In the beginning, promises of ridding congress of back room deals, amendments full of pork, the practice of passing bills which congress has not had the time to thoroughly debate and creating more transparency for the public before any voting on legislation occurred was music to the ears of some on the right and most of those in the middle. And while those on the left also supported eliminating these practices, little did they suspect that their very existence as a political party was dependent upon them. For most of us reality has now set in. Cooperation in congress is down, bipartisanship is up and the performance of our political system has stalled. The show goes on and we (currently just less than 50%) still love our president.
The present immigration legislation is taking the same path as the Affordable Health Care Act (see the practices identified above). Of primary concern in this legislation, which has of course largely avoided public debate - missed is more like it since the cloture vote in the senate occurred yesterday and I will bet the vast majority of Americans have no clue - is the key provision, as part of section 3214(b) dealing with family unification. The section gives the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, discretion to waive the provisions as to removal, deportation and inadmissibility of illegal aliens not just for family ”hardship” (which itself is huge) but for any reason the Secretary deems in the ”public interest.” This same loose language preventing accountability for the other "promises" of the legislation was written into the Affordable Health Care Act and is reason in and of itself to just say no to this bill.
In addition, through amendments the bill has become a grab bag for some of the usual suspects including, among others, Harry Reid's extension of the Travel Promotion Act to benefit Las Vegas; Susan Collins redirection of immigration enforcement money from the southwest to the northeast; and for the state of Alaska (securing the votes of Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich) special treatment for Alaskan seafood plants.
What exactly do these amendments have to do with immigration? Nothing. They are part of our political system and the sacrifices made to "buy" votes. Part of the despicable behavior, then Senator, Obama promised to fix.
Immigration is important to America and not only had a positive impact in our past but is an asset to the present and the strength of our future. That is of course if it is properly and fairly enforced. Neither of which has occurred under previous bills (enforcement) or will occur under the proposed bill (fairness - it is subjective at best and lacks accountability at worst). The pending immigration legislation has seen debates over topics like the number of DUI's a current illegal alien can have before they are deported under the new law; should it be two or three? Yes you read that correctly - breaking the law by being an illegal alien is dismissed and the debate now is how many additional times an illegal alien can break the law before we deny their request for citizenship.
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
Theodore Roosevelt
We must not support legislation simply for the purpose of having the legislation to right a wrong. The wrong legislation will not make things right. Cross reference the Affordable Health Care Act.
Contact your representatives now before it is too late. They can do a better job of securing our border and providing a solution for the millions of illegal aliens who both support America and qualify for citizenship. But neither should we fool ourselves, some of them will need to be deported.
This Show Must NOT Go On!
Footnote: I purposely chose to use the term illegal rather than undocumented for clarity, not (just) to point out the foolishness of that politically correct locution. Undocumented implies the administrator made the mistake. Illegal implies the perpetrator made the mistake.
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