duns wrote:OK, I get it now. The issue is illegals coming in with weapons not illegal entry per se. My proposal to solve this problem is to create more and easier pathways to legal immigration so that the gun-toting illegals will not be able to slip over while the Border Patrol is grossly overburdened by their duty to apprehend economic migrants. This would free up the Border Patrol so that it can concentrate on the real threat.
Not for me. I
do have a problem with illegals coming in with weapons (and other contraband), but that isn't my core issue. My core issue that
illegal aliens flaunt our laws and violate them with impunity by, among other things, entering
illegally. Our founding fathers created a system in which we are a nation of
laws, not of
men. When a nation is subject to the whims of men, it cannot last long. When it is subject to laws with which
all are expected to comply, then We The People have order. When We The People have order, then We The People can govern ourselves. When We The People have chaos, we cannot. Afghanistan is, and has been for centuries, largely chaotic. It has also been during most of its history, ungovernable. Times may change, but standards must remain, else
we become ungovernable.
Every single person who sneaks into the country illegally threatens that order, and therefore threatens our self-government. Again, we come down to who can vote, and who can't. As a voting citizen, I have a vested interest in maintaining that order. Every permanent alien resident who takes the path to citizenship also gains a vested interest in that order when they become voters.
I expect compliance with our laws —
ALL of our laws — from you, me, my neighbors (regardless of where they are from), and as a condition of entry for anyone from outside this country who wants to enter it. As AndyC pointed out above, aliens do not have a God-given
right to be here. Instead, what they have is
permission (or not) to be here. Without permission, they are unwanted intruders — particularly when all they have to do to become
wanted alien residents is to
ask permission to enter and obey
all of the laws — not just those laws that are convenient to them.
It is that fundamental. People who sneak in without asking permission disrespect me and my fellow citizens. They disrespect you and other alien residents who obeyed the laws to enter — whether or not you feel disrespected yourself. And, they disrespect those alien residents who have done all the necessary things and have become my fellow citizens. Try polling foreign born people who have earned their citizenship. You'll find a surprising commitment to the national integrity — in some cases, stronger than some who are fortunate enough to be born into American citizenship but do not cherish it as anything special. A person who would be so disrespectful of what all this means is not welcome to me in
my country. If they want to be so disrespectful of the law, then let them do so in their own country.
The argument that we should ignore illegal immigration because we are a nation built by immigrants ignores the historically undeniable truth that the VAST majority of those immigrants that built this nation over the past 200 years came here
legally; and some generations did so at times in our history when it was much, much harder to gain legal entry than it is now. And by the way, they were almost ALL economic immigrants, so that dog won't hunt either.
We can certainly explore methods of streamlining the immigration process. God knows, the federal government is not a model of efficiency. In fact, it performs far more functions today than the founders ever envisioned for it. In the beginning the role of the federal government was mostly limited to the making of treaties with foreign powers, regulating foreign trade, the national defense, the integrity of the national borders, protecting (without infringement) those enumerated rights guaranteed under the Constitution, and settling judicial disputes that could not be settled at the local or state level.
But addressing that efficiency doesn't fix the porous border because people of low character will still sneak in, like they always have done. It doesn't fix the problem of what to do with the 15-30 million (depending on whose figures you believe) illegals who are already here. And, it doesn't fix the problem of narco-terrorists gunning down American LEOs 90 miles inside our own borders.
