Amnesty Undermines Heritage of Legal Immigration
America
has a tradition and heritage of legal immigration. Through our elected
representatives, we set standards and qualifications for foreigners deemed
eligible and worthy to come here and eventually join us citizens. Illegal
immigration is quite different. It involves foreigners selecting themselves for
admission, irrespective of what American citizens want.
When we
grant legal status and citizenship to illegal aliens, we are letting them
control our future. By putting them in line ahead of legal immigrants, we are
telling those immigrants that they were foolish to respect our laws. That
affront weakens their incentive to assimilate to our laws and culture. Legal
status and citizenship for illegal aliens profoundly undermine our heritage of
immigration.
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Our heirtage of Immigration Law is the efforts of a majority to limit the influx of minorities that were precieved to be inferior. The limits on Chinese, Middle Eastern, and African immigrants. It's part of the "they don't look like us" syndrome.
If someone is willing to cross an ocean locked in a container on a freighter or make their way through jungles and deserts and then work at two jobs at a time, they show more than a little initiative and industriousness. More than we find on a large portion of the native population. At that point I think we should seriously look at making them a citizen.
The problem I have with this viewpoint is that the bulk of immigration policy is targeted at those countries where we have the highest number of immigrations (legal or otherwise) and public perception of those immigrants. There is very little in the way of anything meaningful about quotas based on little more than foreign policy and ethnic preferences. Using history as a reference only solidifies the point that our current immigration policy is doomed to fail.