This, Ladies and Gentleman, is how apartheid begins, and it should alarm EVERY American, that this beginning is being actively promoted, right here in the United states, by leading figures at the highest levels of our government.
I laud Bush for his stance on terrorism; I curse him for his stance on illegal immigration.
Were the President to get his way on illegal immigration, this country would become something more Third-Worldly, something less appreciated by its citizenry, something less united, something less noble, something less worthy of the sacrifices being now made to save it. The President's policies on terrorism and illegal immigration are at irreconcilable positions: The former asserts the worth of the Nation and determines to save it from harm at all costs, while the latter casts the value of citizenship into the dust, as a base thing unworthy of being protected from degradation. This is nothing less than political schizophrenia.
Mr. President, you cannot have it both ways. Either this Nation and citizenship herein are both worthy of protection, preservation, and respect; both worthy of the blood sacrifice of those who have risen to fight for them, or neither of them are worthy of such effort end esteem. You cannot simultaneously protect and erode this Nation while professing to be acting in its best interest. That you do not seem to recognize that this is precisely what you are doing, only makes you look like a complete fool.
B T T T
Well stated!
Well said!
So, what would you propose we do with the currently however-many-million illegal Mexicans who currently reside in this country.
Here is my proposal.
1. Control the border. Build the fence. Man the checkpoints. Stop those crossing illegally. Send them back.
2. Institute a citizenship track for those here illegally that requires them to register with the federal government and the state government where they reside. Take fingerprints, DNA, retinal scans, etc, to identify the person through biometrics, which will be entered in the national database. Issue them a smart card, encoded with this information, that is keyed to the national database. They will have the incentive to register because achieving citizenship is a possiblitity.
3. Require registered citizenship-track aliens to start following the law, or lose their status and be sent back to wherever they came from. So working under the table, drunk driving, domestic abuse, what-have-you, would all be punishable by deportation. Once deported, with effective border control, it will be difficult for them to get back in. And once an individual has lost his citizenship-track status, it should be well-nigh impossible for him to get it back, because they will be identified biometrically as a deportee.
4. Make achieving citizenship contingent on certain requirements, such as living here several years without breaking the law, learning to speak and write the language competently, being off the public dole, and learning US history and the basis of our government and civic responsibilities.
At the end of the process, say five years, we will have a new crop of citizens, who speak the language, understand their responsibilities, and have demonstrated an ability to comply with our laws. We will have weeded out those who don't want to assimilate, don't want to work, who are unable to obey the law, or do not learn the language.
I would say that at that point, we would be a heck of a lot better off as a nation than we are today.