Lately I have been struggling to find a subject to cover on my blog; normally I just wait for something to inspire me and then I start doing some research and putting my thoughts down on paper, however until today nothing was forth coming, then a friend sent me an email about amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Funny during the long year of health care drama we heard very little about this subject, we did hear a lot of rhetoric during the election campaign about bringing the nation together, reaching across the aisle, and a lot of other falsehoods, “no more” now the administration is boldly circumventing traditional procedures and pushing for what he wants by whatever shameless venue he can (but I digress).
Ok so let’s talk a little about amnesty (and no I am not for it) it rewards individuals for breaking our laws and punishes those law abiding citizens that patiently wait their turns in their own countries. My wife of almost 21 years is one of those, she is so proud of being an American; I think some of that is because it did not come easy for her.
And then there is my 19 year old daughter who is working full time and enrolled full time in collage because she does not want me to pay tuition, (and yea I am ok with that) but the point is, she is not asking for a hand out from me or anyone else. What does this have to do with illegal immigration? The President’s plan will give in state tuition to illegal’s, and “ok” make your argument for that, but my daughter can’t get that break, and why, because she made the mistake of being law abiding American.
Ok, ok; yes I am a little passionate about this, but I am not a throw them out of the country guy, here is what I am; I am a “border security” guy, let’s start there, and then we can talk about what to do next. I don’t think we need to throw out anyone who has live here for years and has not been in trouble with the law, yea, yea I know but let’s be honest, if you were living in a mud hut in South America I am pretty sure you would try to get here too, and yes I understand the argument about them breaking our laws, but ask yourself this, if your family were starving would you steal a loaf of bread to save them, and morally you would be wrong, but you also have a moral obligation to care for your family, if you see it different then we will have to agree to disagree, oh and one other thing, we are a nation of immigrants.
Ok; so if you have broken a law in this country and you are not a citizen then you need to go, I don’t care about any argument you may have, I am not buying it, every nation on this “blue marble” deports criminals” as they should.
So what to do; here is a thought, lets secure the border, lets evaluate the ones that are here and have been here for some time (say 15 years or better) look if a carpenter snuck his family across the border fifteen years ago and then raised those kids here, do we really need to punish them because he wanted to give them a better life, come on. Let’s try this help them with their residency and get them on, I say again, get them on the path to citizen ship.
But it must start with security of the border, nothing fancy, a fence will do it, that’s it, it works in every other country in the world, a fence, build us a fence. During the cold war days in Europe I was a border patrol soldier, we were assigned to protect the East/West German border, do you know how they kept the citizens in the East, wait for it, yes, a fence, they built a fence.
So here is my view on illegal immigration in a nut shell, build a fence, secure the border, kick out anyone who has committed a felony in this country, then we can sit around a table and have a civil conversation on how to handle the ones that just came here for a better life.
But for hell sake could we stop with the incentives and the talk of amnesty, just once I would like to see someone say we have laws in this country and like the ramifications or not, we are going to follow those laws. Rick