For Illegal Immigrants, Nothing is ever Good Enough

Many thanks to New York State Senator Gustavo Rivera and State Assemblyman Karim Camara for providing me with a new chapter for my upcoming, nonfiction opus still in rough draft form but tentatively titled, “For Illegal Immigrants, Nothing is ever Good Enough.”

Rivera and Camara recently introduced the “New York Is Home Act” which would grant “state citizenship” to noncitizens who have lived in the New York for three years, paid taxes and have no criminal record. State citizenship would include, among other privileges, voting rights in New York elections, licenses to drive and in-state university tuition.

Since states can’t confer citizenship, the bill is complete foolishness and would only serve to incentivize more illegal immigration into New York. But with immigration advocates, the thinking is, “Hey, why not go for it? We may not get it through this time, but we’ve planted the seeds for success down the road.”

Their long-term game plan is to keep pushing back against increasingly pliant federal, state and municipal governments, and one day illegal and legal status will effectively be the same. Rivera and Camara know they won’t win this time, but they anticipate that eventually they will.

Example: the DREAM Act, defeated at the federal level dozens of times since first introduced in 2001, but currently implemented in 17 states.

Another example: the New York City Council recently voted to issue identification cards to 500,000 illegal immigrants that will allow them to open bank accounts, sign apartment leases and access other public services that require photo ID. By joining Los Angeles, San Francisco and New Haven as other municipalities that have granted IDs to aliens, New York helps set an example for other major cities with large illegal immigrant populations to do the same.

Federal immigration laws must be enforced. Please sign up for CAPS Actions Alerts here to help protect Americans and preserve their inalienable rights as citizens.