On July 4th, President Obama made ceremonial remarks to a class of new U. S. citizens in which he indicated that we want America to continue to be accessible to the “best and brightest” of those who strive to become Americans. How true this should be, but he is either disingenuous or obviously totally out of touch with the reality on the ground, for current policy encourages and provides incentives for just the opposite.
We should be expanding our legal immigration quotas through incentives for those who want to come to this country for citizenship who are educated, innovative, and want to assimilate to our culture. Meanwhile, we should strictly control our borders and admit only those we choose to admit. Immigration policy should be first about citizenship, not about new voters, new guest workers, and certainly not about a priority for family reunification.
As for the current disaster at the border with the refugee children, this has very little to do with immigration policy, and nothing that has been proposed in the cause of so-called “comprehensive” immigration reform would have done anything to prevent this debacle. Anyone with a heart will sympathize with these kids, but don’t buy into this notion that all of a sudden the conditions in Central and South America have become so repressive that these children were induced to risk their lives for this treacherous trip. The economic and political conditions in these countries haven’t changed in decades. The current incentives have recently been supplied by the messages from the Obama administration that, if the children can get here, they can stay, and sure enough probably 90% will never return. It was not a huge step for the coyotes to step in and take advantage of their plight and false hope. And where are our friends in Mexico on a solution to this disaster and our President in demanding one? But, of course, we can’t even get an innocent U. S. Marine out of a Mexican jail after three months!
Milton Friedman often said that “you can’t have open immigration and a welfare state”. How true and I would add, particularly with a third world country on your border.
Jim, we haven’t concentrated on letting the best and brightest into America since prior to 1965. What better way to “transform” America than to allow 2nd grade educated immigrants (legal or illegal) into America. Those of us in the fight against illegal immigration for the better part of 10 years (or longer) tried to tell people this would happen, but we were pretty much ignored. This latest debacle can be laid directly at the feet of Obama, but most of America is culpable in this. The business community (both large and small companies), with their demands for a continuous flow of cheap labor, the GOP who think they will never win another election if we don’t pass some type of amnesty, the Democrat party who are salivating at the prospect of more votes, the Libertarians whose platform is pro-open borders, the main stream churches, who in some cases are more interested in lining their coffers than anything else and Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Citizen who just love their illegal alien gardener and nanny because of course they work cheap.