BRINGING BALANCE TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
By Maj. Gen. Jerry R. Curry (Ret'd)
CurryforAmerica.com
Our
country has stopped breathing. The United States
needs leaders in the White House and in Congress who
aren’t afraid to pick up the nation by its heels,
give it a good hard smack on its bottom and get it
breathing again – get us working together again.
Today, the President and Congress have stopped
cooperating and working together. For the good of
the country and, as a first order of business, they
need to bring sensible compromise and reasonable
balance back to our federal government.
Each
political party has a list of policy issues on which
they believe it would be a sin to compromise. They
equate compromising on these issues the same as
surrendering the nation’s most sacred principles and
beliefs; which obviously is not the case. It is just
that each political party has allowed its issues to
have become so hardened that they block off all
possibility of compromise and agreement. One of
these issues is the illegal immigration problem.
To
solve this problem, we must first gain control of
our southern border. That is not nearly so difficult
to do as is imagined. It takes will power,
determination and persistence. The President need
only turn to the Secretary of Defense and say
something like, “This is a matter of national
defense. I want our southern border secured within
ninety days.” Sometime in the next ninety days the
Secretary will report back to the President and say,
“The border is now secured. Do you have other
actions or orders pertaining to the border at this
time?”
For
the military, gaining control of our southern border
in a few weeks is certainly doable. Overnight the
East Germans and Russians erected a ninety-six mile
long concertina barbed-wire barrier between East and
West Germany. When the citizens of Berlin went to
bed that night in the summer or 1961 there was no
barrier; when they woke up the next morning West
Berlin had been sealed off from East Berlin and
there were armed guards controlling the border
crossing check points.
The
political road block to bringing the immigration
flow across our southern border to a halt is not the
Congress; it is the President. In myriad speeches he
has said, “I don’t bluff,” which is to say that he
doesn’t change his mind, which is to say that he
refuses to compromise. Even though he says that he
is wide open to compromise and is willing to listen
to new ideas, at the same time he proudly proclaims
that, “There is one thing I will not do …” Then he
proceeds to cut the feet out from under all
possibility of compromise.
If
there is one lesson that Obama’s actions as
President over the past four years should have
taught us it is that every issue or problem must be
settled President Obama’s way, or it is the highway.
There is no reasonable concept of compromise in the
man, no middle ground.
The
illegal immigration issue is not a question of
citizenship; rather, it is a question of obeying the
law. Do illegal immigrants from south of the border
want to become U.S. citizens or do they simply want
to legally live and work in the U.S. and enjoy
America’s benefits?
Once
you separate the freedom to work issue from the
citizenship issue, the problem almost resolves
itself. In the non-hostile environment that such
action fathers, the flames of dissention and hatred
quickly die down and the badly needed fine policy
details of immigration can be honestly, decently,
and quickly worked out.
Immigrants illegally born in this country, or those
who have been illegally brought to this country when
they were little children and have lived here ever
since, could be issued some type card permitting
them to legally live and work in this country
indefinitely – but they should not be offered
citizenship. To be eligible for citizenship they
should have to apply following all of the current
laws and legalities.
Those
who, as adults, crossed the border illegally could
be issued another color card authorizing them to
legally live and work in the U.S. -- say for four
years.
At the end of that time, those who have not
qualified for citizenship in some way should be
deported.
For
the good of the country and the immigrants, the
nation’s illegal immigration problem needs to be
solved quickly, and we need to quit using it as a
voter’s bribe or some kind of political football.
Solving the problem is doable. It simply takes a
willingness to firmly engage in realistic
negotiation and compromise.
Unfortunately, the temptation is to continue kicking
the illegal immigration can down the road where it
will continue to be sidetracked; or to let it slide
off the rails completely and into the government’s
judicial and bureaucratic abyss, which will be a net
loss for the country.