immigration

Me (Latina Jewish convert): My brother-in-law’s looking for a job. It’s really tough out there.

White Jewish Friend: Oh, yeah. I might know some people who might be able to help.

Me: That’s great!!!

White Jewish Friend: (Long Pause) Does he have papers?

Me: (Clueless) What? What kind of papers?

White Jewish Friend: You know, is he legal?

Me: Legal?

White Jewish Friend: I mean, he’s not undocumented…

Me: (Silence)

Me: (Silence)

Me: (SILENCE)

Me: (Finally!) He’s white. And Native American. (So he’s about as legal as it gets. Incidentally so is everyone in my family--Dominican or otherwise--in America. No illegal aliens here. All American-born or American citizens.)

White Jewish Friend: Oh.

Some good news: My brother-in-law found a job out here in New York. After becoming temporarily homeless, they found an apartment share with a local Orthodox Jew as I chronicled in "The Orphan." My sister is going back to school. Money is tight. Their living arrangement is temporary. If you would keep my brother-in-law and my two sisters (one recently lost her job and is moving in with us) in your prayers, I would be endlessly grateful.

There are five key reasons I support and open border policy in America (or any free nation). This subject is one of the primary areas of disagreement I find myself in when talking to many other constitutionalists, conservatives, and conservative-turned-libertarians out there. I have always been confused by what seems to be an inconsistent position when compared to their other reasoning. This, as with most of my blog posts, is an attempt to present my reasoning to these and others to not only let them see as clearly as possible my own perspective, but to hopefully elicit a response from them that may either show the weaknesses of my reasoning or enlighten me by showing errors I have made in reasoning or fact or perhaps even guide me in strengthening my own position. I always have a little apprehension when posting something like this, as so many people whose opinions I respect and admire disagree with me on this subject. Perhaps I am just missing something, we shall see. So, without further digression into my emotional state, I will lay out my thinking.

Reason 1) Philosophical Honesty and Consistency:

If you are an open borders advocate, consider yourself warned. Al Qaeda has released a chilling tape that has now been authenticated by US intelligence officials threatening to smuggle anthrax across the US border. Specifically, they are talking about one person bringing four pounds of anthrax across the border in a suit case. And they say they will work with American white supremacist organizations to launch a coordinated attack. The goal of the attaché would be to kill more than 300,000 Americans.

Tessa Tranchant was 16 years old when she was struck and killed by a drunk illegal alien who had been arrested twice already but never deported. Denver police officer Don Young was executed by an illegal alien who had been arrested and released on three prior occasions. In Los Angeles, a promising student athlete named Jamil Shaw was killed by an illegal alien who had been arrested previously and then released instead of being deported. And the list goes on an on.

Unfortunately, neither the US Government nor the states track illegal alien crime against Americans. The only way to get a flavor for how bad the situation has become is by doing research on your own. If you attempt this, you may find that you have to dig however. That’s because the mainstream press often leaves out information regarding the immigration status of criminals in the stories they write.

Sadly, every one of the people mentioned above would still be alive if the government would enforce immigration laws. Courts routinely fail to check the immigration status of people who come before them. And sanctuary cities don’t ask the immigration status of even those they arrest. Los Angeles is a classic example of this. LA police have been ordered not to ask for immigration status from anyone.

April 9, 2009 – The White House came out today saying that the United States needs comprehensive immigration reform. Soon thereafter, the pundits hit the airwaves saying that these “wonderful people” need to be made legal so that they can work and become productive members of society. As a conservative looking at unemployment rates hovering at around 10%, all I can say is that I truly hope the President does go down this path, but not because I think he will succeed.

For each of the past several months we’ve seen new unemployment claims filed in excess of 500,000. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs in this recession. So of course, the Democrats have decided that this is the best possible time for them to push for immigration reform. We obviously need millions of more people competing for the limited number of jobs available. And of course, by legalizing them now, we can make an entirely new group of people eligible for government entitlement programs that we can so easily afford after spending Trillions of dollars on bank  bailouts and congressional pork!

Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV) has said that he wants to see an immigration reform bill ready for a Senate vote before the end of this year. And certainly Nancy Pelosi will not want to be left behind on this topic. After all, it was just last month that she told a crowd of illegal aliens that our immigration enforcement efforts were “un-American”.