Immigration

Alas, my poor blog. I have been rather busy as of late, and have somehow not had much time to blog and even less time to think of something good to blog on...so it has been a while.

I have been hearing a lot about the immigration issue lately, and am not quite sure what to think. It is true that we need what immigrants have to offer, and if we expelled all of the illegal immigrants without replacing them our economy would be in trouble. But it is also true that one of the reasons that America is not a third world country is that we do actually enforce our laws.

It is a heart wrenching problem because this is not something abstract. People's lives and futures are at stake. There are a huge number of people here in the US who broke the law by choosing to enter this country illegally. Mexico is a third world country. Most of the people who have come here illegally from Mexico have come in search of a better life, and many have found it.

However, is it justifiable to flaunt the law and then accuse the government of unfairness when they enforce the law? Perhaps the law should not be there, perhaps we should have open borders. Perhaps. But that is not the case now.

If America was almost any other country, this wouldn't be an issue. But America is softhearted. America might actually respond to international guilt trips. This puts my country in a really hard situation with no obvious right answer. No matter what happens, there will be problems.

It is, however, the ability to deal with situations like this in a just manner that helps to make America great. I don't know what the right answer is, but I trust that given time, the answer will come, and things will change. I don't know that I trust the government to do that, but if they cannot, the voice of the people will be heard. It is the American way.

Having said that, I have thought of some possible options. The most logical way out of this situation seems to be to deport all illegal immigrants while drastically increasing the number of legal immigrants. That way those deported have a better chance of making it back into the country if they want to, and also the economy won't collapse from lack of a labor source.

One argument against this idea is that it is cruel to uproot people who are upstanding citizens and have lived in this country for a long time. Anyone who is in the US illegally, however, knew the possible consequences when they came (other than those who were infants or very small children at the time). They should be thankful for the time they did have here before they got caught. That is they way this country works....you break the law, you pay the price. The issue isn't the color of someone's skin, the issue is the enforcement of laws to avoid anarchy.