Illegal immigration is set to be one of the big issues in the upcoming Presidential election. As with any big issue extremists on both the left and the right are hysterical about it and never miss an opportunity to strike a blow to the other side. If we are ever gonna solve this problem we must cut through all the emotions and simply look at the issue in a practical matter.
To suggest that the U.S. should just open its borders and let anyone who wants to come and go as they please is frankly just a bizarre suggestion. A suggestion that is equally bizarre is the suggestion that we should seal off the borders and stop all immigration entirely. Without a doubt there are people on both sides of this debate who have motives that are suspect to say the least. You have those on the far-right fringe who want to close off the border because they honestly don’t like Mexicans or “brown people” in general. Then there are those on the far left who don’t want to stop illegal immigration because they don’t like our government and fundamentally want to change our way of life. I think I’ve heard those people referred to as “secular progressives” somewhere.
The real truth is that illegal immigration is a problem and something can and should be done about it. In this age of terrorism to have a border that hundreds of thousands of people can pour over unnoticed is suicide. If I were a terrorist and wanted to come into the U.S. I would absolutely enter through Mexico, wouldn’t you? Its that one Muslim terrorist that comes across our border that is a bigger danger than the estimated 1 million+ Mexicans that come across our borders every year. Some argue that to date not one single terror suspect has been nabbed trying to enter the U.S. through Mexico, and I say look at hundreds of pounds of drugs and people that cross undetected. Do you really believe it would be difficult for a middle eastern terrorist to cross undetected?
The other reason we have to do something is that if we truly are a nation of laws then we have a duty to uphold them. People have been entering the U.S. by the thousands for 20 years and its only now that people are suddenly mad. We are a rich nation, but we’re starting to see the effects of so many years of unchecked immigration on our health care system, school system, and many other ways. In any civilized society you just can’t have a chaotic situation like the one that exists on our borders.
Solutions to the immigration mess are somewhat murky depending on who you talk to. I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers, but I can tell you what the answers are not. Americans don’t need to act hysterical, show up to protests and stand on the Mexican flag. People who stand on flags whether that flag be American, Israeli, Mexican, or French are not contributing to any type of rational discussion, they just look like assholes. Just like the “flag standers” the illegal aliens who carry the Mexican flag and scream about what the U.S. owes them are not helping to move the debate forward at all.
What I do know is we have to stop the flow of people coming over illegally somehow. Secondly there are 15 million+ illegal aliens in the U.S. and we can’t send all those people home its just not possible, so we should just be real about that. Some will say, “but that would be amnesty,” and the politicians will say “its not amnesty,” and then invent a new word that means amnesty but pretend that it doesn’t mean that.
The only thing I care about is that we secure our border with a wall, cameras, border patrol, National Guard, or whatever else just as long as its secure. I don’t really care about the people who have already made it here, I believe its more of a side issue that distracts from the real issue of securing the border now. Let’s be honest and real about this whole thing and hopefully we can come to some type of resolution in the near future.
Chris Jones blogs at The Hot Joints. Interested readers can e-mail him at webmaster@thehotjoints.com
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3 users commented in " Real Talk On Immigration "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackOne thing I’m certain of is that anyone who feels we need to “deport” 15 + million illegals is delusional. Primarily, attrition through enforcement (i.e. end the jobs and benefits magnet, sanction employers, make it hard to work or find a place to live, etc…) will address much of the existing illegal population, and it would do so in an orderly fashion (they aren’t going to start rounding millions up over night, but they should state a date certain for when enforcement will kick in). As attrition begins to take it’s toll, increased competition for legal workers will increase wages and benefits, and American workers will return to jobs they’d abandoned to low wages and poor working conditions. Also increased throughput of legal immigration applicants being granted visa’s will address any possible (I would suggest “mythical”) worker shortage that might occur. Not requiring illegals to leave, allowing them to keep their jobs and continue residing and benefitting at tax payer expense, basically gives them what they broke our laws to achieve. They should not be allowed to keep their ill-gotten gains. How would granting amnesty and creating a massive “guest worker program” (particularly when there’s never been any similar attempt put American Citizens to work) be considered a deterrent to future “illegal immigration”? This was tried and dismally failed in the 1986 Legislation. Why do we keep changing our laws and policies to accomodate foreign nationals, rather than just suck it up and enforce our existing laws? Poverty has never been justification for breaking our laws, otherwise, our jails would be empty and their would indeed be no shortage of low skilled workers available for the jobs that some say American’s “won’t do”. No one has any quarrel with legal immigration, except that there are far too many allowed. Immigration should be limited to only that which is necessary and desireable to improve the American quality of life. Virtually every industrialized nation is assessing and implementing immigration reforms to eliminate illegal immigration and curtail legal immigration to that which is demonstrably necessary, prudent and can be effectively and readily assimilated. It’s insanity for America to do anything less! England (now that Bush’s partner is stepping down) has rethought it’s immigration policies, and I suspect that now that Sarkozy is President, we will see something similar coming from France. As each European nation tightens it’s policies, more and more immigrants will focus on our poorly secured borders, and the jobs and benefits magnet will doubtless draw them to our teeming, overcrowded shores and borders!
‘Immigration should be limited to only that which is necessary and desireable to improve the American quality of life.’
Based on the environmental degradation caused by U.S. overpopulation, the ideal number would be zero. However, it would be a big improvement just to get down at all. Opinion polls consistently show that the % of Americans who favor INCREASED levels of immigrants is low single digits. Then why do all the ‘Comprehensive Immigration Reform’ proposals call for huge INCREASES? Just like last year, they won’t talk about that but will again attempt to spit on popular sovereignty.
The Congress and the President have ignored the average american citizen and will continue to ignore them on the illegal immigration issue. This issue should be decided by the people in a national referendum in the fall. The “new” legislation is just a retread of the 1986 law that was going to “settle” the issue by giving amnesty to 2-3 million illegal aliens. Now the Congress and the President are hell bent on giving amnesty to 15-20 million illegal aliens.
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