Despite Our Immigration Generosity, We Get Sucker-Punched

Jim Gilchrist, MMP Exclusive – Republicans are told by critics that they must accept today’s reality: 11 million people who entered our country illegally are here to stay. Get over it. Furthermore, Republicans must accept the inevitability of legal status for these people as they set out along the path to citizenship in fulfillment of the American dream. The time is right.

Here’s a different reality… The more our Nation reaches out to help others, the more we get sucker-punched in return.

The U.S. already has the most generous immigration policy of all countries combined, yet this is trivialized to irrelevancy by those who sneak in because they find the lawful process too inconvenient. Better to cheat the system now by skipping to the head of the line, then acting tearfully indignant later while trying to convince us that your rights have been violated or that your family is being ripped apart.

For humanitarian purposes, the U.S. grants temporary residence to 300,000 foreigners who are facing war or natural disaster in their home country. The trouble is that many who win the temporary status end up staying here long after the crisis at home ends by rolling over their visas every 18 months.

Many of those who come into the U.S. legally through a visa decide to stay. In fact, of about 9 million people who received temporary visas to the U.S. in 2012, 3.6 million refused to go home, knowing that we couldn’t do much about it.

When we finally wake up to all the abuses, including lapses in border security, we are called nativists, racists, haters and fear mongers by the very people who gamed our system and broke the rules. Evidently, this nation of immigrants must tolerate any level of law breaking and endure every hollow insult or it is not living up to its tradition and ideals. Carried to its logical conclusion, only open borders may stifle the feigned outrage and bravado of this newly emboldened criminal class.

Until then, count on politicians in Washington to keep the immigration system broken as a way of wooing a perpetual pool of new voters, even after passage of comprehensive immigration reform. They have become so insulated from the rest of us that they can afford to dismiss our concerns without fear of consequence.

It’s difficult for the rest of us who play by the rules to come up with an effective, coordinated response. What is happening in Washington is so far removed from our value system that the shock of it all can be mind-numbing and crippling. Yet we must persist.

Here’s a start… Call your Senators and Representatives. Not just once, but several times a week. Many of our elected officials in Washington say they are not getting angry calls anymore and they interpret this as a shift in how the public views amnesty and path to citizenship for those here illegally. In other words, they think there is mass support for this kind of reform.

If you encounter Senators or Representatives who are doing a good job on this issue, you should tell them their efforts are appreciated. They need to know that they are doing the right thing and that we are solidly behind them.

Only a massive number of phone calls at an unremitting pace will set the record straight and bring some sanity to reform deliberations. Bringing down Capitol Hill’s phone system will make our voices heard loud and clear as nothing else can. It has worked before. It will again.