The Sage Observer

Illegal Immigration

There are those who forgot more about the subject of immigration than I will ever know; and, therefore, I will leave to them any discussion, in-depth, of the subject. It is, however, patently obvious to most that the subject of illegal immigration is in the forefront of issues before us today and one of the most contentious. Illegal immigrants are taking our jobs, putting people out of work; or they are running up our tax bills thru their use of our schools, utilization of health care, non-payment of taxes, gangs, drugs, crime, and so on, causing us to have to build a great wall costing us billions of dollars (which will ultimately be paid for by Mexico some Sunday after some Tuesday)—or so all this is said.

Before we go any further, let me remind everyone who reads this that there is not one thing under this subject which is not the responsibility of our Congress (Ref. Article I, Section I of our Constitution). They are responsible for the legislation; they are responsible to provide the financing for its execution; and, ultimately, they are responsible to insure it is being enforced. Further, it is my belief that we should not allow any law to be on the books for which adequate financing is not provided and we do not enforce. If either is withdrawn, the law should be cancelled. In either event, what we have now is pure neglect.

This having been said, let’s discuss the wall, a subject in the forefront of the “news” these days. Because of the campaign promise of then Presidential Candidate Trump, the wall is now erroneously portrayed by the media and the politicians, as well as the President as “the issue”. I contend that the wall is not the real issue, regardless of what “they” say. The real issue, the real problem, is illegal immigration. The wall serves as only one of several, if not many, means to solve the real issue, “illegal immigration”. The wall is just one means to an end. Unfortunately, and I think, unwisely—it is ill advised financially, politically, and diplomatically.

President Obama and others stated on national television that approximately forty percent of illegal immigration was caused by people overstaying their visas and they could not be tracked—forty percent, mind you. We can track a calf with mad cow disease to a barn somewhere in the backwoods of Wecando and we can’t track someone who overstays their visas? Malarkey! If we can’t track these people, it’s only because we don’t want to. We don’t want to spend the money or some other reason such as an employer who wants to keep them on the payroll, cheap labor, etc. But I digress.

There are undoubtedly other sources of illegal immigration and points of entry than Mexico and overstays of visas. Those coming from and thru Mexico are less than half of the total; and yet we want to literally waste billions of dollars building a wall that will at best exacerbate the tensions and polarization that already exists among our people as well as between our nation and the country of Mexico. Does this really gain the respect of our foreign neighbors and allies? Do we really want to shut down our government for this? Is this really leadership? Or is this whole thing just plain dumb and second class?

What we really need to do is write legislation, a reform bill, to which we will all agree to conform; yes, including E Verify (and whatever else I may have left out) and enforce it. And we should do it now. If a multibillion dollar transnational corporation spread out around the globe can efficiently and successfully manage their affairs, there is no reason, absolutely none, that our government can’t do the same and just as well. This is another one of those many subjects at hand which we have talked and studied to death. We know exactly what needs to be done. Let’s quit talking about it and do it. Let’s do it now.

Let me know what you think. In the meantime, this is Ronald Miller, www.sageobserver.blogspot.com signing off.