| Published: Helium |
| Date: January 2008 |
| Section: Opinion |
| Comments: |
 |
By: Ian Essling
Giving illegals a roadmap to citizenship that does not involve returning to their country of origin is basically handing out a reward for illegal behavior, and rewarding illegal behavior simply encourages more illegal behavior. If we reward illegals who are already here and are already breaking the laws, nothing will stem the tide of illegal migrants that come rushing over ALL our borders in response to such amnesty. And it is amnesty; calling it anything else is just a politically-friendly euphemism.
There is a roadmap to citizenship for illegals: they need to leave the country for at least a year, and then attempt to re-enter legally. They need to apply like everyone else, with no special treatment.
Think of the damage amnesty for illegals would do to legal immigration. On one hand, you have the immigrants who spent the proper time and effort to immigrate legally. They did things the way they were supposed to, many times at great expense and sacrifice. On the other hand, you have these criminals who have been leeching off our society for, in some cases, years upon years. Instead of doing something to support the legal immigrants, who went about the process the correct way, we give freebies to criminals who abused our system. Does this encourage legal immigration? Of course not; it encourages future generations of immigrants to come in illegally.
It is sheer insanity to reward criminals. What if we applied this theory to, say, car thieves? Should car thieves have this path to freedom that involves releasing them from prison for no reason and acting as if they never committed a crime? That's not even an efficient analogy, to be honest, because illegals are getting more than their freedom; they are being given essentially a free ride for all the time they already spent here, breaking our laws and taking advantage of our system.
The simple truth is that illegal immigrants are criminals by their very label. I have a brain aneurysm every time I hear a politician say that they want to "deport all those illegal immigrants that have committed crimes." What about the very crime of BEING illegal?
Rewarding criminal behavior is taking a step down a very treacherous road, a step that should not be taken for any reason, political or otherwise. Criminals belong being punished, not being given special treatment.
|
