« Bushite Neo-Cons Responsible For May Day Immigration Protests | Main | Calling All Guinea Pigs »
May 05, 2006
by Andrew A. Anissi
May 5, 2006
While much of the press seems inclined to focus on showing illegal immigrants protesting the Immigration Bill, the Bill arose in Congress because most of the country is very strongly in favor of it, both on the right and on the left of the political spectrum.
On the left, supporters of the Bill realize that Illegal immigration is destroying everything that unions and workers groups have worked for, including minimum wage, safe working conditions, and an 8 hour work day. All of our country’s achievements in protecting working Americans are gone when Americans have to compete with the new virtual slave caste created by Big Business, and who work for a dollar a week at extra long hours and in terrible working conditions. This is in addition to pretty much every other achievement of the American left, including social security, welfare, Medicare that are consumed by illegal aliens who aren’t paying into any of them. If there is a crisis in Social Security or in any of these other areas, it’s for this reason.
On the right (but not on the “neo-conservative” right), Americans realize that an open border could ruin this country. When foreign governments aren’t actually controlling our ports and our other points of entry, they know that there’s free access all along our borders due to lack of enforcement. We’re fighting wars all over the world supposedly to stop terrorism and drugs, and meanwhile terrorists could waltz right across our border from Mexico, and trucks carrying illegal drugs enter our country every day. The current Immigration Bill was sparked in part by sightings of the Mexican Army actually crossing over our border and shooting at Americans to help drug smugglers cross over successfully. These are acts of war, but the President’s only response was to call up the Mexican President and ask, “What do YOU think we should do?” The Mexican President’s answer obviously did not call for tighter border security. Whether or not these armed gunmen were actually part of the Mexican military or were powerfully armed members of Mexican organized crime disguised as official military, they still represent a significant threat. See Jerry Seper, “In uniform, with official ID, 'madrinas' help move drugs”, The Washington Times, April 25, 2006.
Legal immigrants work hard to make it into this country and to become citizens. Citizenship used to be something very important, but now the President and the neo-conservative mainstream media are spitting on American citizenship by trying to hand it out for free to people who ignored and bypassed its requirements. Immigration is a great thing, but, like everything else, requires rules and regulations. The rules are already in place, but we need the Immigration Bill to ensure that they’re actually followed. Under the current system, the government is making it harder for legal immigrants and easier for illegal immigrants to enter and stay in this country. That makes absolutely no sense.
Immigration law, as it is, is great on many levels, but only fails because of a lack of enforcement by the Bush and Clinton Administrations. That’s why we need the new Immigration Bill to provide for the law to apply on a level separate from the INS. That the law should be followed is not a matter for debate. A system of government and nation only works where its laws are upheld and believed in.
Posted by andrewanissi at May 5, 2006 01:13 PM