| Becoming American: The Hidden Core of the Immigration Debate
Renhson, Stanley
Center for American Studies, January 2007, Online edition, 24p
"The long-delayed and much-needed national debate regarding immigration is in danger of missing an essential point. The most important question to be asked and answered is not how much new immigrants contribute financially or what they cost. It is not even whether enforcement of our laws should precede schemes for a guestworker program. The central question of American immigration policy is how this country can help facilitate the emotional attachments of immigrants and citizens alike to the American national community... This paper argues that our current laissez faire policy regarding the incorporation of citizens and immigrants alike, our failures to enforce immigration laws, and the doublespeak that characterizes our responses to illegal immigration are deeply corrosive to the fabric of the American national community." Stanley Renshon is professor of political science and coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Program in the Psychology of Social and Political behavior at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is also a certified psychoanalyst.
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