OPINION – Immigration is a touchy subject even under the best of circumstances. But the situation that is unfolding on America’s southern borders is hitting us at a particularly volatile time.
Tens of thousands of Central American refuges, mostly unaccompanied children, have entered the country illegally this year. Many of them are fleeing their native countries out of fear of drug or gang-related violence.
It should be noted that much of this violence can be traced directly to U.S. drug war policies that have been pursued in or forced upon these Latin American countries.
This latest influx of immigrants is straining the capabilities of officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house, feed, and process them. It’s very telling that politicians and American media have begun referring to this as a “border crisis.”
Any time a political leader starts throwing around the word “crisis,” it’s a sure sign that he or she has a purely political solution in mind that must be imposed upon all of us for some greater good.
But it’s not just the politicians who are using the crisis atmosphere to their own advantage. The topics of amnesty and immigration reform have long served as useful wedges to divide the political left from the political right.
Many on the left support amnesty because they see it as a way of creating political power for themselves. Every time they reach out to newly arrived refugees with government-sponsored benefits, it enables them to essentially buy votes from those to whom government-sponsored benefits are distributed.
In reality, they are simply engaging in a perverted form of humanitarianism by extracting taxes from the productive members of society and then giving that money to the needy as entitlements. Opposition to this type of legal plunder is often falsely decried as bigotry since a great number of those who enter this country illegally are, by definition, minorities.
Meanwhile, many on the right are easily provoked into a nationalistic fervor at the thought of foreigners entering America without the proper credentials or official permission. Immigration reform is always viewed as a threat to national sovereignty and economic or cultural security.
They fear that immigrants are coming to overtake their country, steal their jobs, and debase American culture with foreign languages or customs.
To them, proper immigration reform involves impenetrable border fences, increased criminal penalties for those who enter the country illegally, and more aggressive deportation of those who are here without official permission.
What those on the left or the right fail to recognize about their highly polarizing positions is that each of their respective solutions requires greater central planning and more government control over all of our lives. Each of their so-called solutions results in less net freedom for all.
With this in mind, there is still a very real problem faced by thousands of unaccompanied youngsters who have almost no say whatsoever in their current situation.
The real question that should outweigh all political considerations is this one: What is the right thing to do?
The hardest part about answering this question is forcing ourselves to step outside of the mindset that the only viable solutions must be of a political nature. In fact, the more likely solutions are found by removing, as far as possible, the political influences that have led to this situation in the first place.
That would include dismantling the welfare state and allowing private aid to once again provide help to the truly needy among us. It would mean discontinuing the evil policies of the drug war that invite violence and corruption on all sides of the conflict while failing to make the slightest dent in demand for drugs.
It could also include seriously questioning the proper role of government in regards to immigration.
Sheldon Richman of the Future of Freedom Foundation advocates open borders. He suggests:
If the borders were open — that is, if the natural right to be free of aggression were respected — children would not need to be entrusted to shady men who can extort large sums of money on the promise to transport the children to the United States. Without government agents hunting them, children and parents could move north together in freedom and safety. They would be welcomed by generous humanitarian organizations, as immigrants were in the past.
This idea would be a very hard sell to the generations of Americans who have been thoroughly conditioned to doubt their own goodness and to trust only in the wisdom and beneficence of the almighty state. But this is how earlier needs were handled before the welfare state paralyzed our consciences.
Seeing others as something other than objects by which we can advance our political agendas takes practice. More real good is done for mankind under a mindset of service than takes place by political mandate.
Taking politics out of the equation and doing the right thing becomes much easier.
Paul Rosenberg explains why this is so. He said:
Whenever it is that we come to understand ourselves and the true nature of the world, doing the right thing will cease being a burden. We will do the right thing simply because any other action would be stupid.
Bryan Hyde is a morning commentator on Talk Radio 590 KSUB and an opinion writer in Southern Utah. The opinions stated in this article are his and not representative of St. George News.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @youcancallmebry
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2014, all rights reserved.
Easily a billion people would come here tomorrow if they could. We simply can’t provide for them all. That means we can’t have an open border and must have some form of immigration restrictions. Border security is one of the things the Constitution specifically delegates to the federal government, but they have no interest in it. Security is a critical necessity, especially in the world we live in. If 11 year old kids can wander in, so can terrorists, weapons (including biological or chemical), drugs, criminals. The 2nd verse of “America, The Beautiful” says we confirm our liberty through law. People are streaming across our southern border because they know we aren’t enforcing our own laws. If Disneyland removed their fences, what percent of visitors would still buy tickets? Today, not many! As the 2nd verse also states, we confirm our soul through self control, which we’ve completely abandoned as a nation, replaced by an entitlement mentality. We have to maintain our humanity and care for these people as we get them back to where they’re from. But instead our government is covering up the whole thing and asking for billions of dollars to build them housing, when we have more unemployed and in poverty than ever before. It’s not just negligent, it’s criminal.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, less than 4,000 unaccompanied Central American minors were apprehended each year over the decade prior to 2012. Then Mr. Obama halted deportations of young illegals in June 2012 and the number of apprehensions jumped to 10,146 in that fiscal year. It then doubled to 20,805 last fiscal year and reached 39,133 by mid-June of this year, with 3½ months left in the fiscal year. This crisis is directly attributable to Obama’s failure to enforce the law to benefit his presidential campaign in 2012. Open and shut.
“Border security is one of the things the Constitution specifically delegates to the federal government”
The words “border” and “security” appear nowhere in the text of the U.S. Constitution.
I’ll see if I can track down a version for you that uses smaller words. In the meantime, you can look at Section 4, Article 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which states: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion;”. I’d say millions of people streaming across the southern border with guns and drugs (and all manner of diseases), many of whom are drug dealers, gang members, cartel members, and terrorists constitutes an invasion. If you don’t, you should go live near the border for a while. So you see, various words and word combinations can have the same meaning, even if they don’t use the same letters in the same order. English is funny that way.
Providing for the defense of the county is the first and most important responsibility of the Federal government. If “securing our border” isn’t fundamental to defense, what is? Honest citizens can argue about missiles, war planes, aircraft carriers and the like, but securing our borders is beyond dispute.
Your point is?
If you agree with this massive invasion then I suggest you start donating your whole paycheck to help pay for their expenses.
IT’S ALL IN THE WORDING:
Most left oriented newspapers that cover the polls, illustrate in their wording in a biased way by manipulating the facts. Most members of the editorial staff that have been brain washed in a Liberal college or university and schools. They see no difference between honest immigrants who go through the paperwork, FBI background investigation, medical checkups and biological inspection to be admitted into the United States with a welcome sign from our society. But unfortunately the criminal illegal alien who slipped past immigration enforcement at the borders, or alighted from a plane indistinguishable from crowds of tourists, determined not to return home and then vanish from sight, given a bogus address. These have been tagged “Overstays” that used to outnumber the border jumpers by 46 percent. Both groups can be classed as Illegal, but there have been “calculated” laws to “mask” the facts allowing those who cross the borders, as a simple civil offense instead of what it should be–a FELONY. Congress needs to amend the policy, so OTM’s (other then Mexicans) can be deported, with all due haste—the same as Canadians and Mexicans can be turned around instantly.
Both political parties are to blame for this hotchpotch of laws, which have been carefully structured for big business, agriculture and all special interests craving cheap workers or illegal votes. Millions have come to America illegally to take advantage of our lax laws, such as pregnant women who are near their time and then birth their baby. To not only gain immediate citizenship that has been well titled, “Anchor Babies” so they are anchored in an foolish America, by a 19th century well-intentioned slavery law, that again has been transformed by the Liberals for any illegal alien who has a baby here. Thus then we have another mouth to feed, house, hospital stays, cash payments for the baby and a abundance of other financial entitlements, left for the taxpayers to cover. This is further corrupted by the IRS child tax refund, but for many criminal aliens a quick way to claim $1500 dollars and the establishment led by Dem oldster Sen. Harry Reid who sees no blame in handing out over more than $ 4 billion even to foreign outlanders. There is a whole corrupt industry today with birth-baby tourism, to claim a birth certificate and passport. Then eventually that individual borne here can petition the court, to bring a whole retinue of family members here. This is what is going to happen with the “intentionally” hordes of pregnant mothers with their children or unaccompanied minors, who few will ever be deported under the Obama imperial government.
There is ONLY one poll I truly trust and that should be the same of prudent people, who are not gullible to the majority of Liberal interpretation, rhetoric or even worse ignoring the facts, or writing a small article next to Obituaries, which gets limited reading. In The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 82% of American Adults think it is important to secure the border to prevent future illegal immigration, with 60% who say it is Very Important. This is up slightly from 78% and 57% respectively. THIS WILL NOT BE FOUND IN THE NATIONAL PRESS, RADIO OR TELEVISION STATIONS AND CERTAINLY NOT ON CABLE CHANNELS OTHER THAN AMERICA ONE NEWS OR FOXNEWS. Rusmussenreports.com does not twist words or spread lies on behalf of the Liberal zealots or open border and anti-sovereignty nuts.
Then we have the 2006 double layer border fence promise; two separate fences separated by a double track way for criminal interdiction by the US border Patrol. Former President Bush signed it into law, which was to stretch 700 miles. The whole thing was sabotaged by prior Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas. She added an amendment that destroyed the whole concept and so the two fences facing each other, was never built as promised. Her suspicious reasoning has caused the massive eruption of all categories of criminals, plus subsidy illegal aliens filing across the porous border today; many areas have nothing more than a few strands of rusted wire and nothing more. The Constitution clearly states in its edicts, that the people must be protected from Domestic or foreign invasion. However has distinguished himself from other presidents by ignoring the founder’s papers. Do you want the National TEA PARTY to keep fighting for what our Founding Fathers believed in, for the US Constitution they set forth…for our freedom, liberty and justice? If you believe in America then believe in the National Tea Party then support our efforts. We count on America’s grassroots to support our vast efforts—phone calls, emails, faxes, petitions, public meetings, protests and actually talking face to face with lawmakers. Without the influence of National Tea Party Candidates eventually your family, children will not recognize the America, a negative future under Obama’s royal reign. Millions more illegal aliens will get to stay thanks to potential Liberal donors, multi-million voters, who eventually would crush American exceptionalism. Check these sites for factual accountability at http://www.numbersusa.com and phone Numbers and Mailing Addresses of Members of Congress at http://www.contactingthecongress.
Bryan, Are you no longer on Perspectives? Have you moved to new station? Can you give us a bit of information…..