Thread: We Delay Acting Against Illegals At Our National Peril

We delay acting against illegals at our national peril



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By Charles Rondinelli
Friday, June 23, 2006


Congress is very good at making laws it won't enforce. So there's a fair chance that it will grant more amnesty that will further change the character of this country.
I haven't understood all of the recent but belated uproar over the immigration issue and all of the nonsensical debate has made me more angry than I was.

I'm not a johnny-come-lately to the border debate. I've been aware of the problem for a long time -- way before 9/11 -- because of a tinge of personal involvement.

You see, my dad, his two brothers, two grandparents and millions of other people came through Ellis Island before they could live here. As a kid, I was fascinated as the few stories of that process were told. You had to have a sponsor. You had to have a job. No one gave you anything. Your background, including your criminal and health records, were checked. It took years to get to the island.





Imagine spending a week or more in a strange place like Ellis Island with many people who didn't speak your language.

The nation -- not the individual -- was important. The system largely worked.

But the system wasn't applied north and south of our borders; where there was order in one area, chaos prevailed in two others.

I remember reading how drug lords were coming across the Mexican border and shooting at American landowners as they passed through. It was not 1995 or 2000 or 2002. It was in the '60s and '70s.

Later, I had a chance to work in Texas and I used that opportunity to cross the border and see how the Mexicans lived. It took work and caution. Mexican rules are not as loose and friendly as America's. To start with, newspaper pages were posted on the American side. They contained stories of Americans being held in Mexican prisons for months and months simply because they didn't have auto insurance and had been involved in fender-benders. So you had to be sure you had coverage. A crime meant more incarceration.

You could get to the border towns easily to shop, tour or whatever. But to get to the interior you had to have much paperwork and a pass that was good for only three or four days. Your car and luggage were inspected. If you were inspected at one place and there was an inspection place two or three blocks from it, you had to stop again. You'd better make it back in time. Soldiers with rifles didn't hesitate to stop anyone.

I know because they came after me. I hadn't stopped at the second inspection place because I thought I was finished after the first. The equivalent of a colonel pounded on my car door in a rage, yelling that I was not in America and the Mexican rules had to be obeyed. He inspected again and let me go.

I was driving to Monterey to learn about the people and see how they lived. I liked the people. Most were polite and informative.

But while that was going on, many Mexicans illegally were crossing the border daily. I couldn't (and can't) figure out why people are let into a country that has rules to keep people out. I couldn't (and can't) figure out why a peon is allowed to drop a fresh baby on a desert floor and it becomes an American with no more reason than that it was in the country.

Try to figure out how much it cost this nation over a 30- or 40-year period, how many hospitals were forced to be closed, broke after being forced to treat people who had no address and no money to pay the bill.

Figure how many schools and prisons were overcrowded and how many counties and cities were strained at budget time to pay for something that they didn't want or need. Enter the courts, so everything had to be printed or recorded or taught in their languages -- not ours.

And with all of that, we were endangered. Many criminals and drug carriers crossed over. It seemed that no one figured out the drug problem. We started a program. We had a drug czar and we paid for advertising to keep people from using drugs.

We trained policemen and let SWAT troops knock down doors in middle-of-the-night raids. We sent soldiers and equipment and money to Colombia and other Central and Latin American nations. Billions and billions of dollars for "Just say no."

But all the while, while preaching and raiding, we left the borders open so that the "goods" we stopped in some places could be easily sent across in others.

Nobody complained very much and Congress conveniently and as usual buried its head. It didn't matter about the drugs or the criminals or the cost or the sovereignty.

Now, of course, the politicians have been forced to take on the issue and they've got a good shot at making sure it isn't solved. For they are doing what politicians do best -- they have politicized the issue.

President Reagan granted amnesty in the '80s thinking that Congress would solve the problem after that. The rules were in place. But Congress is very good at making laws it won't enforce. So there's a fair chance that these lawmakers will grant more amnesty that will further change the character of this country.

They are thinking of votes, not laws.

Congress pretty much doesn't have to pass any new laws on any subject. We have more laws than we need. If lawmakers would eliminate half of the laws on the books on any issue and enforce the other half, we could be home free and many problems would be solved.

Instead they work on pork spending and important subjects like what name they can give to a day and how they can emphasize their great intelligence whenever a TV camera is around.

Over the decades, corrupt Mexican officials have failed to take care of their citizens. They put away millions for themselves in retirement. They are not concerned about how to create more jobs so their workers want to stay home.

The illegal immigrant hordes keep coming here despite oil galore in Mexico and many manufacturing jobs there that used to be done by Americans. Mexican officials encourage their people to break American laws and our Congress lets us pay for immigrants -- even though most of our social systems are strained or broken.

It's as if our political leaders don't want to hear the American people and do for them what needs to be done.

Maybe it doesn't really matter. Maybe we'll be in the minority before too many more years.

Charles Rondinelli is a Trib deputy managing editor.

It's as if our political leaders don't want to hear the American people and do for them what needs to be done.

They don't. So we need to vote against them, very carefully. They lie.