Immigration Reform Requires Adult Thinking

By Randy Alcorn
July 2007

If, as Winston Churchill remarked, the young think with their hearts while older adults think with their brains, one wonders when some of our elected politicians will ever grow up. The debate and ultimate defeat of a proposed voluminous immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate clearly exposed the emotional, illogical thinking that afflicts many of the nation’s elected representatives and appointed bureaucrats.

After the defeat of this bill, which would have ultimately, and once again, granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, a frustrated Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) blustered that immigration reform was a national struggle comparable to such noble historical social movements as civil rights and women’s rights. Senator Mel Martinez (D-Fla), a Cuban immigrant, lamented that the defeat of the immigration reform bill dashed the dreams of millions of immigrants to improve their lives. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned that enforcing current immigration laws would result in “heart-wrenching” instances of families being pulled apart.

And their point is what, that America owes the world’s billions of desperate destitute dreamers a better life in America, and those that broke this nation’s laws by sneaking in to the country deserve pardons?  How can accommodating millions of impoverished, poorly educated foreigners who ignored America’s immigration laws, and whose growing numbers tax national resources, drive down wage levels, dilute public education, increase crime, and who are the sole cause of America’s third-world rate of population growth be a noble national struggle?  Addressing the problem of the world’s poor people may be a global struggle, but it is not and cannot reasonably be America’s national struggle.

Regardless of the sentiment etched on the Statue of Liberty, America is no longer a land of boundless opportunity for the world’s poor huddled masses. Every lifeboat has its limit, and America has surpassed its capacity for passengers and is now taking on water. That is the cold harsh reality that too many of our softhearted, softheaded politicians do not want to confront. Those feeling guilty about their good fortune at being born American citizens rather than Mexican citizens would do better to assuage their guilt by helping Mexico and other dysfunctional nations become nations whose citizens can find opportunity and a better life within the borders of their own countries.

For decades now, the self-serving power elite in Mexico has been using America as a safety valve to alleviate the misery caused by Mexico’s overpopulation and mismanaged economy. Current Mexican President Felipe Calderon had the temerity to admonish the U.S. Senate for making a “great mistake” in rejecting the immigration reform bill, and warned that the American economy “cannot keep going without migrant labor.” Really?  Senor Calderon, along with his fellow privileged class of Mexicans, is nervous about America’s growing grassroots opposition to the continued invasion by his nation’s indigent underclass, and by America’s increasing determination to secure its borders and maintain its national integrity.

When it comes to exporting Mexico’s social-economic problems el Notre, the jig is up. Mexico’s rulers may actually have to confront their own problems on their own soil. The many deleterious affects of relentless, uncontrolled foreign immigration are now being suffered by too many communities, large and small, throughout America. All the passionate political rhetoric about social justice and compassion for “hard working immigrants only seeking to improve their lives” is not going to override reason nor disguise the empirical evidence that uncontrolled immigration is not good for the vast majority of Americans, nor, with U.S. population already at 300 million, for the future of the nation.

Mexico has been allowed to disregard American immigration laws and American national geographic sovereignty for so long now, that it behaves as if its people are entitled to emigrate to America whenever they wish and without limit. Writing in the Tijuana, Mexico newspaper, Frontera, Fernando del Monte warns that regardless of the defeat of the immigration reform bill, Mexicans will continue to stream into America, illegally, and that it is the Mexican government’s responsibility to protect them. What is the definition of state sanctioned foreign invasion?

And, what is the definition of treason? When elected American officials openly advocate for the best interests of foreign trespassers and for the continued influx of more of them, all to the detriment of American citizens as well as to the future of the nation, are they not betraying the national trust, are they not committing acts of disloyalty to their own fellow citizens? Or, is it just their simple stupidity?

Not surprisingly, public opinion of both Congress and the president are at unprecedented lows. While the American people are generally too busy to be actively involved in politics, they are not complacent about critical issues. They can see that America’s two-party political system is failing them. Rather than govern in the best interests of the American people, politicians from the duopoly parties are too involved in maintaining their political sinecures and in serving those special interests that provide them a source of funding.

As a foot-dragging Congress and a mulishly misguided president are discovering, immigration is a major concern for Americans who clearly see the failure of their government to effectively address this issue, or even to enforce its own laws. The immigration issue has exposed many politicians who, for selfish or misguided reasons, seem more concerned with the masses of illegal aliens and those special interests who benefit from illegal immigration than with the wishes and best interests of American citizens.

Current immigration laws are not as broken as is the government responsible for enforcing them.

Randy Alcorn is a Senior Writing Fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), www.capsweb.org, and can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].