Posted on Mon, May. 3, 2010

Commentary

The immigration hypocrisy

Would-be reformers have failed to enforce federal laws, and the public is frustrated.
By David A. Ridenour

If President Obama puts immigration reform at the top of his priority list, Congress should muster the courage to stop him.

Obama risks slicing the number of Americans who trust the federal government from the already dismal 22 percent - as determined by a Pew Research poll - to something approaching negative numbers. And for good reason, because our federal immigration policy is not only broken; it's hypocritical.

The president's idea of immigration reform is legalizing the immigration status of those who entered the United States illegally - after they pay a fine and endure other inconveniences - while lessening border enforcement.

Consider Obama's response when he was asked, in a 2008 presidential debate, if he supported the Bush policy of building a border fence: "I will reverse that policy."

As president, Obama has stopped construction of the border fence, even though more than 250 of its 900 miles of concrete-and-steel fencing remain unbuilt. His latest budget eliminates the positions of 180 Border Patrol officers, and it cuts $70 million from the fund used to reimburse states for the cost of incarcerating illegal aliens. His Department of Homeland Security has been reluctant to conduct large-scale immigration raids on workplaces.

The nation has already tried something like Obama's proposed policy. It was called the Simpson-Mazzoli Act.

Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Simpson-Mazzoli was supposed to end most of the problems associated with illegal immigration by legalizing the status of illegal immigrants who were already here, while hardening the border and enforcing employer sanctions so that illegal immigrants could no longer gain entry in large numbers and would have less financial incentive to try.

The legalization happened - and then some - but the border has remained porous, and the employer sanction enforcement sporadic - for 24 years now!

So say what you will about immigration - and pretty much everybody does - but our current policy is nonsensical. We have two sets of immigration rules: one for the law-abiding immigrants, who wait their turn in line, and another for those who break the law.

Meanwhile, efforts to respect the law and those immigrants who follow it are derided in extremely insulting terms. Congressman Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.) said of Arizona's new enforcement policy, "We're going to overturn this unjust and racist law, and then we're going to overturn the power structure that created this unjust, racist law."

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson said, "Arizona's draconian new immigration law is an abomination - racist, arbitrary, oppressive, mean-spirited, unjust."

Congressman Jared Polis (D., Colo.) said the Arizona law "is absolutely reminiscent of second-class status of Jews in Germany prior to World War II. ..."

President Obama said Arizona's enforcement of federal law threatens "to undermine basic notions of fairness."

If a law is important enough to have, it is important enough to enforce. The reverse is also true, yet few of those who essentially say it's inherently racist, oppressive, unfair, or Nazilike to enforce our immigration laws are lobbying for or sponsoring legislation in Congress for open borders.

This inconsistency - it is not too strong to call it hypocrisy - has gone on for decades, despite significant public discontent, with the result that the states are beginning to take matters into their own hands.

In Arizona, a whopping 70 percent of likely voters support the new state law, according to a Rasmussen poll.

A half-dozen or more other states are considering following in Arizona's footsteps if court challenges by special-interest groups and possibly by the Obama administration are settled in Arizona's favor.

Frustrated state officials are taking action by enforcing Washington's laws.

Maybe if the states continue to act, Congress and the Obama administration will finally get serious about enforcement - or they will stop being hypocrites and simply admit they support an open border.

At this point, either option would be an improvement.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/ ... crisy.html