Illegal Immigration Is Not A Side Issue

As the battles over health care, cap 'n tax, additional stimulus money and the host of leftist schemes rage, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that a much longer-standing battle is being waged, and the Democrats would like you to put it on the back burner. As the electorate flees the Obama agenda, the Democrats need instant voters, and they intend to get them. That plan requires quick and immense naturalization of immigrants who are in the United States illegally.

It is far too easy to fall into complacency about alien amnesty, since previous bills have gone the way of the Kyoto accords. Nevertheless, the nation is distracted with so many massive government schemes coming down the pike that an amnesty could slip through, nearly unnoticed. In addition, there are many indications that the pro-immigration crowd is much better organized for this round, and have learned how to plan their amnesty so that it slips in under the radar. On top of that, there are so many hot button issues in front of Congress that this vital issue might not produce the immediate negative reaction that the Democrats fear on most of the others.

The pro-amnesty crowd has a much more favorable environment than in the past. With the economic doldrums hurting every business, including farms, illegal immigration has fallen to near-record lows. Those who still come in find it harder to hide among the illegals hanging out in the parking lots of the local 7-11s looking for illegal wages that have dried up. Many of the illegals who have avoided committing crimes (or at least avoided getting caught) have become familiar to their legal neighbors. The criminal creation of fake visas has now nearly caught up with the influx of illegal border-crossers, lending an air of false legality to their presence in the United States. The Latino populations of some major cities have grown by such numbers that a Latin American immigrant who doesn't speak a word of English doesn't seem nearly as out of place as would have been the case fifteen or twenty years ago.

The cancer of illegal immigration is temporarily in remission, but the disease of large numbers of illegal immigrants already here is waiting to spring into full metastisization. Numbers generally hovering around twelve million describe the current state of affairs. Even the radical friend of all things French, Thomas Jefferson, once announced that the the thought of the sudden appearance of 5 million Frenchmen on America's shores demanding entry and citizen rights terrified him. He was no more a Francophobe than the vast majority of us are Latinophobes. But even the radical Jefferson could see that a constitutional republic could not long survive huge numbers of unrestrained immigrants from nations with no tradition of democracy or the rule of law becoming instant citizens.

Today, amnesty would not likely produce an instant wave of further illegal immigration, and that fact works in favor of the pro-amnesty crowd. Previous amnesties produced no sudden new influx. But we can learn from that mistake. Once the economy turned around, and we had large numbers of formerly illegal immigrants beckoning to their friends and families to come and join them, the race across the border began again in earnest. We cannot and must not repeat that mistake.

One major issue that worked against amnesty the last time has been resolved by the passage of time, organization, and the pro-union leftists in Congress and the Obama administration. Previously, there was a debilitating split in the union ranks over illegal immigration and amnesty. Many union workers and some of their union bosses saw the intrusion of illegals into the work force as harmful to the wages and perquisites of native-born union members. Today, that split has been resolved in large part, either voluntarily or by imposition from the top. The SEIU, a union much beloved of the Obama administration, owes a large portion of its success to recruiting illegal immigrants into the union. Previously, the unions favored immigrants as guest workers but still insisted that even those here legally follow the regular path to citizenship. Today, the union leaders and their thugs (as if there is any difference) see a massive potential for grabbing union dues while dictating policy to Congress and the White House. It's a deadly and dangerous brew. The undemocratic "card check" vision of the Obama administration only causes that brew to ferment more quickly.

Money from Washington DC, the assistance of coerced small business owners, union thuggery, and the activities of crypto-criminal enterprises such as ACORN have brought previously unimagined funds into the pro-amnesty, pro-illegal immigration coffers. Academia has spent considerable time and effort on convincing young voters that being against unrestricted illegal immigration is identical to being against all immigration for our "brown brethren." If you're against illegal immigration, you're a racist (even though "race" has next to nothing to do with it). Well-funded "community organizations" are then free to recruit idealistic but misinformed cadres to spread the doctrine that "illegal immigrants are just like you," hiding the obvious fact that unless you're here illegally, they are not just like you. Their very first act in the United States was to break the law. Anyone who knows psychology, history and criminology knows that the first law broken is the hardest. Each successive criminal act becomes easier, and more justifiable in the mind of the criminal.

Most illegal immigrants are law-abiding and wish to stay that way. But the lure of one primary illegal act which produces great benefits is similar to the growth of the welfare state. Even those with strong individualistic mindsets are not going to turn down government benevolence when it's handed to them without having followed the rules and walked the path that had been required of previous immigrants. The Democrats in general, and the left wing of that beleaguered party in particular, are expending immense amounts of time and energy on convincing Americans that amnesty is simply a charitable act toward the poor and downtrodden which will merely produce loyal American citizens. They are also making it clear exactly who is in favor of making their illegality into a legal status, as well as who they owe their future votes to. Loyalty is inherent in the plan, but it's not loyalty to America, or to the rule of law. It's loyalty to the party that got them their free and undeserved gift against the party of those racists who were determined to keep them out.

If the plan succeeds because we let our guard down at exactly the wrong time, there will be future Joe Bidens and Harry Reids saying things like "why don't we run so-and-so for office, since he is a light-skinned Mexican and speaks with hardly a trace of his illegal alien roots?" The plantation mentality has worked rather well for the Democrats so far, so why not extend it to a group which can be created almost instantly in large numbers? And once again, the question becomes "who are the real racists in this scenario?" After all, one can't expect poor, uneducated, unskilled, and non-English speaking border-jumpers to succeed or think for themselves without the help of the Democratic Party. That point of view is demeaning to Hispanic immigrants, patronizing to illegals, and damaging to American unity--and it's the agenda of the Democratic Party.

The issue of national security is almost entirely ignored in this ongoing clouding of the real issues involved in the cancer of illegal immigration. Still, it is a very important issue. The likelihood of a large influx of Latino terrorists is slim, though the influx of murderous Latino gangs cannot be ignored (it's terrorism of a different sort). Still, the open borders policy of neglect from the Obama administration combined with its utter ignorance of who the real terrorists are is a one-two punch for American national security. If our porous borders allow large numbers of illegal (but otherwise peaceable) Hispanics to make it into America on a daily basis, how can we protect ourselves from Islamofascists slipping in with them? A "coyote" is in it for the money, and Al Qaeda has plenty of cash. Amnesty assures that "once you're in, you get to stay." Leftist city governments with "sanctuary" policies help to exacerbate the problem. These policies hover somewhere between dangerous naivete and willful sabotage.

As always, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We must not lose sight of the danger of illegal immigration and amnesty amidst the plethora of horrendous government programs the Democrats are foisting on America. The permanency of illegals who have received amnesty will remain, even as we dismantle the economic and military stupidity of the left following the next two election cycles. Socialized medicine will be a thing of the past. Stimulus bills will be few and far between. Cap 'n tax will not go far before being reversed. If we do not suffer a major terrorist attack in the interim, the military will be strengthened and the true enemy identified and hunted into extinction. But the society-destroying amnesty cannot be undone. It has to be stopped before it can get into law. It's one thing to cripple a bad tax scheme, but quite another to take away the citizenship of a duly naturalized citizen.

So watch your representatives, stay active, voice your opinion loudly and publicly, and oppose any move on the part of Obama and Congress to "fundamentally transform" America into a banana republic via an amnesty bill.