The Guests

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

A couple I am acquainted with have owned a spacious home for many years. It has much more living space than they need, and more of the amenities than they need, or even use. In fact, they don't even use several of the rooms. They rarely make use of the indoor heated pool, the game room, the gymnasium, and they have yet to play a single game of tennis on their tennis court. They are simply too busy working and jetting around the world to exotic locales.

Often, the house sits unoccupied for months at a time, with only their hired caretaker to patrol the grounds, mow the lawn, and do other routine maintenance.

However, it belongs to them. No one else owns any part of this home. It is all theirs, and they have the right to reside, or not reside there. It is their choice.

Recently, my friends came home from a trip to Italy, and found a young couple had taken up residence in their home uninvited. The strangers refused to leave after my friends politely asked them to, and, after repeated demands to leave which met with stubborn refusals, they called the police.

Amazingly, the police refused to put the unwanted guests out of their home, noting that the couple had been hard at work since they arrived, maintaining the house and grounds, and indeed, they strangers had done such a fine job of keeping the house well maintained, the caretaker had resigned and moved on.

Since the strangers had not stolen anything and had treated my friends property with respect, and after the guests explained to them that they were only trying to make life better for themselves, and since my friends were rarely home, they reluctantly agreed to let them stay, at least until they could get back on their feet, as long as they promised to continue to maintain the residence and cause no trouble.

After it had become clear that this arrangement appeared to be working, my friends decided it was safe for them to leave the home for a couple of weeks. The guests, although originally unwanted and uninvited, had proven themselves trustworthy.

Upon returning home, to their surprise, they found their guests had invited several members of their extended family to move in with them, and now, in addition to the original young couple, their elderly parents, their siblings, and their siblings children were occupying the home.

Again, the local police refused to do anything because, once again, the only crime they had committed was trespassing, and they compensated for that by being good stewards of my friends property.

My friends were not completely pleased with this arrangement, but, as the police explained, as long as no serious crimes other than trespassing was committed, they might as well get used to having unwanted guests. So, my friends decided to try to make the best of their situation.

This cycle repeated itself every time my friends had to leave for any amount of time, until eventually, their once spacious mansion became so crowded, there was little room for the actual owners.

Once, one of the children fell and cut his finger on a rusty nail. My friends took the child to the emergency room, and, because the child's parents didn't have insurance or jobs, my friends paid the medical bill.

In addition to footing the medical bills for the uninvited guests, they were also paying for most of the food and clothing, and other expenses incurred as most of the guests had no jobs, and the ones that did, didn't make enough money to pay their own way. Then their guests began insisting my friends give them furniture and decorative items and electronic gadgets.

Eventually, my friends had to declare bankruptcy and move out of their home. Their guests have yet to repay their kindness.

I'm sure you are probably thinking, "That's crazy! How could anyone let people just walk all over them that way? Why did they not do anything to stop it?"

Why? Because it is crazy. The story isn't true. It is a parable.

But it illustrates the problem with allowing illegal aliens into our country unchecked and unsupervised.

The Conservative blogs and talk show hosts are forever pointing out insidious crimes committed by illegal aliens in this country, but I am going to say, for the record, that for every crime committed by illegal aliens, one can find probably at least ten illegal aliens who are just living and working, and making a life for themselves and their families, and not causing any trouble, whatsoever.

It makes no difference. Just because they are not murdering, stealing, raping, or committing other crimes, it does not mean they are no longer illegal.

The whole illegal alien problem basically comes down to one incontrovertible fact: They are illegal by virtue of the fact that they entered this country illegally, without going through proper immigration procedure.

Illegal is illegal. It does not change to legal simply because we let them get away with violating our laws.

If we allow this problem to continue unabated, we will someday become strangers in our own land.