.
All the sweeping anti-Hispanic migrant measures may be considered rather as part of Trump’s electoral campaign than effective measures. So he may further extend building a wall on the southern border but he won’t stop taking Hispanic migrants. Yes, he may put an end to birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants living in the country unlawfully. However, his executive powers, like in his first term, may be limited due to deportation orders getting tied up in litigation, and frequently will be struck down by the courts. To make the task closer to realistic, one would have to bear in mind an understaffed and overwhelmed immigration system that Congress has not updated since the 1990s. So, despite loud declarations there hardly be a way to “make America great again.” In plain English it is simply too little and too late.
The decreasing numbers of WASPs and their replacement by minorities, primarily Hispanics, will have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. economy, domestic and foreign policy. One of the most outstanding statesmen in the world, the late Lee Kuan Yew captured it the following way:
By 2050, the Hispanics will overtake the Anglo-Saxons. So, either you change their culture or they change you, and I do not believe you can change their culture.
I mean you look at Latin America. You might change the culture of a few whom you now appoint. Those Hispanics that Obama has appointed to the cabinet or Clinton appointed to the cabinet or George Bush appointed to the cabinet, those are exceptional Hispanics, but the total Hispanic culture will remain what it is. So, you will lose your dynamism, and if you continue with one-man, one-vote, they will set the agenda because they are the majority. (Tom Plate, Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew, Marshall Cavendish Editions, Singapore, 2010, pp.114-115)