A First Step to Immigration Reform Obama Did Not Propose

 

Last night President Obama decided that the new Congress which will be sworn in come late in January of next year had been dragging their heels and not addressing legislation proposing solutions of comprehensive immigration reform. Since he will be giving his speech after my deadline for submitting my article, I will just assume, always somewhat dangerous but I feel confident my assumptions will prove safe and valid, it is distinctly possible that President Obama might give everyone a surprise, potentially a pleasant surprise, and actually suggest or even, drum roll please, promise to take his pen and enact any of my proposals. The first thing which must be resisted is the urge to take grand sweeping steps aimed at solving everything all with as few steps as possible starting with any form of blanket amnesty, especially a general amnesty with only the smallest of punitive requirements or inconveniences such as fines or complex forms. Unfortunately, President Obama has given indications that he will at least propose rigidly stringent guidelines he will expect, even demand, Congress meet within a relatively short deadline and put legislation on his desk meeting every last iota of his expectations or expect his veto followed by him using his pen and phone to enact exactly what he desires without Congressional input. We can expect some form of amnesty for the large number of those labeled ‘youths’ which were part of the huge tens of thousands of illegal children and young adults all unaccompanied by adults who entered the southern border to much media coverage, almost fanfare, this past spring and early summer. How much further President Obama may decide to go will be revealed before this article gets posted, but why guess when it will only serve to be anticlimactic, so on to what we believe is not to be expected but would have been a better course to have followed.

 

The first step to begin to solve the immigration problem has to separate those who are in the United States and are seeking to work within the legal system since their arrival, are gainfully employed, are paying taxes and simply desire to make a better life for their family from those who are here in pursuit of illegal activities, are chronic lawbreakers or are here to take advantage of government support programs designed to assist the needy and disabled such as welfare, food stamps, disability programs and other similar programs. Basically, one need differentiate between those here to gain from the system from those here who are working and contributing to the system. The American people are usually a forgiving people but not if they feel somebody has betrayed their trust and is out to game things and taking advantage of the Americans’ generous nature. Where the American people might be persuaded to accept somebody who may have entered the nation illegally in order to make a better life for his family and has worked steadily and even paid taxes, paid their rent, utilities and other daily bills, provided health insurance and were not causing any undue strain on the society, such a person would be more acceptable than anyone who had not shown such respect for the society and abused the systems instead of being fellow contributors to that system. This brings into consideration reports that the Justice Department gave its blessings, some even claim facilitated, the release of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who were incarcerated on felony charges across the nation. It was rumored that these illegal immigrants were released in a preparatory move in order for making them legal in some expected subsequent amnesty, an amnesty which, in all fairness, has yet to have occurred. There is an initial step which could be used to separate out those who are working within the system and being a contributive member of American society from those who are taking advantage of the various support safety net systems within that society. This would be to require that everyone who applies for government assistance give proof and be required to pass a citizenship check before being given any support. This would remove those on such programs who were unable to pass such a background check and might be sufficient incentive for many illegals realizing they would likely be dropped from any forms of government support to return to their nation of origin or perhaps become contributing members of society seeking out gainful employment. Either result would be a positive result which most American might find acceptable and possibly even advantageous.

 

The next phase would require formulating what is referred to as a path to citizenship for those illegal immigrants who would be capable of providing sufficient evidence and desire to become documented and even take on additional requirements as further proof of their honest desire to mitigate for their initial illegal entry. They might be required to also take and pass a one year comprehensive American history course on a college or community college level designed by judges and professors specifically to provide a general knowledge of the important points in American history as well as stressing legal codes and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and the important themes and origins of the triumvirate of America’s founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and their effects on the government and the legal code. They should be subjected to a full background check and also have to take the full citizenship courses and pass the test for citizenship all before being considered for final citizenship. The path should be more strenuous than the normal track to citizenship to make them have to pay a price as proof that they are aware that they have been granted a privilege which their effrontery of knowingly breaking United States immigration laws by entering the nation by illegal means. There have been discussions that those illegal immigrants permitted to seek citizenship should also be made to pay a fine as well as make good for any back taxes they may owe. The fine should be determined to some extent on a case by case basis on some established sliding scale which would take into consideration whether the illegal immigrant had paid taxes or avoided paying taxes amongst other criteria. Whatever the cost demanded from an illegal immigrant in order for them to achieve citizenship, that price will prove astonishingly low as it grants their family a prize others have applied for and waited what must seem to be a lifetime to achieve legally, a wait made that much longer by the numbers of illegal immigrants who reduce the numbers of legal immigrants accepted each year, they owe those people a debt which is impossible to repay or even determine a sufficient price. Whatever the United States government decides about what the price and path if any should be demanded from those who entered their country illegally, the people would very likely have demanded a much higher price if they would allow any price other than expulsion back to their nation of origin made to begin the legal immigration path from square zero. Whatever would be decided by the Congress, any such decision would better represent the people than whatever edicts fell from President Obama’s lips last night, but then President Obama has been showing a steadily growing lack of concern for the American voters which will only grow as his time left shortens. No matter what immigration policies the President will have introduced the world to last night; such ignominies will only pale when compared with what he has in store over the last two years in office. After all, did not President Obama claim that he will be listening to the two-thirds of voters who failed to vote in the midterm elections and would he not be able to claim that his intimate familiarity possessed with these silent voters is far more accurate than even they might know as he has already channeled their desires, he said so.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Immigration Reform and the Republican Surrender

One item which the Congress will be pressed to address this term is immigration reform and the fate of twenty-million illegal immigrants at the very least (though official tallies try to minimize the problem claiming only twelve-million illegals currently living in the United States). The problem has been slowly growing in both complexity and severity ever since it was presumably solved during the Administration of President Reagan. The immigration reform legislation passed back in the 1980s gave blanket amnesty to the millions of illegal immigrants living in the United States and called for securing the border sufficiently that the problem of illegal immigration would never again plague Congress and the American people. As the demands to close the border were delayed and were to be addressed in the near future after the amnesty was awarded, the Congress once again took the path of least resistance and did nothing thus leading to the situation existing today. There were calls in immigration legislation passed since the start of the millennium which called for the building of a fence in most of the known high traffic areas where the majority of crossings of illegals take place. Somewhere between the passing of the legislation and the building of the fence as a barrier the fence was magically transformed into a virtual fence secured by drones and watchtowers instead of any actual physical barrier. For reasons that may be obvious, this virtual fence was virtually useless in preventing illegal immigrants from crossing the southern border of the United States. So, what does the future hold in addressing the illegal immigration problem once again facing the nation and the Federal Government?

 

If memory serves me correctly, which would be a first, the current debate over immigration reform began in the last two years of President George W. Bush’s second term and went unresolved for the ensuing almost seven years with much posturing, pontificating, laying out of demands and discussions of various solutions with the biggest debate over amnesty being the main sticking point making reaching any agreement virtually impossible. Where much of the mainstream media coverage of the amnesty-no amnesty debate circled around how the Democrat politicians were presenting a humane and acceptable position which would grant the illegal immigrants currently living in the United States a path to citizenship which was reasonable and protected the rights of all concerned while the evil Republican politicians were insisting on the maximalist position calling for every last illegal immigrant to be held for deportation without any regard or concern for the possibility of extenuating circumstances. Of course the Democrats were warm and cuddly while the Republicans were harsh and hardened. Well, the Republicans have finally been worn down as we are now informed that they are willing to accept some form of a path to citizenship as long as there are defined requirements that those seeking to remain and become American citizens will need to pass a background check, learn to speak English, pay some reasonable fine, pay all of their unpaid taxes and learn about the governance of the United States as is required of immigrants who take the legal route. So, where will this apparent willingness by the Republicans to meet the Democrats half way lead?

 

The result will likely result in legislation which will sound reserved and containing some reasonably strict requirements and limits on illegal immigrants being allowed to attain United States citizenship as the Republicans claim they will insist upon while the actual application will closely resemble a free ticket to unquestioned amnesty after everything is codified and put into action by the bureaucrats from INS (Immigrations and Naturalization Service) have fleshed out the system. The Republican surrender in calling for a strict pathway to citizenship in place of blanket deportations is their belief that by bowing to the Democrats what they claim is halfway, they will satisfy their base and still be able to appeal to and reach Hispanic voters, a growing number of voters across the United States. Of course the reality is that by surrendering once again on immigration reform, the Republicans will fail to woo Hispanic voters other than those who were already in their camp and also fail utterly in satisfying their base which has increasingly shown signs of being completely fed-up with the spinelessness of the Republicans in Washington. This is simply another instance of the Republicans misreading the will of their base and the likely voting tendencies of the strictly Democrat Hispanic voters, which is far from all Hispanic voters as a fair number of Hispanic voters actually vote for real conservatives and will likely be just as angered by the collapse by the Republicans as the rest of the base will turn out to be.

 

The erosion and near complete collapse of the Republicans in Congress is just another card in the house of cards they are building believing that it will appear sufficiently conservative to their base while not appearing so conservative as to lose their imagined conservative leaning Independents and Democrats, the same Democrats which voted for Reagan. Where the Republicans have gone off the tracks is believing that if they just take positions slightly to the right of the Democrats that they will gather in the votes of those Democrat voters who tend to be center of the road voters who do not invest much time in watching politics and can be swayed to vote Republican if only the Republicans can appear almost as soft and cuddly as the Democrats. The fault in their reasoning is simple, most of those they are aiming to sway simply vote Democrat because that is what they have done all their lives. If the Republicans desire to gain voters then they are going to have to stand for something on their own merits and not simply say we stand for almost the same things as the Democrats except we are more reasonable. Why would any voters who normally vote for any Democrat candidate suddenly change and vote for a Republican who claims to be Democrat-Lite, the almost as liberal choice. The truth is they will not be won over and the base will increasingly stay home as more and more of them are refusing to vote for evil, especially the lesser of two evils, and have decided they will only go out and vote if they have somebody to vote for and not just to vote against the worse candidate. This is the secret appeal of the so-called Tea Party candidates is they actually present themselves as having positions they believe in and are willing to stand and defend those values and not cave at the slightest hint that the wind is blowing in a different direction. When the Republicans, or whomever replaces them if they continue on their self-destructive path they are following, finally figure out that there are a good forty percent of conservative and libertarian voters who are thirsting for a real solid and independent candidate who will stand on their two feet and take a stand, a principled stand, and will not be persuaded or become jaded by the culture in Washington where all too often even the principled fall from grace, these voters will return to the polls as their need for a candidate they can in good conscience support will be worthy of receiving their votes at last. The only people who are going to take the United States in a different direction and possibly save her from the apocalypse which is rapidly coming her way is if principled believers in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and who understand and fully support the core beliefs stated in the Declaration of Independence make their case and take the lead and guide the United States back from the brink. We can only hope it is not already too late as the road back is already going to be painful and difficult but that will turn out to be preferable to the results of continuing on the current path which those well versed in history can already see the end results. They are not pretty and there are examples of the coming results of current policies and one need look no further than Greece for an example.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Immigration Reform Next Debacle on the Horizon

Amnesty for those illegal immigrants among us, called undocumented workers by our political elite even if they do not work and are collecting welfare and other government benefits, disguised under the name of “Path to Citizenship” will be at the heart of the immigration legislation to be considered by the Congress and backed by the President, the Democrats and most of the Progressive Republicans, also referred to as RINOs. Their claim, false as it may be, will be that these undocumented workers are simply honest people here seeking to find a better life for their families and deserve our sympathy for the plight they might face in their homelands and only number a mere eleven million unfortunate souls living in the shadows. If the politicians were to be honest they would be talking about the twenty million plus illegals of which a sizeable percentage are unemployed and collecting government handouts, whose children are in the school systems, use our hospital emergency rooms and often are paid in cash and do not pay any taxes to offset the expenses incurred through their unlawful presence within our borders. We will be fed the line that they are mostly law abiding despite the fact that their very presence is violating our immigrations laws every day and they came into the United States surreptitiously going around the immigration laws and are now to be rewarded with being placed anywhere in the line for citizenship instead of being deported and made to go through the legal process. There will be examples paraded before the public chosen to bring forth torrents of sympathetic tears as we are told of their plight, their fears of discovery, the hardships they endured and a million other superfluous reasons that we should reward their illegal actions. The biggest lie we will be told has little to do with the individual illegal immigrants but will be a repeat of the lie which was used to sell amnesty as part of immigration reform last time, that the laws will be fully and meticulously enforced and the borders sealed so that we never have this problem again in the future. The last amnesty named the Immigration Reform and Control Act passed in 1986 permitted approximately 2.8 million illegal aliens to be admitted as legal immigrants into the United States. This too was proposed as the final, one time, never to be repeated act of grace and amnesty after which the Congress and the President were to get serious about enforcing the border. Somewhere the ball got dropped somewhere between the President signing the bill and the ink drying on the paper.

 

Once again the American people are being told false promises by politicians who do not truly represent the majority of the American people or of their own constituencies and are instead answering to either moneyed interests who find employing illegals as a money saving way of doing business or to party bosses who see these illegal aliens as future voters who will beck their party for office in future elections. Every promise that the supporters of the new euphemism for amnesty will use to sell this legislation is a reworking of the plain truth or a bald faced lie to disguise their real intentions and make the legislation appear humanitarian and respectable worthy of support by any good hearted American. Never mind that the act of entering the country broke the laws of the federal government and thus the laws of the land where they now claim their special need expecting all else to be forgotten or at least forgiven. The politicians will tell us that there will be a penalty to be paid, a fine to allow these people of honest intent to prove their promise to be good citizens and obey the laws but then the bill will have clauses allowing for the same political system to forgive the fine allowing a path around making any act of contrition thus relieving them of any debt paid to erase the stain of their illegal entry. There will be clauses which we will be informed demand and will force the politicians to address and secure the border though another vote made late some Friday afternoon or evening will relieve them of this burdensome obligation. After the failures from the rollout of Obamacare and the news that Obama lied and millions of people’s health insurance died we should be more wary of politicians bearing promises of rosy futures. Yet there will be sympathetic articles in the news and speeches crafted to pull at the American people’s heartstrings, something the world over know are some of the most giving owners of heartstrings the world over, and the result will be another twenty million legalized illegal entrants and a border no better secured going forward than the last time these very same promises were paraded before the American people. Last time it was 2,800,000 instantly legalized immigrants who had illegally entered the country and this time it will be probably 28,000,000 instantly legalized immigrants who had illegally entered the country. That is ten times the number last time so can we expect in 2040 we will have yet another serious discussion over what to do with the illegal immigrants who simply came here for a better life for their families, after all there are only around 280,000,000 of these wonderful people needing our sympathy. My only question is where does it end? Will it require the United States of America to collapse and no longer be the nation of hope for all the downtrodden of the world before we are no longer asked to forgive and forget all past illegal acts and embrace the lawbreakers because we are such soft hearts? That would be a horrible price and should that ever become reality, my bet is Americans fleeing into other countries in order to find a better life for their families will not be met by even the smallest glimpse of sympathy. No sir, they will be arrested, thrown into prison, mistreated and thrown back across the border to where they came from. Don’t believe me then just research the laws in Mexico for those entering illegally and think again.

 

Beyond the Cusp