May 13, 2010

Editorial

  You have undoubtedly heard of the flap caused by the State of Arizona trying to exert some control over the tide of illegal (a.k.a. “undocumented”) immigrants crossing its southern border with Mexico.  The immediate cause of this flow of illegal immigrants was a decision by Congress – our elected public servants, no less – to wall off the more accessible border between California and Mexico.

  Now, anyone who builds a dam of any kind knows that flow will occur around the unprotected end of that dam.  That’s what happened in Arizona.  The illegals crossed the border there instead, which is strangely similar to the failure of the federally-built levees during Hurricane Katrina.  That was five years ago; New Orleans still hasn’t recovered.

Arizona is just trying to control its borders - something that the Feds completely failed to do - before the situation gets far worse.

  Let’s examine recent history.  In the 1980s, America had an estimated 3 million illegal immigrants.  After much hemming and hawing, the Feds proclaimed an amnesty.  We are now dealing with about 12 million illegals.  The problem is four times greater, so that 25-year-old amnesty didn’t work very well, did it?

  There are many good arguments for encouraging more immigration to the U.S.  We need the ambition and working skills of immigrants.  For the most part, they make marvelous citizens, just as 98% of our own ancestors did.  There are compassionate reasons for admitting more immigrants, mostly to prevent rupturing strong family ties.

  But America, a nation of immigrants if there ever was one, was built on legal immigration, not the illegal kind.  Once again, not the illegal kind.  Period!

  Every other sovereign nation on earth requires that visitors carry identification at all times, which must be presented upon demand.  Who requests such identification?  The local police force, of course.  It’s not a federal case.  So-called “guest workers” are permitted in every developed nation as well, but they are only allowed to work there under very tight restrictions. 

  America is actually quite forgiving in that respect.  No other nation on earth welcomes legal immigrants as readily as we do.  Unfortunately, our government’s incompetence has actually fostered the growth of our illegal population.  And don’t kid yourself – Mexico is also to blame.  The elected officials in that nation welcome the income sent back by remittances from America.  What do they care if it’s sent back by illegal immigrants?

  What is most galling, however, is the tidal wave of criticism that Arizona has received from the liberals in the U.S.  Arizona is experiencing increased kidnappings and violence because of the unsavory characters sneaking across its border.  Certainly, almost all of the immigrants we receive – even the illegals – simply want to find steady work.  But it doesn’t take very many bad actors sneaking in with the “good guys” to create a crime wave – a drug-related one in this case.

  Our national leaders are so afraid of losing Latino votes that they don’t have the political courage to fix the immigration laws.  They won’t admit that their amnesty went wrong back in the 80s.  Actually, other states (Illinois, for example) had similar identification laws long before Arizona passed theirs.

  So in the meantime, our forces of political correctness are finger-pointing at Arizona, a state that is trying to counteract a Hurricane Katrina of illegal immigrants before the levees break down altogether.  The politically correct spout words such as “sanctuary”, a concept that is not only for something else altogether, but also is a rule that went out of style 600 years ago.  They accuse Arizona of a lack of compassion, even though they have never been there.  How wrong those finger-pointers are.  Arizona is just trying to deal with a problem that the U.S. government won’t (or can’t) handle.

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