Few people want to be seen as racist or xenophobic. Few people want to risk being on the wrong side of history. Those pushing amnesty are counting you to feel uncomfortable, to be so uncomfortable that you will keep your views to yourself. Another tactic used by those who want us to reward illegal immigrants is to try to make people focus on the immigrant on a personal level.
The Politically Correct Crowd have taken to calling illegal aliens ‘undocumented workers’ or ‘immigrants’ in an attempt to blur the line between those who arrived at Ellis Island after applying and waiting for the privilege to come to America and those who paid criminals to falsify visas, modify stolen passports or simply sneak across our border.
The amnesty that Ronald Regan granted to illegal immigrants sent a message around the world: Get to the United States—somehow, anyhow—and if you can just hold on long enough you will get to stay. The current round of conversations about “comprehensive” immigration reform proves the point. Right now illegal immigration is down because of economic conditions, but once conditions improve the message will once again echo loud and clear. All of the same arguments that have been made for why we should grant citizenship status to those who are already here now will be as relevant in the future as they are today. Rewarding illegal immigration now sets up conditions for repeated cycles of amnesty.
Cycles of poorly regulated immigration followed by amnesties takes advantage of people who try to play by the rules. Amnesty rewards an underbelly of traffickers and employers who rely on shady dealings and make honest competition virtually impossible in some sectors. It obscures important conversations about thoughtful, legal immigration, which can play a critical role in innovation, and in protecting human rights, both at home and abroad.
Both political parties benefits from having more people at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Democrats benefit because poor, powerless people tend to vote Left to protect their need for a social safety net. Republicans benefit because well-heeled corporations who fund them benefit from a glut of laborers, which drives down wages and benefits.
As a nation, we are responsible for making certain that those who enter our country are here not only to benefit themselves but also, and more importantly, to benefit this country. That mandate requires that immigrants come here “through the front door,” learn our language and learn to live within our system of individual responsibility that protect individual rights.
Amnesty devalues the rights of our citizens as well as the rights of those who are here with our approval. America is under no obligation to allow anyone into our country, under no obligation to compensate in any way the citizens of the failed governments around the world, including those in our own hemisphere. In fact, had we any obligation to the peoples of less successful countries it would be to encourage their governments to allow, even facilitate, the freedoms that have made America a beacon for their “tired and poor.”
We are a nation of laws, not of men. And our laws are, or should be, to benefit our citizens as a population, not to be customized to fit political agendas.
