Amnesty, border security, and swine flu… oh my! (Updated Arizona Edition, 4/24/10)

Warning: This blog will be construed as racist by the left.  Terms such as “illegal aliens” will be used.  If you find yourself in agreement, you may be labeled as an extremist.  You have been warned.

by Michael Naragon

UPDATE (4/24/10): Nearly a year to the date that I originally wrote this piece, Arizona has agreed to begin checking on the immigration status of its residents and arresting illegals.  Barack Obama, champion of illegal immigrant rights, has vowed to fight the law, which has around 70% approval among Arizona’s legal population.

Tonight, on the Mike McConnell radio talk show, McConnell’s fill-in host was lambasting the Tea Party activists for their apparent support of the Arizona law, saying it was one of the most restrictive moves against individual liberty imaginable, a frightening “slippery slope.”  According to the host, if you support limiting government’s influence concerning taxes, health care, and the like, then you must be against the government’s ability to check on the legal status of its residents.  He then went through the litany of arguments used to show that illegals are no real threat to the country, and that moves to restrict them or remove them are really moves against the free market system and individual liberties:

1) Illegals do jobs no one else wants to do. Really?  In an economy with over 10% unemployment?  Unlikely these days, which is why some illegals are beginning to leave of their own accord.

2) Illegals are a drain on public services, but we should ignore this and just figure out a way to make them pay taxes. If this were a feasible strategy, it would have already been proposed and taken hold.  I don’t buy into the proposal that things will be economically wonderful if only the illegals would pay taxes.  Their drain on the system is not limited to schools, welfare, and health care.  Much of the money they make is not kept in our system in any form.  It is sent back to Mexico, taken out of the American economic loop.  How would this be any different under a Fair Tax or flat tax?  They need to go.

3) Restricting illegals is a restriction on all of us. Hardly.  One of the government’s functions–legitimate functions–is to provide for the common defense.  This, in my opinion, includes protecting and securing the border.  For years, our nation has failed to perform this function, resulting in our current problem.  Legitimate citizens should have no qualms about showing a driver’s license to a police officer if it means we begin to weed out those who commit crimes, steal American jobs, steal American identities, and soak up the forced generosity of taxpayers.

Ok, off the soap box for the moment.  Please feel free to check out the following article and see how far we’ve come in a year.  Or, rather, 220 years.

———–

In February of 1790, the United States House of Representatives launched a debate concerning the qualifications for naturalization.  The colonies were still in the process of ratifying the new Constitution, and the representatives of the young Republic saw immigration rules as a priority.

Interestingly, they were concerned with several issues that Americans are concerned with in 2009.  Thomas Hartley of Pennsylvania expressed his desire that some federal qualifications for citizenship be enforced, because in some states, the “terms of citizenship are made too cheap in some parts of the Union; to say, that a man shall be admitted to all the privileges of a citizen, without any residence at all, is what can hardly be expected.”

Roger Sherman of Connecticut concurred that the naturalization standard should be federal, so as not to force one state to accept people as citizens simply because another state with weaker standards had done so.

James Madison, the man who is credited by many as the true architect of the Constitution, warned:

“When we are considering the advantages that may result from an easy mode of naturalization, we ought also to consider the cautions necessary to guard against abuses.  It is no doubt very desirable that we should hold out as many inducements as possible for the worthy part of mankind to come and settle amongst us, and throw their fortunes into a common lot with ours. But why is this desirable? Not merely to swell the catalogue of people. No, sir, it is to increase the wealth and strength of the community; and those who acquire the rights of citizenship, without adding to the strength or wealth of the community are not the people we are in want of.”

In short, unless those who are allowed to enter our country bring with them the wealth and strength to make our country greater, we would be better off without them.

Throughout recent history, during the tenure of both Republicans and Democrats in the White House, our borders have remained open and free.  Open to all who would enter our country with no intention of seeking citizenship or contributing to the “strength or wealth of the community”; free to those who would use our economy and our businesses to enrich another nation, to keep their wages from benefiting America by sending them directly to their home countries.

In 2007, Congress and President Bush attempted to pass an “amnesty” bill, allowing such illegal immigrants a fast track to citizenship in the United States and, although Janet Napolitano does not consider illegal immigration a crime, amnesty.  Those who wished the bill to become law argued that many illegals are good members of society, that deportation would result in broken families, and that illegals, particularly from Mexico, were willing to take jobs that “ordinary” Americans refused.

Their solution to the tensions surrounding the scores of illegal border crossings was to give those illegals a blanket pardon and citizenship.

This 21st century notion of instant gratification seems to run directly against the First Congress’ ideas.  Rep. James Jackson went so far as to say, “I think, before a man is admitted to enjoy the high and inestimable privileges of a citizen of America, that something more than a mere residence amongst us is necessary.”

Jackson wished to make citizenship of the United States a more difficult process than simply crossing a desert at night or sloshing through a shallow river.  Those who wished to be a part of the greatest nation in the world would be more than willing to jump through a few hoops, Jackson explained.  He was absolutely correct.

In the 2009 version of America, our government looks at citizenship like a kids’ club membership.  Interest alone is enough, just send in your UPC codes and you’ll receive your certificate in the mail.  Membership into the citizenry of the United States of America, however, is something more.  It is not simply a participation trophy.  And it should not be handed to those who come to this country only to make money and leave.

“They stick to us until they get their fill of our best blood,” said S.C. Rep. Aedamas Burke, referring to such leeches on the United States, “and then they fall off and leave us. I look upon the privilege of an American citizen to be an honorable one, and it ought not to be thrown away upon such people.”  “Thrown away” seems to be a valid synonym for “amnesty.”

After the amnesty bill (the so-called “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007″) was tabled because of general American outcry against it, attention was once again focused on securing the nation’s borders.  Calls for fences and guard towers were demagogued by members of both parties, describing them as un-American, similar to Soviet or Nazi methods of border control.  Meanwhile, streams of Mexican “undocumented workers” flooded across our southern states, bringing crime and, as of late, disease.

A Justice Department report released in 2006 estimated that 270,000 illegal immigrants served time in federal prisons in 2003.  Of those, nearly 108,000 were jailed in California alone.  The report estimated that in California, nearly half of all federal inmates were illegal immigrants.  Experts also estimate that thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East, some of whom are likely associated with terrorist groups, use the Mexican-American border to enter the country each year.

In October 2001, Rep. Tom Tancredo warned, “It’s almost incredible to recognize, as part of the overall strategy this government is going to employ to deal with the issue of terrorism, that we would not concentrate heavily on securing our borders and try to do everything humanly possible to stop people, who have evil intent, from coming into the United States.”

Now, in 2009, it appears as though our lack of attention to the border has resulted in a potential pandemic reaching the United States.  The swine flu, a strain of bird influenza that affected pigs and has now combined with other strains to strike humans, has killed over 80 people in Mexico, as of Sunday night.  Over 1,300 people in Mexico City alone are fighting the disease in local hospitals, according to reports.  And the disease has come north.

In New York, a group of schoolchildren who recently returned from a Mexico trip have brought the disease with them, and at least eight of them have been affected.  The flu has also appeared in California, Texas, Ohio, and Kansas.  The Center for Disease Control and the Department of Homeland Security have issued warnings to the nation to prepare for school closings and other precautionary measures.

And while our medical personnel fight to contain this apparently deadly disease, our borders remain open and free, and illegal immigrants continue to flow into the nation, now potentially bringing the beginning of a deadly pandemic with them.  International health officials say the world is unprepared to deal with a general pandemic, such as the Spanish Flu which appeared in 1918 and killed 50 million people.

Whether the current strain is a repeat of some of its deadlier kin or simply a flash in the pan, the fact that our government still takes no action to close down the borders of the United States as a quarantine precaution shows how far we have come.  Are our president and our Congress so dedicated to the proposition that our borders should be open to any and all, regardless of their circumstances or motives,  that they are willing to sacrifice American lives for it?

In 1790, our Founding Fathers, including Aedamas Burke, believed that such negligence was criminal, that the admittance of criminal or, in this case, potentially diseased illegal immigrants was to be avoided at all costs.

“I wish sincerely some mode could be adopted to prevent the importation of such,” explained Burke.  “The introduction of them ought to be considered as a high misdemeanor.”  Now, where can we find 535 pairs of handcuffs?

A full transcript of the 1790 Congressional debate can be found at:

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_4_citizenships8.html