Pathological Self-Hatred of Western Elites Silences Debate on Immigration and Environment

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, has studied immigration-related issues for decades.

The Epoch Times: I’ve written a few times about the environmental impact of immigration, and particularly illegal immigration. I’ve focused on carbon emissions in their home countries versus the United States....

Mark Krikorian: Immigrants come specifically to increase their carbon footprint.... What they’re doing is they want to come and have a decent house, and maybe be able to own a car and have a more prosperous life, which translates inevitably into increasing their carbon footprint.

If you’re a peasant farmer in Honduras, you’re not having much of an impact on the environment. If you’re living in a modern society, even as a lower-middle-class working stiff, you’re having a hugely greater impact on the environment....

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In other words, that non-whites are inherently superior to whites—morally, objectively superior—which is kind of a starting point for much of the Left. [As] an inversion of an older, pro-white racism, this is anti-white racism.

That was there even in the older sixties and seventies-era discussions of populations. But the conflict between that worldview and concern about population wasn’t really in their face when they [were] talking about at least American population issues, because we still had relatively robust population growth, most of which was driven by domestic fertility. It’s when immigration became the driver of population growth that you could no longer talk about population growth as a problem.

Personally, I’m not a population or environment alarmist, but if you’re worried about carbon emissions, one of the things you have to be worried about is large-scale immigration. How can you not? And yet, people aren’t....

They’re different versions of the kind of pathological self-hatred of the elites in the West. And one of the ways that shows up is this attenuation—really, disappearance—of concern about immigration driving increased carbon emissions....

Mass immigration and de facto open borders are a non-negotiable value for the Left now. So, if you’re an environmental group, open borders has to trump environmentalism. If you’re a labor union, open borders has to trump the interests of workers....

The Epoch Times: I’m also wondering about your remarks today: “Mass Immigration vs. Modern Society.” What do you mean by that?

Mr. Krikorian: What I mean by that is that’s sort of my unified field theory for immigration restriction. Everybody comes to immigration from a different angle. Some people are worried about security issues. Other people are worried about workforce or environment or government services or assimilation. My point is they’re all the same thing.

They’re all ways that mass immigration is incompatible with the goals and the characteristics of a modern society....