Controversial measures are being taken in the Netherlands in dealing with its immigrant problem or what are called "failed asylum seekers". In short order, the Dutch government is pushing to expel over 20,000 of them.

The Dutch are known for their high tolerance. Ironically, it took a gay politician, Pim Fortuyn , to point out that Holland's liberal and tolerant culture is being undermined by intolerant and non-assimilating immigrants. Fortuyn was murdered by an environmentalist, no doubt, but his legacy lives on.

The law is draconian in that it will uproot children born in the Netherlands and those who hold jobs:

Under the law, the first of its kind in Europe, children reared in the Netherlands and settled refugees with stable jobs will be uprooted and deported as the government attempts to clear a years-old asylum backlog in one "clean sweep."

About 26,000 rejected asylum seekers who arrived in the Netherlands before April 1, 2001, and have exhausted all appeals will be stripped of their asylum benefits and put on aircraft to go back home.

Human Rights Watch claims that the law violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Dutch government claims that the convention does not apply to children of immigrants who have no right to reside in the country.

Whether you believe the Dutch government is right or not, one thing is clear. The Dutch face an insoluble problem in that their culture, customs, and mores are being undermined by foreigners who do not assimilate. Before one condemns the Dutch government, remember that the Netherlands is a tiny country, not at all as large as the U.S. which has its own problems with illegal and non-assimilating immigrants. But our immigrant problems are miniscule by comparison to Europe's where France is also threatened with extinction by a population not only unwilling to assimilate but increasingly Islamist and outright hostile to Western customs, values, law, and convention.

In short, too much liberalism, as witnessed in Holland for over thirty years, has now produced its opposite: a desperate attempt to save the nation from its own liberal excesses. I have written recently about assimilation, coming out in favor of it. Holland turned its back on assimilation in the name of progressive politics. It experimented with multi-culturalism for three decades and, after September 11th, it now faces the dangers posed by al Queda and other terrorist organizations taking root among the nation's immigrant populations. The party of a free-for-all Holland, a live-and-let-live attitude, is over. Holland has awakened with a bad headache, hung over from its own excesses.

The best solution in the long run is to have the Netherlands radically decrease immigration and insist upon the assimilation of resident and newly arrived immigrants. I have no idea how Dutch law would deal with this but it would be far preferable to measures that are indeed cruel, if necessary, in resolving that great nation's crisis.

Just think, some of those to be deported must return to Somalia and Chechnya.