8/26/2018 - Bruce Bialosky Townhall.com
One of the great joys
of writing my column comes when I get to interact with real experts on issues.
Sometimes they educate me and sometimes I have a tete-a-tete that defines a
significant difference on a major policy point. I had that with a noted policy
person on the issue of immigration.
My positions on
immigration have been clearly delineated in the column previously. I, like
almost every American, treasure the benefits we derive from most all our
immigrants. The problem is too many people have merged “legal” and “illegal” into
the issue of immigration. I am against illegal immigration. It harms America
and harms the illegal immigrants by having their first activity in America one
that breaks our law. The fact that supposedly being here illegally is only
equivalent to a traffic ticket is a joke. I don’t believe that a person
entering our country illegally or overstaying their visa has the same rights as
an American citizen. We need a comprehensive visa control system and a wall
along our southern border. Welcoming 500,000- one million legal immigrants into
our country every year doesn’t makes us miserly. We, the American people and
our elected representatives, should be making the rules for who becomes an
immigrant not others. We need a real system of dealing with people looking for
asylum, not just anyone who walks up to our border because they don’t like the
prospects in their home country. I think stories of how my family came here
from Lithuania or how Speaker Ryan’s family came from Ireland are quaint but
have zero/zilch/nada to do with how the immigration policy should be designed
for our country in 2018 with a high-tech society of 330 million people. And,
lastly, I am embarrassed by the failure of our education system such that we
must continue draining other countries like India of their most talented people
because our students waste their time at universities getting degrees that have
little benefit to their or our country’s future.
The expert with whom I
corresponded does not exactly agree with my position. He believes that we
should not be questioning whether the significant numbers of people coming here
are seeking asylum. He believes that the courts should do that after releasing
the people with electronic monitoring devices because that is more cost
effective than housing them, which he stated was not as expensive as alluded to
by (Director of Homeland Security) Secretary Nielsen.
When I asked why the
people who were seeking asylum did not stop in Mexico, I received this
response: “They don’t stop in Mexico partly because the people who are trying
to kill them could easily hop the border too; partly because Mexico’s labor
market isn’t as good; and, partly because they already have family here.
Migration is always a confluence of factors.”
Yes, it truly is a
confluence. Why so many of their family are here is because 1) We are more
tolerant of these people than Mexico is; 2) We give them more free stuff; and,
3) A large portion of our country is not run by drug gangs.
I then posed this: “The
problem is with 60,000 or so a month coming here and claiming amnesty, we end
up with more than a half million a year who get into our country not going
through the normal immigration process. They are here because they will end up
getting government benefits because there are not jobs for these people who
have few skills and we do not get to choose who comes into our country -- they
do. Thus, it is a modified open borders policy and that is what you appear to
be endorsing.” His response was “Wildly inaccurate. Immigrants work at higher
rates.”
He is correct there;
immigrants also have a higher home ownership rate.
The problem is he
omitted a key word – LEGAL immigrants. Also, we have a lot of
unfilled jobs, but those are for skilled workers. I may be wrong, but I am just
guessing the illegal immigrants are not highly-trained technicians.
I responded to him by
stating: “The bottom line is you are arguing that we should let all these
people in here, put ankle bracelets on them hoping they will return to court.
We will pay for their health care and other benefits and then at some point
they will get legalized through the next amnesty program. How is that not an
endorsement of open borders?” His response: “What do you not understand about
these people coming through our legal process?”
Then it hit me (not
that I did not have a hint before) that the system is totally fixed in favor of
mass immigration – mainly illegal. If 60-75% return for their court dates, what
do we do after that to find the others? Almost nothing. Add that to the unmonitored
visa overstays and this system is wildly on the side of those who want to come
here circumventing our laws. And Trump is a racist because he wants to get a
handle on this?
It got even better from
there. When asked what limits we should put on this, I got the following
statements. “You are acting like this will bring down our country to let these
people in. You know what share of the population 100,000 people is? 0.03
percent. Conservatives shouldn’t run scared from a few women with children. Let
Americans sponsor immigrants, and the issue would disappear. Let Americans
decide, individually in the free market. If I need a worker, sponsor them. If I
want a family member to come, sponsor them. That’d be ideal. Until then, we’ll
have to make do with what we have. I don’t want the immigration politburo to
pick a number out of thin air. Why no chain migration? That’s how most people
immigrate, by following their families.”
These positions are not
coming from a Leftist, La Raza or another group arguing you are racist if you
don’t want unfettered immigration. This is someone with a mainstream group and
a policy expert in the immigration field.
Just some information
you may want to know.
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