Go Arizona! Wake Up On Immigration

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." – Emma Lazarus

Yeah, that’s right. That’s the essence of these United States. This is the ideal we stand for and on which this country was founded.

But, lo have we veered from that ideal in the last hundred or so years, to the point where it takes the huevos of one Governor to implement a law that not only embraces racial profiling, but gives local law enforcement powers they should never have.

However, what Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has done by signing the State’s controversial new immigration law is send a very clear message to everyone, including our dysfunctional President and Congress, that the issue has gone too far and we need real change. This response may be extreme, but it is needed in order to extend the immigration debate to the point where real action is taken.

Washington Democrats and Republicans have been pussy footing around immigration for years. Neither party wants to sufficiently piss off their diverse voter bases to the point where they jump ship to the other party. What has happened is that Brewer captaining her State through a devastating hit to their economy, did what the Federal Government refused to do: act.

It’s hard unless you live in the Southwest to get a real feel for how badly things have gone. Here in San Diego, everyday I look at the local news and see how truly problematic illegal immigration is. California is toast financially and a good deal of the reason is the taxes spent on dealing with illegal aliens. Arizona faces the same problems.

I give Governor Brewer credit. It took some guts to follow through with this law especially given she is in a really ugly primary battle and could jeopardize her political career with this move. That is a good public servant right there. This country needs more people like her serving in the Government.

The real problem is; it’s a crappy law all around and it is going to cause all sorts of major problems administrating. I’m not sure it will save any taxpayer money when it is all said and done.

The more important thing the law has done is get people talking again, and talking for real, not just expressing vapid opinions and fostering the kind of hatemongering that goes along with the immigration issue. It has people acting constructively.

The problems go deep with immigration. It’s the flaws in a lot of our systems that causes these huge chasms between how we should act and how we do act towards immigration.

It’s a matter of attitudes that will dictate how we eventually fix our immigration system. We as a country have to first go back to our roots and realize; we want immigrants. The United States needs legal immigrants. These are folks just like our ancestors looking to find a better way, and we hold the key.  It is hard to even conceive what the idea of freedom means to these people because we live it everyday and unfortunately take it for granted. The majority of people coming into this country aren’t looking for a free ride and we have a duty to help them achieve the very best they can. This country needs productive people so we can continue to evolve.

What is needed are stronger and stricter front-end processing rules and laws. This country needs to spend the resources at the beginning of the process and not the end, through after the fact enforcement. Too much time and money is spent trying to keep people out, and throwing people out, that the idea of prevention has been lost. If we have comprehensive screening processes that help immigrants and don’t scare them, then we would see the problem disappear over time.

Don’t get me wrong, I mean tough rules on the front end. But, they should be compassionate as well. We need to keep National Security in mind whilst considering who is allowed in and who we reject, but not to the point where good people are scared into scheming their way past our borders and living like outlaws in and amongst us; that’s not what this country is about, we are a welcoming country.

Liberals love to call Conservatives hate mongers when we get tough on immigration laws. They view us as racist. My opinion is that is because it is the easiest way out for Liberals to just brand us in such a manner and not look any deeper than that.

True Conservatives look at illegal immigration for what it is: a drain on our system and resources. It is one thing when our tax dollars go to aid legal citizens of this country; it is quite another when we are basically funding criminals to live amongst us. That does not mean we are not welcoming to legal immigrants. It’s folly to think we want to keep people out entirely. Yes, there are some that do and unfortunately we have to suffer them.

I said before, we need immigrants. I didn’t just state it as some kind of feel good rhetoric directed at underscoring the opening quote; I said it because we need them on a global level in order for our country to progress. The largest area we need immigrants for is the workforce, especially since this moron of a President keeps pushing his quasi-Socialist agenda.

As the United States advances, our workforce matures. The access to better education means Americans are unwilling to task at some of the more menial jobs needed to build as a capitalistic society. Tasks immigrants are happy to work at and are skilled at as well. I know some people will read this as some sort of elitist justification, but it’s not. It’s the truth. For some reason, a good portion of the working people in the United States feel some jobs are just way too beneath them to dignify. Well, someone needs to do them!

The issues are huge and cumbersome, but what Arizona has done is get people thinking again. It takes that kind of measure to spark a real movement. It is just too bad it is not the right measure.