Announcements by candidates for president captured the news cycle in major media last week, as you know. Wouldn’t it be something if we voters ignored the drama of the upcoming horse race and all the hype for ruling by dynasty (there are candidates with names other than Clinton and Bush, you know) and, instead, use positions on issues as the measure?
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I don’t know about you, but I want to do better than just look at the ballot come November 2016, and I realize I haven’t done much homework. The effort starts now. The curse is there’s no way to be versed on the wide array of issues the long campaign presents. So, I’m planning to be more selective this time around.
We each get to choose what we pay attention to. Such diversity means collectively we voters make better decisions. One topic that I plan to focus on is immigration. It’s an issue I think our government, meaning we the people, can control but one that we’re fumbling.
I recently read the thoughts of Heather MacDonald, a contributing writer published in such newspapers and journals as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. She is also the author of three books, including “The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan Than Today’s.” Much of what follows are her thoughts.
The lesson from the last 20 years of immigration policy is that lawlessness breeds more lawlessness. Today, the rule of law is in profound jeopardy. We have a constitutional crisis on our hands. President Obama has decided that because Congress has not granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, he will do so himself.
What the president purports to fix is the absence of law, rather than executing a legislated law. Ponder that. If the Court of Appeals and, if necessary, the Supreme Court uphold the executive’s declaration for amnesty, then constitutional power has been redefined.
This isn’t a Democrat vs Republican matter. Democrats should hope the administration loses the court appeal. What’s to say, then, when a Republican president decides to privatize Social Security because Congress has failed to do so?
Have you wondered why there’s not more political attacks on the notion that America must “secure the borders?” The idea sounds simple, direct, and forceful. It is also naive and a meaningless delusion. The real battleground concerns the policies that undermine our ability to remove an illegal alien, even an illegal who comes here and immediately commits other crimes.
Deportation has basically disappeared from the interior of the country, according to Ms. MacDonald. If aliens can no longer be removed for illegal entry, there is no more immigration law. Deportation is the only remedy for illegal entry. If we lose deportation, the U.S. will have formally ceded control of its immigration policy to people living outside its borders. That is why advocates for amnesty choose to fight deportation policies rather than the notion to increase border security.
Want to see the future? Look at California.
You would think that an English learner would be someone who grew up in a foreign country speaking a foreign language, who came to the USA only later in life. Not so. In California, the vast majority of English learners are born here but their cognitive and language skills are so low that they are deemed non-native English speakers. Nationally, 30% of all English learner students are third-generation Americans.
Ms. MacDonald suggests the first thing before us is to rehabilitate deportation policies so that deportation for illegal immigration is once again considered normal. Every amnesty, she argues, both in the U.S. and Europe, has had one effect and one effect only – more illegal immigration.
MacDonald suggests that immigration policy should be forged with one consideration in mind: America’s economic self-interest.
Immigration is not a service we provide to the rest of the world, says MacDonald. Yes, we are a nation of immigrants and will continue to be one. But rewarding illegal immigration does an injustice to the many legal immigrants who played by the rules to get here.
Now, you don’t have to agree with Ms. MacDonald as much as I do. But you must consider this viewpoint and others in order to decide which presidential candidate we want to lead our nation. The work also includes slicing through all the campaign fodder to grasp what a candidate is most likely to do should he or she become president. And, of course, immigration policy is certainly not the only measuring stick we need to apply. Pick your poison.
Let’s begin doing our homework, shall we?