As the drumbeat for comprehensive immigration reform grows louder,
the related public debate has not become any more edifying.
Self-serving Democrats, delusional Republicans, and shameless illegal
aliens (who prefer to call themselves “immigration rights activists”)
insist that legalizing some 11 million illegal immigrants in this
country is the right thing to do and label those who disagree as
anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic.
Amid the finger pointing and political intimidation, some
fundamentally flawed assertions have repeatedly surfaced. Below is some
common sense that highlights the absurdity of the faulty assumptions.
Immigrating to the United States is a privilege, not a right. It certainly is not an entitlement program.
Proponents of comprehensive immigration reform like to emphasize
that America’s immigration system is broken, and they are right. Yet
they often justify illegal immigration by pointing out that even if
aspiring immigrants wanted to get in line for legal immigration, many do
not have a line to get into — because they do not have relatives in
this country with whom to reunite or they cannot qualify for a limited
number of visa categories (such as those for work, education, or
investment).
Few acknowledge that in life, reality is by nature more unpleasant
than our most fervent wishes. Just because people really, really want to
come to the United States does not mean they have the right to do so.
By numerous measures, America’s tax system is broken as well, and
supporters of limited government resent the fact that their tax dollars
are extracted to fund a bloated welfare state they despise.
Nevertheless, these individuals continue to pay their taxes. Similarly,
those who wish to move to America should not be excused from respecting
this country’s laws.
Certainly, changes to the existing system should be made. For
instance, proposals to increase the flow of high-skilled labor make
perfect sense. But America’s broken immigration system is not a
justification for illegals to walk across the border or overstay their
visas.
Do not let anyone obfuscate the difference between legal and
illegal immigration. Denouncing the latter does not mean being hostile
to the former.
This country has a legal immigration process in place. It is by no
means perfect and imposes cumbersome restrictions. Nevertheless, that
process is the law of the land. Numerous individuals from around the
world follow it out of respect for the rule of law and for the country
they wish to adopt as their new home. They make huge sacrifices, incur
heavy financial costs, and wait patiently. Husbands are separated from
their wives for years; siblings wait over a decade to be reunited; and
high-skilled laborers whose visas are not renewed end up returning to
their home countries. Reform efforts to ease the restrictions for these
legal applicants are sensible, but amnesty for those who have violated
U.S. immigration laws not only rewards bad behavior; it dishonors and
dismisses the persistence and sacrifice of legal immigrants.
No matter how politicians spin it, offering provisional legal status to illegals is rewarding them with amnesty.
The right to live and work in the United States is a precious
commodity. It is also precisely what the Senate’s bipartisan Gang of
Eight proposes to offer to illegal aliens who are already here. Although
these individuals must wait ten years to apply for a green card and 13
to apply for citizenship, they would be eligible for provisional legal
status almost immediately.
To be sure, these illegal immigrants would have to pay a fine, pay
taxes, and not have a serious criminal record before they qualify for
provisional legal status, but these conditions hardly amount to a stiff
punishment for lawbreaking behavior. In fact, they form the baseline of
what America demands from immigrants who seek to enter this country
legally.
More importantly, legal status in America — even if short of a
green card or citizenship — is a status coveted by millions around the
world. Impoverished men and women in sub-Saharan Africa, unemployed or
under-employed college graduates in China or India, political and
religious dissidents who are persecuted by authoritarian governments
from Tehran to Moscow, or even scientists from Canada or Europe would
gladly accept provisional legal status TODAY if it were offered to them.
Numerous legal immigration applicants who are currently standing in
line would do the same, especially since many have waited and will
continue to wait for years.
But it is America’s existing illegal immigrants who will receive preference for the right to live and work in the United States.
Offering a pathway to citizenship to illegal aliens who arrived
in America when they were young only strengthens the incentives for
more illegal immigration.
Republicans and Democrats have been falling all over themselves to
offer a pathway to citizenship to young illegal immigrants who are known
as Dreamers. According to President Barack Obama, these are “young
Americans in all but name.” Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has written
that these are “children who were brought here illegally have committed
no crime and in most instances know no other country.” Thanks to Obama,
these young illegals have now received a two-year reprieve and a chance
to apply for work permits, assuming they have no criminal records, are
successful in school, or have served in the military. The Senate’s Gang
of Eight has proposed offering Dreamers a fast track to citizenship,
which begins with a five-year path to a green card.
Before politicians on both sides of the aisle gush about their
effort to create new Americans, let’s not forget that in the immigration
experience, children are not just innocent bystanders of an illegal
act. Rather, they are often the primary reason for a family to leave one
life to seek another in a foreign land. They are the impetus for adults
to work at sub-minimum-wage jobs and the reward for a family’s hard
work and shared sacrifice. It is for their brighter future that
immigrants — both legal and illegal — fight. By rushing to give them
amnesty, Congress would be strengthening, not weakening, the incentives
for illegal immigration.
Moreover, the absurdity of this mad rush to amnesty would only be
compounded by the even more absurd minimal requirement that such young
illegals have attended school and will continue to do so. Getting an
education in America, just like living and working here, is a privilege
sought by millions around the world. Unlike joining the military, going
to school is not a sacrifice that requires fighting and dying for
America. It is not even a social service that young illegals have
somehow provided for their adopted home and for which they now deserve a
reward.
If the U.S. immigration policy is meant to be a vehicle of
American altruism, there are more qualified recipients than the citizens
of Mexico.
Amnesty proponents like to harp on the heart-wrenching personal
stories of illegal immigrants who leave destitution and desperation in
their home country to seek a new life in America. Some have even
suggested that rejecting such immigrants would be un-American. If
poverty and tragedy were to serve as the core criteria for which America
should expand its legal immigration flow (and this is a debate
policymakers need to have), there are many more individuals around the
world who would be more deserving of legal status in America than many
of those who are currently here illegally.
At the moment, a majority of the illegal immigrants in America are
Hispanic and most of them hail from Mexico. According to the Pew
Hispanic Center, unauthorized immigrants from Mexico made up 58 percent
of America’s illegal immigrant population in 2010. Yet however touching
their stories or however painful their journeys, illegal immigrants from
Mexico are not the only ones who harbor aspirations for a life in
America; they are not even most in need of it.
While the World Bank reports gross national income (GNI) per capita
for the world’s least developed countries (such as Myanmar, Haiti,
Afghanistan, and Tanzania) as $748 in 2011, the GNI per capita for Latin
America and Caribbean countries was $8,575 for the same year. It is to
this latter, richer set of countries that Mexico belongs. If charity
were a key goal of U.S. immigration policy, why not expand immigration
privileges to citizens of the world’s poorest countries (including some
that are south of the border)? Citizens from these countries lack the
ability to just walk across America’s southern border, but their plight
is in many ways far more wretched. No doubt they would gladly immigrate
to the United States for provisional legal status and work hard for the
American Dream.
The media has now taken to raving regularly about illegal Hispanic
high school students who earn 4.0 plus GPAs, but does a boy suffering
from starvation in Senegal or a girl suffering from malnutrition in
Uganda deserve less of Americans’ sympathy or less of a chance to have a
home and an education in the United States? Certainly, Americans do not
believe that such children are any less capable of earning a 4.0 GPA.
Just because you’re illegal does not make you inhuman, but it
does mean that you are a lawbreaker who should face the risk of
deportation.
Americans do not have the heart or the resources to deport all 11
million plus illegal immigrants who live in this country, especially
since almost two-thirds of them have lived here for over a decade and
nearly half are parents of minor children. But reasonable Americans have
the right to ask why their government has failed to enforce immigration
laws in decades past and why it now continues that failure by refusing
to arrest and deport those who flagrantly flaunt their illegal status in
public.
Already, the Obama administration prohibits Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) agents, under most circumstances, from carrying out
two crucial elements of the country’s immigration laws: 1) apprehending
persons solely for entering the United States illegally, and 2)
apprehending persons for overstaying their visas in the United States.
As such, illegal immigrants in America not only receive de facto
amnesty, they proudly call themselves “immigration rights activists” and
grant interviews to the New York Times, testify before
Congress, openly protest on the streets, and otherwise brazenly spit in
the face of America’s rule of law — and face no legal consequences. It
is no surprise that America’s immigration system is broken and continues
to provide incentives for more illegal immigration.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/immigrating-to-america-is-not-an-entitlement/?singlepage=true
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