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« on: June 02, 2011, 02:49:57 PM » |
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The Patriot Post - Citizenship and Immigration
From The Federalist Patriot
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Citizenship and Immigration
By Mark Alexander · Thursday, June 2, 2011
The Debate on the Fate of Illegal Migrants
"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming ... to our established rules." --Thomas Jefferson, May 2, 1801
The current debate over the fate of migrants who have illegally entered the United States is a complicated one, not solvable by simply re-warming President Dwight Eisenhower's 1954 "Operation Wetback." Were we to round up the estimated 12 to 18 million Latinos and Hispanics currently here illegally and dump them across our southern border into Mexico, it would have a dramatic impact on some areas of the country, and the illegals would be right back in short order, given the present state of our border insecurity.
What is not complicated is the requirement and necessity of enforcing the law, which in this matter stipulates that every person within the political borders of the U.S. who is not a citizen should be documented and either authorized to be here by way of temporary permits, qualified for the strenuous legal process to seek citizenship, or deported. It is equally clear that in order to secure our nation from re-entry by deported illegal migrants, we must secure our borders1.
Citizenship is much more than a birthright for indigenous Americans, or a legal change in nationality for immigrants. It is the embodiment of American Patriotism2, a steadfast devotion to the First Principles3 of our nation's founding -- individual Liberty as "endowed by our Creator," and the obligation to extend that legacy to our posterity.
In the words of George Washington, "Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations."
Patriotic devotion to Liberty will always be in contest with its antithesis, allegiance to the state or its sovereigns. Never has that been more true than in the current political climate, where the Democrat Party4 establishes authority over people by dividing them according to race, creed, sex, sexual preference, religion, ethnicity, wealth, ad infinitum, and indoctrinating these separate constituencies with the pretense that they must depend on Democratic Socialism5 for their protection, if not outright salvation.
In regard to immigration, the Democrats' "divide and conquer" strategy will, in the words of historian and noted liberal Arthur Schlesinger, "disunite America." Schlesinger's liberal colleagues ostracized him when he first published his 1992 book, "The Disuniting of America," and accused him of betraying his impeccable liberal credentials as a former senior advisor to Democrat icon John F. Kennedy. But the premise of his book was, and remains, absolutely correct.
Schlesinger argued two decades ago that the cult of ethnicity manifesting as subgroup ethnocentric identities, and supported by errant programs such as bilingual education, would divide the nation, thus putting at risk the patriotic devotion that has bonded previous generations of immigrants into one nationality.
Of course, Democrats today, who seek to foment division, are banking on that ethnic division as they attempt to supplant patriotic devotion to America with a collective allegiance to their statist regime.
To that end, Democrat National Committee chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has condemned conservatives who want to enforce the law as it pertains to illegal migrants. "I think the president was clearly articulating that his position -- the Democrats' position -- is that we need comprehensive immigration reform," said Wasserman Schultz. "We have 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country that are part of the backbone of our economy. And that is not only a reality but a necessity."
What Wasserman Schultz and the titular head of her party, Barack Hussein Obama, mean by "immigration reform" is a fast-track pass to citizenship, not for humane or economic imperatives, but to amass legions of additional dependents to vote for Democrats.
Obama insists, "immigration reform is a moral imperative," and he reiterated his call for reform down on the Mexican border recently, declaring that the melting pot of immigrants is "as old as America itself. E Pluribus, Unum. Out of many, one."
Memo to Barry: Our nation's original motto, E Pluribus Unum6, proposed by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in 1776, has nothing to do with uniting American citizens and illegal migrants. Instead, it refers to the uniting of 13 colonies into one nation. At that time, the vast majority of colonial Americans were of Anglo ancestry, not Kenyan, Indonesian or Hawaiian. Perhaps such historical details are not important to a "community organizer."
Obama's advocacy for blanket amnesty is unlawful, and it most assuredly will not lead to a "concentration of affections" or the "exaltation of the just pride of Patriotism" envisioned by our Founders and necessary to sustain Liberty.
In regard to the economic arguments for Obama's so-called "reforms," I have reviewed countless reports on the economic impact of illegal migrants in the U.S. from both conservative and liberal sources. From these, I draw the following conclusions.
First, on balance some two million Americans have lost their jobs to illegal migrants at great cost to the nation in terms of the unemployment and welfare benefits redistributed from taxpayers to the jobless. Those costs outweigh the economic benefit to select corporate sectors.
However, I also find that, despite much ranting to the contrary, there are between two and four million low-skill and low-paying jobs in the U.S. that would not be filled by domestic labor if illegal migrants were excluded from those jobs, because it is easier to live on government subsidies than on wages earned picking vegetables in the heat of summer.
Second, I conclude that the net cost of providing health care, housing, education and welfare, in addition to the cost of law enforcement and incarceration for all illegal migrants, far exceeds any value that they add to the U.S. economy, at least because their numbers far exceed the capacity of our economy to absorb them. Astonishingly, that cost is more than $1,000 per citizen-headed household in America.
But these economic arguments, pro or con, are straw-man diversions. While we can debate the economic benefits and detriments of illegal migrants, we must, first and foremost, uphold the law.
Of course, Democrats shape the law7 into whatever serves their agenda, regardless of the Rule of Law8 enshrined in our Constitution, and in perpetual violation of their "sacred oaths9" to support and defend the same. |
