Friday, July 20, 2007

A Nation of Laws?
Via TownHall this morning, written by Rebecca Hagelin:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RebeccaHagelin/2007/07/20/%20a_witness_to_newfound_liberty

Ah yes, what a wonderful example of the loopholes in our fabulous Immigration system:

If you’re a Cuban and can evade the Coast Guard, and then float, swim or wash ashore, you can stay -- because you’re politically oppressed and you have powerful lobbies (i.e. Cuban Exiles, the left-over Cold-Warriors) in Congress fighting tooth and nail to let you stay.

If you’re a Mexican or Central American and can sneak through a hole in a fence, wade across a river or manage to survive a day or two in the desert, and you manage to evade the Border Patrol, you can stay, because you’re poor, and you have powerful lobbies in Congress fighting tooth and nail to insure that you do (i.e. both political parties, the small business lobbies, tourism lobbies, labor unions, et. al.).

If you are Chinese, all you need to do is claim that the One Child policy of the People’s Republic is depriving you of your rights (whether you ever actually conceived, planned to conceive, had a child, are pregnant, were forced to have an abortion, or even to be sterilized, is often besides the point; you only have to assert that you were oppressed in this regard), and there will be powerful lobbies in Congress to ensure that you can stay.

In many cases, if you happen to have a skill (say, computer programming) which American companies lack (mostly because they shipped those skilled jobs overseas to begin with, removing the incentive for Americans to take those skills up), you can get an H-1B visa, and then you will have powerful lobbies in Congress who will fight for your right to stay (mostly because you work cheap).

And don’t worry about anything, because the American taxpayer, whose wages you're undercutting and whose communities you are wrecking, will foot the bill for it all. There will be powerful lobbies in Congress to ensure we do, whether we want to or not.

This makes sense? At what point did sympathy for the plight of others and friggin' logic diverge?

One set of immigrants who sneaks into the country is not welcome, and yet another is. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I think it's time we stopped making any kind of distinction and remember that these people BROKE THE GODDAMNED LAW!