Today in the Illinois Leader the Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights wrote about some problems he has with the conservative anti-immigration plank. I have some of the same problems. Let’s start with some facts.
Many people who come over from Mexico do so to escape poverty and provide for their families. Do we really have a problem with them coming over to work in jobs we wouldn’t (except perhaps construction)? I’m not thinking an illegal immigrant is going to take my job anytime soon. I have no problem with hard-workers coming to this country to work. Our society benefits from it because there are plenty of lazy citizens who prefer to leech the system here.
I do believe that our education system does a horrible job. I think if it were vastly improved, most of this nation should be in white-collar employment. That’s not to disparage blue collar workers but it is to say that a country with the resources we have should be able to have highly educated citizens, not the baffoons some of our schools graduate today.
We, however, can’t have a wide-open border where people can walk across and all the sudden disappear. The law needs to be enforced. Equal protection of the laws is also equal enforcement. If you think we should have open borders, then pass a law and convince people. We cannot, however, has unenforced immigration laws and turn around and give them benefits of citizenship. We probably should increase the number of legal immigrants granted entry greatly, certainly from places like Mexico. We should not pretend that the system is ok and grant them de facto citizenship/residency.
A stronger immigration system will be able to keep the unsavory sorts out. I think the problem with the debate is that everyone points to the unsavory types and then stereotype it to everyone. That’s simply wrong. I’m married, and if I did have kids, and I lived in Mexico, I’d probably sneak across the border too to help provide for them. That’s commendable and traits I can only wish more of our American husbands and fathers had in this country.
But the point is, we can’t not enforce the law. We need to either get rid of it, or significantly revamp it. We need a strong border so we CAN discriminate against who we allow here. We certainly shouldn’t provide free services for anyone who manages to get across the border at the taxpayer expense.
In closing, we need to incentivize hard workers to come here, we need to deincentivize criminals or other unsavory types from coming here to leech the system, and we need to clearly enforce laws on the books. How to get there from here is the hard part.
