On Kevin Miller’s radio show during the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s (FAIR) annual “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” radio row, FAIR president Dan Stein claimed that undocumented immigrants make neighborhoods unsafe, decrease the quality of schools, and drive out residents.
“It’s so important not to take for granted the quality of life you have, because when immigration is out of control – usually it’s fueled by commercial interests, but when it’s out of control, it happens very quickly, and the first thing that happens is, you know, the zoning rules get decompromised and suddenly your housing stock is overcrowded,” Stein said. “People here illegally, in order to compete, have to live in, you know, multi-family housing, they have to crowd into overcrowded housing conditions so they can work really cheap. That, in turn, affects your schools, the schools in turn affect, you know, the quality of the tax base, people who want to stay in that school system, that ripples throughout and pretty soon, what was a nice, safe neighborhood is no longer a safe neighborhood.”
Stein continued, “Often, the very factors that make your community desirable can lead to its being destroyed effectively by the fact that it is desirable and the fact that people take it for granted. Immigration control is the granddaddy of all national zoning ordinances, really, because if you don’t have effective perimeter control, you really can’t take care of your future.”
Stein praised the United States’ “spirit of independence” but said “freedom is something that has to be vigilantly watched.”
“If immigration levels are too high and people coming in essentially kind of challenge the status quo, cultural status quo, then pretty soon, we find ourselves assimilating into their ideas and not the other way around,” Stein said.
