Thread: Blast from the Past: Amnesty Raises Profound Questions

This article is 7 years old and sounds just like it could be written today:


Amnesty Raises Profound Questions
SEPTEMBER 2001

Perhaps one good result of President George W. Bush's toying with the unpopular notion of granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens is that Americans are starting to debate the constitutional, cultural, social, language, moral, and economic questions involved.
When people all over the world are standing in line to come to America legally, how can we, in justice, put the illegals at the head of the line, in front of all those who respected our laws?

If we grant amnesty to 3 million illegal aliens, doesn't that really mean 15 times that number because of the much-abused section of our law that allows a naturalized American to bring in all family members? Every "regularized" illegal will have at least 15 relatives.

What about the surprising increase in the number of illegal aliens after we were told that the 1986 amnesty of 3 million illegals would cure the problem and be a one-time-only amnesty? After the 2000 census, the U.S. Census Bureau originally said we have 6 million illegal aliens, then revised the number to 9 million, while other researchers estimate 11 million -- a population equal to 17 congressional districts. And why does the United States deport only about 1% of the illegal aliens?

Isn't California's energy crisis really due to the large increase in its illegal population during a decade when no new power plants were built? California now has about 4 million illegal aliens, so it's no wonder that existing sources of power are not adequate.

What about abolishing foreign-language ballots as part of the reforms suggested for our election laws? You are not supposed to vote unless you are a citizen, and you can't become a naturalized citizen unless you can speak and write simple English words in ordinary usage.

What about the diseases now being brought in by aliens? We need a public discussion about the health danger and the cost of the outbreaks of tuberculosis, West Nile virus, and other diseases brought in from other countries.

Why did Congress increase the number of H-1B visas to 200,000 per year, just as the high-tech industry was laying off thousands of workers? Employers wants aliens with H-1B visas not only because they can pay them less than U.S. technicians, but especially because the H-1B visas lock them into sticking with the sponsoring employer and prevent them from job-hopping for better pay as Americans do.

Is tolerance of illegals just a ploy of agricultural corporations and wealthy households that want to perpetuate a servant class of low-wage, non-English-speaking immigrants unable to climb up the economic ladder? And of Democrats who want to keep them dependent on government benefits promised by the politicians? California appears to be moving toward a new kind of class structure, similar to that of Mexico and Brazil, with large numbers of both the highly educated and the poorly educated crowding a shrinking middle class.

When is the United States going to repudiate the March 20, 1998 Mexican law that purports to reinstate Mexican nationality for Mexican-Americans who have become naturalized U.S. citizens? Mexico has issued tens of thousands of documents to Mexicans who had become naturalized Americans.

For example, on July 9 a former illegal alien now naturalized American, Andres Bermudez, was elected mayor of Jerez, a city in Mexico, declaring himself a "candidate of two nations." If the Bush Administration believes in the rule of law, Bermudez's U.S. citizenship should be revoked immediately. This sort of "dual citizenship" is an insurmountable barrier to assimilating naturalized citizens into the American culture and turning immigrants from all over the world into e pluribus unum.

Those who become naturalized Americans are required to take this oath: "I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; . . . that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

The oath is an excellent statement of what loyalty to America means: both swearing allegiance to the United States and renouncing all allegiance to foreign countries. But the Mexican government is openly telling Mexicans, in effect, to cross their fingers behind their backs when they take this oath.

Illinois was shocked in August 2001 when Governor George Ryan announced he will not run for a second term. Former Governor Jim Thompson explained the reason why in seven words: "the secretary of state driver's license business." Chicago newspapers were explicit in explaining what that meant. Six children of Scott and Janet Willis were incinerated in 1994 when their minivan exploded as it ran over a metal tail-light assembly that fell from a truck driven by Ricardo Guzman.

Guzman was an unqualified truck driver who had paid a bribe to get a license from the Illinois Secretary of State's office when George Ryan held that office. Because Guzman couldn't speak English, he didn't understand the other truckers on the highway who warned him about his dangling tail-light assembly.

In August 2001, a Mexican truck driver, Fernando Guzman Ruiz, spilled his chemical load on a Chicago expressway, sending 17 policemen and firefighters to the hospital and requiring 1,500 residents to be evacuated. After entering the U.S. illegally, he paid bribes to get a birth certificate, Social Security card, and commercial driver's license.

Can we assimilate such large numbers of people who have no experience with the Rule of Law? When Americans have a difference of opinion about what the law requires, we ultimately settle it in a court of law, but in Mexico, bribery is the customary way of doing business, doing politics, and getting along day to day.

Bribes are the only "Rule of Law" some illegals know. They may consider themselves legal because they paid off the "coyote" who guided passage across the border and the crooks who provided fake I.D., Social Security numbers and driver's licenses.

How much of the push for amnesty is driven by the Republican National Committee's foolish hope that it will win the Hispanic vote?

Yes, we welcome immigrants -- but only if they want to become Americans, respect the Rule of Law, and learn to speak our language.

Wow. I had never thought about any of this until I moved into a neighborhood with many illegal aliens in 2005. I did not know how intelligent Phyllis Schlafly is. She was way ahead of me and many of us. This article raises almost all the relevant questions.

Good article.

It's a shame that in this case the "shoe still fits" almost seven years after this was written.

Yes, we welcome immigrants -- but only if they want to become Americans, respect the Rule of Law, and learn to speak our language.

This statement reflects my views entirely but I'll guess that the OPEN BOARDER/AMNESTY folks will say that it makes me a racist!

respect the Rule of Law...Is that too much to ask?