Immigration Reform Must Be Consistent

Lewis shoots straight and clear, at first, when he writes "The last thing Senator Graham or anyone else who cares about America should want is for people they consider bigots to shut up." Free speech is something that should never be silenced. It is a right set forth in the Constitution and has made the country a place worth living in.

However, Lewis and I immediately part ways when he writes "I cant count the number of times I've heard people proclaim support for legal immigration while stating opposition to illegal immigration. It just doesn't ring true." Maybe I'm missing the inconsistency he sees in this opinion. Maybe a few questions could be asked to discern what he means.

Is it consistent to be for upholding the laws and against breaking them?
Is it consistent to be for people who uphold the laws and against those people that break them?
Is it consistent to demand that our representatives uphold the laws and to demand that they do not allow our laws to be broken?

Again, I could be just entirely missing the inconsistency he sees, but the answers to these questions are painfully obvious. How much more consistent can a person be?

Lewis goes on to write that it is impossible to fix the illegal immigration problem if you don't fix the legal immigration problem. I have to, yet again, disagree. There are terms in politics that describe the desires people have which propel them in a certain direction. We hear it all the time. The terms are push and pull factors. There is a lack of jobs or prosperity in one country and the availability of jobs and prosperity in another. Obviously people are pushed against the lacking in their lives and toward fulfillment. Now, apply that same concept to our borders. People want to come to the U.S. because we have jobs, freedom, and security. No one blames them for wanting to come. Wherever they are from, they want to come here because of some push factor. At this time, what push factors do we have to make them not want to come? None. We have a catch and release program where illegals can get arrested for something and never show up for their court date, allowed to disappear. We allow their children to be born here and become citizens, thereby accomplishing two goals. The first is to make the life of their child better, by making them a citizen for life, and the second is to make it so they will never have to leave because their child is here and needs a parent, or two parents.

There are however some push factors that we can have in place, that make the legal route the one of least resistance. First off, the double border fence would make it ever harder to come in. Sure, people find ways around fences. But how much harder would it be to have to find a way around the fence. Secondly, for those that do want to find a way around, increase border agents to patrol the border. Couple that with a virtual fence, which President Bush believes will do the job in and of itself. This will allow our new force of border agents to get to any point in the fence fast enough to send the illegals back. Third, we could enact strict penalties against businesses that use the illegal labor, thus making it a very large risk to employ illegals. No jobs and harder passage make for a pretty difficult time for someone who wants to break our laws. And that's what they are, intentions or no, law breakers. Hence the term Illegal (Alien, Immigrant, Worker, etc.)

Enforcing the border is of course one single way in which we can combat the deluge of people coming into the country illegally. Lewis writes that four out of ten come in the front door. Fine. Make it very difficult to get a job, which is included in the solution. I would bet that they would be trying to get that visa renewed or aching to go home (a.k.a. obeying the laws)

Lewis quotes Don Emge, of the Catholic Diocese of Cape Girardeau, who mentions that illegal immigrants are now choosing more hostile areas to go because we are strengthening security around the usual routes. In these hostile areas some of those who try and cross are dying. Now, instead of giving them the credit of being rational, reasonable, - responsible - adults, he makes it sound as if they had no choice in the matter and we were just being so inhumane to them by making them cross in the desert. I have never heard something so ridiculous as this. These people have a choice. They can choose to come, and they can choose to cross in the desert. Or not. Its not inhumane, its a matter of fact. It would be inhumane if we found them out there starving and dying of thirst, and just left them. But we don't really do that do we? We pick them up, take them in, and if they would just appear for their court dates we would ship em back out. But no, instead we help them across. I'm not quite understanding how that is inhumane. My question for Mr. Emge is, "Is it inhumane to allow people to go rock climbing, if sometimes they fall?" After all, they have a choice to go. They can take precautions, but sometimes bad things happen. Its a risk of making that choice, as they know very well.
As for those legal immigrants that are "made to feel like lepers," I don't have any idea what they are talking about. Americans are accommodating, just look at all the double language signs everywhere. Sure there are bad apples that treat immigrants badly, but most recognize that immigrants, legal ones, are what this country was built on and is most likely where they are from. I guess you can find somebody to say anything. Those that do alienate those legal immigrants by rude or unwarranted behavior should be ashamed.

My problem with Lewis' entire column is that he insinuates that the majority of Americans (A.K.A. those that did not want amnesty) are bigots. Sure, Lewis gave his little "they may not be," but then he writes that most people who are working against amnesty are not working for a better immigration system. Maybe not, maybe so. It doesn't matter. His blanket generalization, as well as Lindsay Graham's, is insulting and is where the real bigotry shines through. Next time someone disagrees with Brian Lewis or Lindsay Graham, be careful or they may just say you are a racist or a bigot (demagoguery). How unproductive.