Unnatural Processes

THERE is a sad symmetry in the fact that Bill Buckley’s obituary of Leo Rosten appeared in the same issue of NR (March 24) as Tom McArdle’s follow-up report (“Al Gore’s Voter Mill”) on the White House’s now-notorious damn-the-background-checks-full-speed-ahead campaign to naturalize immigrants, which he first exposed here last year (“Instant Democrats,” July 1, 1996). Rosten’s The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N is the classic comic account of an Eastern European immigrant’s struggle to learn at night school the language and lore of his new country in order to qualify for citizenship. Today, that immigrant simply wouldn’t have to bother.

This is the real scandal in the operation of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It dates back to long before the special program launched by the INS in mid 1995 to relieve the backlog of citizenship applications (why? what’s the hurry?) and its utterly predictable hijacking by Hispanic professional activists and their Democratic collaborators. The rigorous naturalization examination feared by Rosten’s Kaplan has long been a thing of the past.

PB

About the Author

Peter Brimelow

Featured Tags

THERE is a sad symmetry in the fact that Bill Buckley’s obituary of Leo Rosten appeared in the same issue of NR (March 24) as Tom McArdle’s follow-up report (“Al Gore’s Voter Mill”) on the White House’s now-notorious damn-the-background-checks-full-speed-ahead campaign to naturalize immigrants, which he first exposed here last year (“Instant Democrats,” July 1, 1996). Rosten’s The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N is the classic comic account of an Eastern European immigrant’s struggle to learn at night school the language and lore of his new country in order to qualify for citizenship. Today, that immigrant simply wouldn’t have to bother.

This is the real scandal in the operation of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It dates back to long before the special program launched by the INS in mid 1995 to relieve the backlog of citizenship applications (why? what’s the hurry?) and its utterly predictable hijacking by Hispanic professional activists and their Democratic collaborators. The rigorous naturalization examination feared by Rosten’s Kaplan has long been a thing of the past.