Thread: Illegal Immigration: Take a Look in the Mirror

Opinion piece from Ken Alpern

Illegal Immigration: Take a Look in the Mirror
ALPERN AT LARGE
By Ken Alpern

Like…wow!

Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman are falling over each other to show who’s tougher on illegal immigrants. The City and County of LA are tripping over each other to show who’s tougher on Arizona. Federal officials who are castigating Arizona are admitting they didn’t read that state’s new laws, Mexican President Calderon rips an Arizona policy that’s much gentler than his own nation’s, while Senator John McCain is somersaulting backwards as fast as he can away from the proposed immigration reform laws he once championed. Even Cardinal Mahony stopped running one step ahead of Attorney General Cooley’s child molestation investigation just long enough to show that Arizona, and not rogue priests, was the real threat to young Catholic Latinos. OK…I’ll bite. Man, this hypocrisy and the attempted revisionist history seem just TOO wild to be true. But what IS true is that if we want someone to blame, we need go no further than our nearest mirror.

Of course, looking into the mirror for blame requires the courage to question one’s own prior actions, or the actions of one’s political party, or the actions of our friends and neighbors who we want to believe are acting the way we do. It also requires the strength to admit there’s a LOT of cowardice going on with respect to public posturing.

Boycotting Arizona in the megaliberal, politically correct atmosphere of the LA City Council and County Board of Supervisors? Like shooting goldfish in a barrel. Posturing to prove who’s tougher on illegal immigrants during the Republican primaries? Like armwrestling a five year-old child.

Come on, guys and gals! Really. Facing the painful facts means acknowledging there might be some truths that drive you nuts not only because you hate hearing it from the messenger but because, well, it’s true.

So let’s start with everyone’s favorite whipping boys and girls—the conservatives. I’m trying to figure out why the “Party of Reaganâ€

Liberal with the personal freedoms of citizens does not equate liberal with Constitutional law or with law enforcement. IMHO

I think it all boils down to:

1. Some people want illegal immigration to go away permanently and have immigration go back to its original roots, with proper screening of candidates to prevent bad apples to enter the country to ruin things, CDC concerns addressed, proper qualifications for residency, etc., basically, an orderly process that does not give preferential treatment to Mexican nationals only.

2. Other people, many clueless about the difference between legal and illegal, right and wrong, good and bad, good and evil, etc., just want to feel like they're some humane protagonist on Schindler's list, saving all the illegals from the evil racists and law-abiding-freaks.

3. Yet, other groups, such as churches (they like easy converts), manufacturers associations, chambers of commerce, farmers, large corporations, multi-nationals that employee Mexicans both in the U.S. and in Mexico, lobbyists, special interest groups, American companies that cater to Hispanic markets, auto insurance agencies, immigration lawyers, contractors, tech schools, etc. do not want to lose money since all of them are deriving a benefit from illegal immigration. In fact, some companies probably want MORE illegals in the country so they can make more money off of them.

Finally, those who could solve the problem, don't want to do it, mostly likely because of item #3 above, plus NAFTA and who knows what other hidden agendas.