Monday, March 27, 2006

Illegal Immigration

"The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept." ~ William Shakespeare

I just finished listening to Lores Rizkalla's radio show on streaming audio from Radio KRLA out of Los Angeles. Lores is a long time blogger buddy of mine who has risen above the rest of us poor saps toiling in utter obscurity to get her own radio program, and it is really gaining popularity.

This morning, one of her guests was David Horowitz, Conservative (who used to be Liberal) author of "Dangerous Professors" or "The 101 most Dangerous Academics in America", but the topic that dominated the first hour of her show was the topic about illegal immigration.

I want to go on record here to say that I am not against immigration per se. I am against illegal immigration. Well, I don't suppose that makes me any different than the majority of Americans. Except you start to wonder when you discover that 500,000 people marched in protest of the introduction of a bill that would further restrict illegal immigration in L.A., and then I say to myself, "What is wrong with this picture?"

Listen: I take my son over to Frederick, Maryland (home of Hood College, where they just elected the nations first female Homecoming King, but that's a subject for another post) on occasion so he can go skateboarding in the skate park they have over there, which is situated in a very nice public park that has a lot of amenities, like the aforementioned skatepark, soccer fields, picnic shelter houses, basketball courts, and two outdoor street hockey rinks, wherein Hispanics (I use the term Hispanics because I don't really know if they are all Mexicans or if they are from various Latin American countries) from all over town gather to play a kind of outdoor indoor soccer game.

When I tire of watching my son try various skateboard tricks (did I mention he's very good?), sometimes failing and sometimes succeeding, I often wander over to the hockey rinks and watch the soccer games. Over time, I have had many opportunities to speak to some of the participants. They speak and understand little English, but my Spanish comprehension is usually good enough to facilitate some semblance of conversation.

What I have found are some very nice people. They are hard working, hard playing, industrious, decent, friendly, law-abiding people who just happen to be from another country. This, in and of itself, doesn't make them bad people. I don't know if they are illegal or not and I haven't asked. Nor should I, if I want to keep enjoying the games.

Point 1: Whether they are nice, decent, hard working, law-abiding good people is irrelevant if they are illegal. All illegal immigrants should be deported. The very designation, "illegal" makes them criminals. I would truly hate to see my new-found friends be deported, but if they are illegal, they must go.

Point 2: This illegal immigrant problem wouldn't be nearly as bad as it has become if (a) it wasn't so damn difficult to get into this country legally, and (b) if El Presidente Vincente Fox wouldn't encourage them to jump the border.



Point 3: There is no way we can control whether someone from a middle eastern country (read Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Whatever) saunters across our southern and northern borders(don't forget Canada) carrying a parcel that contains something that will cause massive amounts of destruction both to infrastructure and humans.

Solutions?

1: Reform and refine the process of legal immigration. Some who want to immigrate here legally wait years, sometimes decades, for the go ahead to enter legally. There simply is no need for all this red tape. If we can streamline the process to where it only takes a few weeks, or better yet, a few days to approve an entry visa or whatever, how many prospective immigrants would opt to do it the legal way? Especially if...

2. We go ahead and spend the funds necessary to actually build a real wall across the borders, and man them with real people with real guns and real authority and real technology to track and arrest the illegals who still, after all these precautions, manage to sneak across anyway. I find it rather insane that we can find one cow in an obscure, nondescript field somewhere in Wyoming that has mad cow disease, but we can't find millions of illegal immigrants living right under our collective noses.

OK. We know why neither Democrats or Republicans don't seem to want to take the lead in implementing better methods of protecting our borders. So the only thing we can do from where we sit in our homes is to contact our representatives in Congress up to and including the President and demand some action. Any action.

Our votes count. Let's make sure they understand that

10 comments:

Lone Ranger said...

This problem, like the income tax, is unfixable. Despite 80 percent of Americans wanting illegal immigration stopped, the politicians don't have the guts to do anything about it. Now they're pushing through a guest worker program. If ILLEGAL immigrants won't comply with the laws on the books, why would anyone think they'd comply with new laws? We wouldn't have 12 million illegals in this country if existing laws were being enforced. Why should we think new laws will be enforced? What are these jobs that Americans will not take? I worked on my uncle's ranch when I was a teen and there was no job I refused to do. Is there a boiling in oil job I don't know about? Rehearsing Barbra Streisand in her political speeches? Massaging Rosie O'Donnell?

Mark said...

Yuck. Massaging Rosie O'Donnell? That image puts me right off my feed. I doubt even an illegal alien would want to do that.

Erudite Redneck said...

http://www.wingsofjustice.com
/06/03/woj06012.html

Tom said...

Excellent post, Mark. The points are well made.

BTW - you are linked on my blog.

Francis Lynn said...

Wow, did you pick my fav topic. I have about 60,000 words to say about that, but I think I would exceed your comment limit. It's better to go to my blog, BorderWatch:
http://brokenborders.blogspot.com/
It's all about illegal aliens - those neato folks who do work Americans can't get.

Lone Ranger said...

I'd be willing to pay an extra few cents for a piece of fruit if it meant that higher wages were paid to LEGAL fruit pickers. On the other hand, the United States has over 95% employment, defying the Democrat lie that our economy is suffering. Maybe it isn't a matter of jobs that Americans won't take but that there aren't enough Americans to take them. Still, that problem would be resolved through legal immigration.

Erudite Redneck said...

I'm positive that Hillary and all but the most incorrigible of freaks of nature are against abortion. Myself included. Against abortion. But that's not what you mean, CP.

And I'm also positive that the only people who are "against" homosexuals are those who are afraid of them or who hate them -- so how is that Jesus-like? As far as the old saw, "hate sin, love the sinner." I just don't believe it when people say that. Besides, I'm pretty sure the only sin I am called, as a Christian, to fight is my own. I'm called to love God and to love my neighbor as myself -- including sinners, saved and unsaved, straight or gay.

Mark said...

ER, I don't know what that has to do with illegal immigration but Laura Ingraham played that fictional closing argument on her radio program and laughed at it, saying it was some of the worst writing she'd ever heard.

Mark said...

ER, You say, "And I'm also positive that the only people who are "against" homosexuals are those who are afraid of them or who hate them -- so how is that Jesus-like? As far as the old saw, "hate sin, love the sinner." I just don't believe it when people say that."

Well, ER, I neither am afraid of or hate homosexuals, but I hate what they do sexually. It is perversion no matter how you look at it. I can't speak for others.

I have known many homosexuals, and off hand, I cannot think of any that I didn't like personally. I conversed with them, laughed, joked, worked, played games, teased, drank, ate, traveled, and roomed with them. Didn't bother me in the least.

I will, if they want to listen, tell them what I believe God has to say about homosexuality, and if they want to change their ways, I will help them as much as I can. That is not a problem for me, either.

And I will tell them exactly what I think. If they don't like it, they don't have to answer to me, they have to answer to God.

It is easy to hate the sin and love the sinner. I do it all the time. LOL! I still like you!

Erudite Redneck said...

LOL. Back at ya!