Many in our country see immigration amnesty as a natural good for this country. The well-to-do [from both parties] require domestic workers to keep their lawns looking good and to watch their offspring while mom and dad attend their country club meetings. Many Americans, especially those born in the last few decades, do not understand the history of immigration, especially amnesty packages that usually accompany them.
There are many arguments against the immigration amnesty bill. It rewards lawbreakers, it dilutes our nation, it allows unskilled or low skilled workers to take jobs from Americans at lower wages and as a result suppresses wages. Republicans want it because big business likes the cheap labor to pad the profit margin and Democrats want it because they want the cheap domestic labor and the increased voter block (that votes heavily Democratic). Supporters of this bill say that it provides for the security of this nation and it will secure our borders. The amnesty bill that just died its second death is thicker than the Bible and contains so much legal mumbo jumbo that it would be hard to enforce and Americans have no real reason to trust Congress to uphold their end of the deal. Supporters talk a good talk but once they get these ILLEGALS on board and have waved the amnesty wand they will find a number of reasons not to secure the borders. We will be told that it is now unnecessary because we have absorbed the ILLEGALS. Ted Kennedy is the sponsor of this bill and he is pushing hard for it. In defeat he asked what we are to do now. During the debate he told us that the border was a jungle and border patrol agents wasted time catching landscapers rather than terrorists. NOTE: If the border is a jungle and agents are catching landscapers, why not put them to work landscaping the jungle?
Kennedy has been through all this before and each time Americans have been promised that the amnesty would have no impact on us, that it would not take jobs from Americans and even, that there would be no further amnesty. For those who were not around and for those who have not read about it, I present the history of Kennedy immigration amnesty through his quotes:
1965: “The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”
1986: “This amnesty will give citizenship to only 1.1 to 1.3 million illegal aliens. We will secure the borders henceforth. We will never again bring forward another amnesty bill like this.”
2007: “Now it is time for action. 2007 is the year we must fix our broken system.” NRO
Conservatives know that you get more of what you pay for, therefore it was absolutely incorrect when Kennedy said in 1965 that we would not be flooded with immigrants or that our ethnic mix would not be upset or even that the standards would not be relaxed. We have an entire southwest that is changing into a Hispanic country within a country and the ethnic mix in California is quite pronounced. We have gone from the under 200 thousand a year that were allowed here in 1965 to 12 to 20 million living here illegally, so we were flooded with immigrants. The legal Hispanic population has increased greatly since that time so that Hispanics make up a larger portion of the population than blacks (and only second to European whites). We see that the government failed to secure the borders or enforce the laws which certainly relaxed the standards and, there can be no doubt, that Kennedy’s last sentence about taking American jobs was dead wrong.
In 1986 Kennedy told us that we would only be giving citizenship to under 1.5 million people and that there would be no further amnesty bills [like this]. Since 1986 the number of ILLEGALS in this country went from 4 million to 12-20 million and the newest Kennedy fiasco seeks to give them a path to citizenship. Perhaps Kennedy was drunk or hungover when they taught math in school but this number far exceeds the number he touted a mere 21 years ago. Additionally, the newest attempt to legalize immigrants is an amnesty bill and while Teddy might argue that he escaped with the “like this” clause, the fact is the previous amnesty bills came with promises that were not kept.
Those who oppose this new bill are labeled as racists, xenophobes, and (as I was) nativists. The fact of the matter is, this is our country and we have a right to say who gets to come here and under what circumstances they get to do so. Americans, who overwhelmingly do not support this bill, want other measures taken before we deal with those who are here ILLEGALLY. We want a moratorium placed on immigration so that we can get a handle on the people who are here. We want tough penalties and fines for employers who have ILLEGALS on their payrolls and we want the border secure. By cracking down on employers the market for jobs will dry up and ILLEGALS will go elsewhere as evidenced by the crackdown in Panama City Florida. The sheriff has been showing up at construction sites with 5 or 6 cars and watching for people to run. They then pick them up for trespassing or speeding (as they ran through someone’s property or sped off) and report them to Immigration. The result is that ILLEGALS are leaving because employers are not hiring them. This can work across the country if we just enforce the law.
Once we have a cooling period where we have secured the border (with a fence or a wall as San Diego did), once we have weeded out the ILLEGALS from the job market by cracking down on employers and once we have a handle on what we have in this country (which should reduce through attrition as ILLEGALS find it more difficult to get work) then we can get to work on a truly comprehensive bill that would allow seasonal and guest workers to do some of the work we do not have enough people to accomplish. During that down time we can also clear the nearly 4 million person backlog of those waiting to get here legally.
One very important thing that needs to be done with regard to immigration is for Congress to revisit the 14th Amendment. I have written before discussing the 14th and how it was designed to confer Citizenship upon former slaves and their natural born children. The authors of the Amendment never intended it to confer Citizenship on children born to people who were here ILLEGALLY or to parents who are not citizens of our country. This has been discussed at length and the author’s own words clearly spell this out. However, the statement “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” has been misinterpreted and misapplied. It means you must be a subject of the state (and therefore the country) and have an allegiance to the US as in being a citizen or emancipated slave. We can clear this up if Congress passes a law that says one must be born to citizens to be a citizen and then invoke Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution to exempt the law from judicial review. This would allow the stated intent of the 14th to be carried out without activist judges interpreting it to fit their points of view and keep people from having “jackpot” or “anchor” babies to game the system.
America is not a nation of immigrants. We are a nation that came from immigrants but the majority of us came from families of people who, for generations, were born here. We welcome immigrants who come here legally with open arms and expect them to assimilate into our society, just as our founders intended. The melting pot took people from all places and molded them into Americans. This is an absolute must if we are to maintain our identity and our sovereignty as a nation.
Americans do not trust Congress to do what is right. They [Congress] have demonstrated that they can not so what is right and have failed miserably the other two times they had the chance. Now, instead of lumping everything in one bill, we want them to take baby steps. Do the right things that are needed first and then we can figure out how to handle the issue of the people involved.
That, Senator Kennedy, is where we go from here.
As an aside, does anyone see it as wrong that Ted Kennedy was involved in the first amnesty and 42 years later he is still at it? If ever there was a poster child for term limits, Kennedy would be it.
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