The Untouchable Side to Illegal Immigration

Whether you call it amnesty, path to citizenship, legal registration process or other more involved description masking the true legal approach to illegal immigration, eventually deportation must be a part of the solution. Would I desire that every single person who can be technically described as an illegal immigrant be deported? Even in a perfect world that would be heartless solution to a very small percentage of what we now euphemistically call undocumented workers, paperless immigrants, extra-legal refugee or any other reference carefully crafted to avoid any mention of lawlessness. The case of an immigrant who was brought into the United States illegally at an age under ten and has spent as much as twenty years going to school who has a pliable skill and solid employment record or has sufficient grades proving their intent to live a productive life, for these exceptional cases we should find an inventive way of allowing them to remain as they have been raised pretty much as an American. But as far as the vast majority of illegal immigrants who are found in the United States should be deported and maybe, if they have no criminal record other than their illegal entry into the country, allowed to automatically begin the regular process to immigrate and be placed at the back of the line and allowed to go through the system in order to legally enter the United States. Should anything else be done regarding immigration? I believe most who have studied the immigration problems have agreed that the current system is extremely broken. We should definitely revamp and modernize our immigration processes and make the whole system more user-friendly and efficient. The stories of people going through decades of paperwork, interviews and other bureaucratic intricacies and requirements are completely unacceptable. There has to be a better way, a more efficient process, especially in the modern age of computers. The other side of any upgrading to the immigration system is to initiate a responsive system which can adapt to and shift in the nation’s needs or requirements for which immigrants can be chosen as a solution. It would only be logical to tailor the people we bring into the country with areas where the country has a need for additional workers immediately. We might also want to return to the previous idea of immigrants being required to have a sponsor or group of sponsors who will be responsible for aiding the new immigrant in their adjustments and making their way on the path to citizenship. The intent of immigration is to facilitate an orderly manner for integrating people into the fabric of the society as seamlessly and orderly as we are able.

The one statement that is used ad-nauseum which is really an insult and completely violates all sense of fairness is that we cannot deport these illegal immigrants as that would be unfair and impossible to accomplish. It is always pointed out that should we even claim to intend to deport these people that they will simply go further underground and become impossible to root out and we would not be capable of deporting all of them even under the best of conditions. The fact that it might be difficult to attempt to find and deport the vast majority of illegal immigrants who are deemed undesirable to offer a path to legalization or even citizenship, is not a valid argument under any consideration. An analogous claim would be that the police are unable to catch every person who exceeds the speed limit, then the police should simply ignore anybody they witness speeding. The same comparison holds for every single crime on the books such as murder, theft, armed robbery, or even acts of terrorism. The public would never accept the authorities to ignore terrorist acts so why should they accept such an approach to illegal immigration? Often the first step to perpetrating an act of terrorism is preceded by an act of illegal immigration. Even if the government simply required that whenever the police interact with people in the performance of executing their charge that they check their citizenship and for any noncitizen they run a full check on their immigration status and hold until deported any person found to be here illegally, whether they entered illegally or simply have remained beyond their visa limitations or otherwise are violating their visa requirements. The government cannot claim that they did not find a fair number of illegal immigrants simply through traffic stops for speeding or other motor vehicle violations, not to mention those who were arrested for more serious criminal offenses.

Another action which must be taken immediately is to disallow any State, County, City, Township, or other defined district from the practice of harboring illegal immigrants declaring themselves as sanctuary zones. Such designated places where Federal laws concerning individuals crossing the nation’s borders are disregarded and left unenforced are a breakdown of Constitutional law, particularly the Fourteenth Amendment. The concept of equal enforcement under the law enumerated within the Fourteenth Amendment is a double bladed sword in that it not only means that all people are entitled to equal rights and protections under the law but also they are required to fulfill equal obedience and face equal enforcement under the law. Your and my citizenship becomes meaningless when illegal immigrants are treated as equal to a citizen, and this is a compromise which should enrage the average citizen, especially those who are legal immigrants and went through what is a painstakingly drawn-out form-filled undertaking in order to be considered equal as citizens. What greater insult could any nation commit to those who played by the rules than to allow those who flaunted the rules and took a completely illegal shortcut and are granted equal rights, treatment and status as those who suffered the entire legal processes.

There is another reason for not granting the vast majority of illegal immigrants a path to legal status and that is the future treatment of illegal immigrants and the likelihood that such opportunists will do what it takes to gain entrance by other than legal means. When the United States first granted amnesty to the vast majority of illegal immigrants during the 1980s with a guarantee that tighter enforcement of the borders would be enacted subsequent to the granting citizenship a funny thing happened, the enforcement was never enacted and the border remained a sieve. That amnesty granted instant path to citizenship for approximately 2.7 million illegal immigrants. By granting amnesty the United States set a precedent of taking the easiest way to enforcing immigration law, namely ignoring it. This precedent was not lost on the millions who desired to become American citizens or at least gain some form of legal status to remain in the United States but felt they would be unable to gain such legally or simply had no desire to obey the laws of the country in which they desired to live. Thanks to the lack of dedication to the law or to their promises, the Congress did nothing in the follow-up to the amnesty legislation with even the slightest action towards closing the border. The truth is that in many ways the borders of the United States are less secure today than they had been before the 1986 amnesty legislation. The proof of this is the fact that there are now an estimated 9 to 11 million illegal immigrants with some estimates reaching past 20 million illegal immigrants. The border security has mostly remained the same as the tunnels and methods of infiltration have dramatically increased in capabilities and sophistication. There have been some minor improvements and half-measures with some minor local improvements which are mostly credited to the individual states’ efforts.

The Congress is once again discussing what they euphemistically call Comprehensive Immigrations Reform. If history is to be trusted as insight, they may as well call what they are discussing Comprehensive Blind Eye Solution Avoidance Amnesty Program. There does exist one item about immigration reform which makes it unique from everything else in Washington; it is bipartisan in that both the Democrat and Republican Parties are equally to blame as neither actually desires to prevent the influx of illegal immigrants, though for very different reasons. The Democrats see the illegal immigrants as future Democrat voters while the Republicans see the illegal immigrants as inexpensive and even sub-minimum wage workers. Both parties are showing a lack of respect for the individual immigrants as they both see them as faceless masses they can take advantage of with little regard for their humanity. It is probably the fact that these people are allowed to live at the fringes of our society and are only viewed as statistical objects which can be utilized to fulfill certain objectives without any concern for their actual wellbeing. Such attitudes are dehumanizing and should disgust any righteous person who holds their fellow humans as precious in their own way. Even if it is only so that all people who enter and live in the United States are legal, thus holding complete and guaranteed Constitutional rights and are equal before the law, granting all a status worthy of respect and equality while not forcing people to live in the margins with meager means and no recourse against mistreatment due to illegal status; that is a sufficient and noble enough a reason for proper and comprehensive immigrations reform. This can only be accomplished by making the border closed so tight that we will detect ants crossing in real time and also have the ability and staffing to intercept any smuggling of people or contraband with near 100% efficiency and effectiveness. It honestly is a matter of human rights and respect for all humanity that demands the border be enforced and all immigrants are legal.

Beyond the Cusp

Can the Republican Party be Saved?

Recently the Republican hierarchy released their report detailing the problems the party is facing and attempting to detail the deficiencies and propose solutions. There were numerous voting blocs where they also found problems. One prime example was their losing the under thirty vote by at least a ratio of three to one. Other such blocs included single women, the less well off, almost the entirety of minority voters, and so forth. From what I saw it was possibly debatable if they even won a majority of the registered Republicans. Ok, I made that up but it was really almost that bad. They also found that they managed to receive fewer votes in every voting group over the results from four years earlier. Somehow the Republicans with candidate Romney were unable to even hold on to the McCain voters as they received fewer votes across the board in this last election. As horrible as this news was it was not as unsettling as the solutions the report provided. The main gist of the offered solution was to move the candidates and campaigns to align them closer to the Democrat message.

My bet is should they pursue this path it will lead to the death of the Republican Party. When the base voters who are the lifeblood of your political party are not getting to the polls your problem is not that you are too far removed from the other party, it is that you are not offering them anything distinctly different from the other party. The solution is not to attempt to be perceived as the Democrat Lite Party but to be the heart and soul Republican Party. Show a difference and celebrate that difference. The Republican Party has not given the feeling that they are proud, confident, or even that they believe in their party. They sound almost apologetic whenever they sound all that different from what the Democrats stand for. If you want a near perfect example of the real problem is that is cursing the Republicans all you need to do is listen to the “old guard” of the GOP during the debates on virtually any legislation where immigration reform is one of the most glaring examples. Another problem is the seeming lack of unity and cooperation between the different factions that make up the Republican Party. Sometimes it appears as if as a whole the Republicans do not stand unified for anything and are without honest and driving principles. We had a perfect example after Rand Paul’s efforts to make a serious protest over the evasiveness and apparent policy which would allow the use of drone strikes on American civilians inside the country’s borders in place of arrests and a trial if the President so deemed necessary with his thirteen hour filibuster and a number of the senior Republican Senators demeaned his efforts on the floor of the Senate. Such disagreements should never be fought out in the public square but should be discussed and resolved within the party. When was the last time you heard one Democrat Senator demean another Democrat on the floor of the Senate? Such would never happen as the Democrats have party discipline and would not stand for parading the party laundry in public.

Another problem the Republican Party needs to work on is simply getting their message out and being heard. Since the mainstream press is actually a willing partner in any Democrat candidate’s campaign, the Republicans have to find a delivery for their message which does not rely on the mainstream press. They definitely need to work on their Internet usage and make more and better use of U-tube, Twitter, Facebook, and all other forms of social media as well as blogs and the new media. There are a good number of conservative bloggers who would be anxious to support getting the republican message out if they only would be included in the campaign planning and get some assistance in coordinating with the candidate. They could offer releases to these bloggers once they had compiled an extensive list. But the most important challenge facing the Republican Party hierarchy and planners is a message around which the membership can rally and be excited over. The current state of the Republican can be summed up in two words, disjointed disarray. Until they can establish something that can be advertised as the Republican core beliefs around which every party candidate tailors their message, the Republican Party will continue to wander leaderless in the political wastelands.

Beyond the Cusp

The Sane Solution to Same Sex Marriage

We have written about this solution that addresses the recognition of same sex couples under the law while also maintaining the traditional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman that should satisfy both sides of the argument. It preserves marriage while granting same sex couples with the legal rights they claim to seek and does so by reducing the intrusion of government into what should be a religious matter decided by each individual house of worship. The answer is to allow houses of worship to issue marriage certificates and hold marriage ceremonies while for those couples who wish the benefits and responsibilities the state applies to couples can receive a civil union contract from the state which will allow their pairing to have all the legal rights which currently are restricted to married couples. The marriage the houses of worship would perform would not allow the couple to claim any of the benefits of those who have a civil union contract unless the married couple also satisfied the state requirements and received a civil union contract. This separates the institution of marriage from any entanglement within the legal workings of the state thus freeing the individual state governments to decide what will be acceptable as a couple in the eyes of the law while the religious institutions decide what defines a married couple. The two are separate from each other and though any couple married by a religious ceremony would very likely also qualify for receiving a civil union contract, not every recipient of a civil union contract would be eligible to be necessarily married by every religious institution. There are also other advantages and options which become available in defining marriage which is currently disallowed due to the state being the issuing body of marriage certificates.

The main advantage is that each house of worship would be enabled to define marriage in whatever manner their congregation decides it should be defined. If the house of worship only wishes to recognize marriages between people of their religion and refuses to allow mixed religion marriages, which would be that house of worship’s right and the state would have no problems as the state has no jurisdiction over any religious service or definition as per the First Amendment. On the other side, if a couple can locate a house of worship willing to marry them, then they can have a marriage license and be considered married. Also, if a couple wishes to be married but does not deem it necessary to have state sanctioning their marriage, they would not be forced to receive a civil union contract but by not receiving the state’s issuance of a civil union contract would negate them of the benefits of being a couple in the eyes of the state and in all state functions. They would not be able to file a joint tax return or necessarily be allowed to visit each other in a state run hospital or have numerous other benefits. They would still be able to be the benefactor in their wills but would face the taxes upon one’s death as if they were not a legally joined couple.

The reason we like this solution is not because it enables same sex unions as much as it removes the government from what should be a purely religious institution, marriage. The further the government can be removed from defining terms in our lives and society, the more free the society will become. It is necessary to have the government define legal contracts as those are enforced in the courts of the state. It is not necessary to have the state define anything that does not require a legal contract. Marriage was originally not a legal contract but was a moral contract issued by the religious culture. The interest of the state in marriage has been as a financial interest, a social interest, a contractual interest, and a left over remainder from when the state and church coexisted almost as one entity through much of human history. By granting the state the issuance of the civil union contract the state continues to have all the jurisdictional constraints which it currently possesses but allows for marriage to be returned to the religious sector of our society. This is something which is desirable as it is fitting to have marriage and civil union contract both exist as the state and religion have been divorced from their previous relationship and thus should have separate interests in the whole idea of marriage. The religious institutions would have their historic interest of defining the basic structure of family and all that entails. The state would have their rightful fee for the contractual legal aspect which has been the main interests of the state as well as defining family for tax and other considerations.

There is one more benefit with this solution. We have heard time and time again that all those wishing to legalize same sex marriages desire is to have the same legal rights as do heterosexual couples. By relegating marriage to religious institutions and removing it from legal and public jurisdiction and in the legal and public forum having the contractual part of marriage relegated to civil union contracts, then all who are accepted by the state, which would likely include same sex couples as the state should not have any legal reason to deny such and moral reasons are not the state’s purview, would have the same identical rights while religious institutions could define marriage in any manner they wish. Religious institutions which allow polygamy or polyandry could allow such and it would then be up to the state on whether such could receive a civil union contract and with what limitations or provisions. Since the state licenses separate from religious institutions such discrepancies should not make for the problems we are currently facing as each would define their own definitions. This is just another application of a kind of separation of powers where the state has its set of considerations, legalizations and limitations while the religious institutions have their definitions and preferences and the two do not necessarily have to match.

Beyond the Cusp