On the Arizona Immigration Law
With the tyrannical Arizona illegal immigration law enraging everyone from East coast liberals to hapless Mexicans, few stop to consider the underlying causes of the conflict between increased security and the conservative ideology of its propagators.
Point in fact, America has always been the country where immigrants could start a new life. Government, for the most part, has struggled and often failed to regulate incoming foreigners. And until recently, it didn’t really matter. Sure, it’d be nice to know everyone’s legal name, have their birth certificate, and make sure they weren’t carrying infectious diseases. But for the majority of American history, the United States government has had other priorities.
Recently, however, the ever-expanding problem of citizen entitlement has pushed border conflicts to new levels of partisan intensity. Conservatives paradoxically push for more regulation, more exclusivity, and more fences of bureaucracy for would-be immigrants to climb.
Perhaps they’re forced to. The Government has exponentially increased benefits available to citizens and stepped up enforcement to make sure that laborers are working in humane conditions. Naturally, this makes U.S. citizenship one of the best financial deals on Earth. With expanding health care rights, the deal is only getting better.
Of course, if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t. There’re very few projected outcomes for U.S. fiscal possibilities that don’t end with high taxation. It seems that we can’t sustain the benefits of living like Europeans without getting taxed like Europeans. Tea partyers may fight it, but there’s only one possible outcome with current systems in place: lots of new taxes.
As a temporary solution to a financial crisis caused by an out of control government, Republicans have often pushed tighter border security. After all, less government beneficiaries means less government benefit costs.
But controlling border security is a band-aid on a gaping wound of the U.S. budget. Pushing for despotic border immigration control runs against core values of America and conservatism.
Of course, blatantly ignoring the rule of law by pretending like illegal immigrants have fulfilled the necessary tasks (or, worse, offering carte blanche amnesty) equally ignores central tenets of our social contract. Starting a whole new generation of Americans with a skewed view of the law is hardly ideal.
So conservatives should be pursuing a new agenda instead of the temporary patch of border tyranny. Push to decrease entitlements and give everyone the rights guarenteed by the Constitution.
Perhaps summarized best by Emma Lazarus, the immigration policy should be one of welcoming to a land of new opportunities and associated responsibilities.
“The New Colossus”
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Bleeding-heart liberal sentiments? Only if citizenship is given without appropriate responsibility. Much like Wabash, lack of regulations requires a community to be built on real commitments. That’s won’t be fostered by domineering immigration laws, nor by pushover welfare policies. And conservatives should be the people pointing America back in the right direction.
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