On Immigration Reform and the President's Address

In his Monday night address to the nation the president laid out a pragmatic, rational plan to solve the mess along the southern border. This has not, nor will it, politically help the president with his alienated conservative base however, whose unrest over illegal immigration, after festering for years, has reached a boiling point. These conservatives want one thing and one thing only—an impregnable border protected by a wall re-enforced with increased border security.

This, for the most part, is what the president promised. He called for six thousand new border agents, a virtual and physical wall at designated spots, aerial surveillance, additional funding for local law enforcement, temporary deployment of the national guard, an end to "catch and release", and so forth. Since the president’s address the Senate has even passed an amendment calling for the construction of a wall along the entirety of the southern border, a provision similar to one passed by the House and something the president has indicated his support for.

But this has all been for naught. The minute, nay the second the president uttered the words "temporary worker program" any support he may have engendered among those conservatives solely interested in fortifying the southern border was squandered. If an impregnable border is the one thing these conservatives desire, then amnesty, or any policy perceived as amnesty, is one thing they absolutely will not tolerate. Opinion among this group holds that the president’s proposal is "amnesty" properly and succinctly defined. Following the address John Hinderaker of Powerline wrote that once the president "started talking about guest worker programs and the impossibility of deporting 11 million illegals, it was all over." John Mcintyre of RealClearPolitics maintained that the president "missed a real opportunity to help fix a substantive problem facing the nation which politically would have significantly improved his standing among the public and his party’s position heading into the midterm elections." Mr. Mcintyre continued that any immigration proposal without a wall is simply further evidence, to estranged conservatives at least, that the federal government is still not serious about stifling the flow of illegal immigrants across the southern border.

In fact, quite the opposite is true. Those who oppose the president’ guest-worker proposal because of its contested lack of sincerity are lacking sincerity themselves. As the president emphasized Monday evening, the only viable plan is a comprehensive plan. A plan enacting only increased security along the border would be just as feckless and ineffective as one enacting only a guest worker program.

If a genuinely secure border is to be achieved we need a wall along the southern border doubly re-enforced by security personnel/technology and a guest worker program. A physical barrier comparable to the Great Wall of China would still be no match for the waves of highly motivated, highly incentivized Mexicans trying to enter this country to make a living and enjoy a better life in America.

Those conservatives who dismiss the president’s guest worker program as "amnesty" need to get realistic. The president’s approach is not only the correct one but the most feasible one because it prescribes the proper remedy for a real, substantive problem. By allowing those illegals currently within the country to enter upon a path to citizenship we in America exhibit our refusal to let an immigrant underclass reminiscent of those which currently permeate Europe to develop in our own country. The esteemed George Will made this argument this week:

Conservatives should favor reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path out of society’s crevices and into citizenship by paying fines and back taxes and learning English. Faux conservatives absurdly call this price tag on legal status "amnesty." Actually, it would prevent the emergence of a sullen, simmering subculture of the permanently marginalized, akin to the Arab ghettos in France.

The president merits credit and praise for his effort to prevent this from happening, and to insure access to equal citizenship and status to those who come here looking for something more than what they had back home.

Though they came here illegitimately, the great majority of illegal immigrants came here for the right reasons; the same reasons immigrants from all over the world have always risked everything to come here and become Americans for. As the president eloquently stated in his address, our "new immigrants are just what they’ve always been—people willing to risk everything for the dream of freedom. And America remains what she has always been: the great hope on the horizon, an open door to the future, a blessed and promised land. We honor the heritage of all who come here, no matter where they come from, because we trust in our country’s genius for making us all Americans—one nation under God."

To those who oppose the president’s proposal: neglecting to punish those who have entered our country illegally disproportionately to their offenses is not "amnesty", it is simply the right and American thing to do. After they have paid their debt to society, illegal immigrants deserve the right to pursue the same promise all our forefathers sought when they came to this great land—the promise of freedom, prosperity, and a better life for themselves and their posterity.

Hat Tip: Daniel McKivergan