Thanksgiving Gut Check On Immigration - Doing Nothing Is Doing Something

Thanksgiving Gut Check On Immigration -
Doing Nothing Is Something - Wrong
by J. Atticus Bowden, Contributing Columnist

November 25, 2004

Columnist J. Atticus Bowden When you make that gut check on Thanksgiving: Can I handle another helping if I loosen my belt? Is my stomach settled enough for the first serving of ‘leftovers’? How long can this stuff stay out of the fridge and still be good? – make one more. Can I stomach what it will take to fix the illegal immigrant invasion? Like the football players in the fourth quarter, what is deep down in your guts that you are willing to do? How tough can you go, how long, how hard?

Immigration is a gut check because the price of policy is paid in tears. Stark choices cause pain. Who stays and who goes means selecting whose dreams are destroyed, whose home is emptied, whose security is threatened with life and death decisions. The immigrant and the native born American share every hard choice. We are two sides of the same coin. Homeland Security is purchased at the price of desperate, hard-working, one-time lawbreaking families, or not?

What is fair? What is justice? What is right? Different words for different outcomes.

It’s estimated that over one third of the 34 million foreign born population (the highest per cent of foreign born in U.S. history) are illegal. If so, and no one really knows, give a gut check on what to do with just 10 million illegal aliens – there may be more.

Take two years to build the return pipeline of new courts, officers, holding areas for families, laws to curtail judicial review, transportation, etc. – because the numbers are staggering. If the U.S. bagged, tagged and shipped 10 million illegals over five years (after the 2 year preparation) it would mean moving 40,000 people every week (50 weeks a year) for all five years. Gut check.

Plan A. Fulfill the Law. Spend the billions to set up the exit pipeline and do it as outlined above. Who can stand up to the weekly sob stories with real tears and tragedy on all media? America is a compassionate people who will be moved by the faces of the illegal immigrants to stop this – unless illegals, regardless of ethnicity and origin, are tied to another, worse 9-11 attack. This is not going to happen.

Plan B. Pay a Price. Make the illegals surface to be placed under strict parole and fine them a significant fee to cover the cost of their law breaking – in the tens of thousands of dollars by garnishing wages for however many years it takes. Let them earn citizenship. Fulfill the law for those who refuse to report – ship them out.

Plan C. President Bush’s Guest Workers. Amnesty light allows illegals to have kids in this country who will sponsor them as American citizens for legal immigration. This is a joke without a laugh track.

Plan D. Do Nothing. Make a show of improvements, but don’t really stop illegals. More of today’s policies.

All Plans fail if the border stays open. Either stop the immigrants from coming in or surrender national sovereignty. The President’s Plans (C and D) will fail. More illegals will come. Our low wage workers suffer because of the law of supply and demand. Our public services, especially health care and schools, will be more overburdened. And, next time there is a rough economic down turn, there will be real suffering for more people.

Some states and cities do not help the Federal agencies enforce the laws against illegal immigration. In fact, these Liberals impede the law. The U.S. Congress can not pass a law forcing them to obey Federalism because too many Congressmen can not get re-elected if they get tagged as ‘anti-immigrant’. It is almost too late to stop the illegal invasion.

Illegal immigration will get worse. The tired, hungry and poor masses of the world are growing more desperate. That doesn’t mean a generous America must be overrun. America could follow a “Munificent Destiny” to grow our economy and share our wealth by investing capital across the world.

The People must demand – and punish every politician who fails to deliver - real security and stability in healthy, controlled immigration. It’s up to the People to make local officials cooperate. End in-state tuition for illegals, stop handing out driver’s licenses, etc. - arrest illegals and hand them over to the Federal authorities. Stop the ‘catch and release’ of illegals. Make the U.S. Congress budget the costs.

America, you’ve got the ball. Run or fumble. ***

James Atticus Bowden has specialized in inter-disciplinary long range 'futures' studies for over a decade. He is employed by a Defense Department contractor. He is a retired United States Army Infantry Officer. He is a 1972 graduate of the United States Military Academy and earned graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University. He holds three elected Republican Party offices in Virginia. Contact at jatticus@aol.com.

____________________