Some Brief Thoughts on Immigration

This isn't normally a topic I delve into for a couple of reasons. First, I readily admit that I don't have as deep an interest in it as I should. Second, and as a likely result of that, there are so many people out there who address the topic far better than I can. One of my favorites is Katie's Dad, who is Unabashedly Unhyphenated. It's worth your time to check him out.

A website that I like is the Trinity Forum, and they send out these regular e-mails and post the same on their website. You can see this week's right here.

After reading this week's piece, I felt compelled to respond. Here's my comments back to the Trinity folks.

"It was Thomas Paine who once said:

'As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully.'

A reason-based objection to lax immigration standards is just this: we are ineffectively administering our current government and its entitlement programs. Given the inequity of our progressive system of taxation and the inability of our elected governors to ascertain independently the relative constitutionality of any specific piece of legislation, adding immigrants to the mix without proper restrictions endangers what most people would agree is the last best hope for mankind: this Republic.

With Liberty in retreat around the world - with some notable exceptions - we have the unique luxury of being able to be selective in who we allow to come to the United States, bearing in mind that assimilation and citizenship should be the natural goals of any immigrants. And, most importantly, that citizenship in the United States is not a civil right, nor a human right, but a honor and privilege to be earned."

Not my most deep analysis, but I think it sums up pretty well my state of mind on the subject. I for one would support closing the borders for some period of time and dealing with the problem we've got before rushing to some ill-conceived "solution." It is our moral obligation to protect that which was paid for with sacrifice and the blood of patriots, after all.