Creeping amnesty

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So there I was, thinking that the only "imminent" threat was the Islamization of the Western world, a historic shift well underway in Europe. Yes, it remained clear that out-of-control immigration in the United States jeopardized the future of our nationhood. But after September 11 the present danger had become creeping Shariah: the gradual -- and-not-so-gradual -- acceptance of Islamic law by Western and, therefore, non-Islamic societies.

But then came last month's massive, mainly Mexican street protests against border control and in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens, mainly Mexican, who have crossed into this country since the last time Uncle Sam granted amnesty in 1986. Back then, it was amnesty for under 3 million. Today, 20 years later, these protesters, along with George W. Bush, want to see some 12 million illegal aliens "earn" citizenship (amnesty). In another 20 years, will a new, amnesty-seeking illegal population number 48 million? In light of the post-protest retreat -- I mean, "deliberations" -- in the U.S. Senate, such a colossal figure looks increasingly plausible. After all, what does an illegal alien or two (or 48 million) have to lose? We are, as we are repeatedly lectured, "a nation of immigrants" who do the work that "Americans" won't do. In fact, maybe just forget about "Americans." If we, the people, get anything like Amnesty 2006 -- with provisions to attain an increasingly Hispanic demographic -- the United States will change from being a neighbor of Latin America to becoming a part of it.

All of which is to say that creeping Shariah, both at home and abroad, is still a present danger. But so is creeping amnesty. And strikingly, the amnesty scenario begins to mirror, if even in a cracked way, some of the demographic changes that historian Bernard Lewis predicted will turn Europe Islamic by the end of this century. That is, as America increasingly loses its European-descended majority on one side of the Atlantic, Europe, too, increasingly loses its European majority on the other.

In a National Review Online piece called "American Dhimmitude," the Center for Immigration Studies' Mark Krikorian likened illegal aliens' demands on the U.S. government to "the same kind of challenge that aggressive outsiders are making against other parts of the West, including Muslim immigrants in Europe and, in its most extreme form, Palestinians in Israel." One blogger, Freedom Folks (hat tip Michelle Malkin), took this concept a step further. Reporting on craven decisions by several American public schools to ban American flags and other patriotic symbols that presumably offend or inflame student-advocates of illegal alien "rights," Freedom Folks referenced "dhimmitude," the subservient condition of non-Muslims under Islamic rule, and wrote: "Welcome to the beginning of Mexitude right here in the U.S. of A. ... Think dhimmitude, but substitute Colorado for Kandahar and La Raza for The Religion of Peace [Islam]."

There are other parallels. Both Mexican and Islamic supremacist movements harken back to chimerical Golden Ages -- the purely mythical Aztlan kingdom said to comprise the American Southwest, and the mythically tolerant Andalusia of Islamic Spain. Both groups are demonstrably more anti-Semitic than the general populations around them. Both groups seem to thrive on crazy conspiracy theories. For example, we've all heard from the Arab-Muslim world that September 11 was an Israeli and/or CIA plot; I found similar claptrap online at the separatist (and Palestinian suicide-bomber honoring) "news" site, La Voz de Aztlan, where publisher Hector Carreon, writing from "Los Angeles, Alta California" (Imperial Spain's, then Mexico's name for the region before it was ceded to the United States in 1848), declared that Nicholas Berg's decapitation by jihadists in Iraq was a stunt engineered at Abu Ghraib. La Voz de Aztlan, by the way, is one of the organizations calling for a nationwide, pro-amnesty boycott on May 1.

Small wonder that some organizational solidarity exists between Islamic and Mexican radical groups -- as seen, for example, when the Council on American-Islamic Relations joins a "pro-immigrant" rally at the U.S. Capitol. International A.N.S.W.E.R -- which, as The Washington Times reported, was the hard-left coalition behind last month's pro-amnesty march in Los Angeles -- has a steering committee that includes, along with "civil justice" and "socialism and liberation" groups, the Mexico Solidarity Network, the Nicaragua Network, the Free Palestine Alliance and the Muslim Student Association. It all begins to make sense, in a leftist, anti-American, open-borders coalition sort of way.

My question: Why does George W. Bush seem to have signed onto this coalition?