Is It Still A Law If It's Not Enforced?

Those who object to the use of the term "Illegal Alien" appear to believe that if they can convince the American public that illegal immigration is not really illegal, then amnesty no longer is amnesty and enforcing immigration law is unnecessary.
~Eric A Ruark~

 

If there's any one issue that's been talked about during the early part of this election season it's illegal immigration.  I'll be honest here - I have absolutely no clue how to fix the problem.  Make no mistake - it IS a problem but it's a problem much larger than people coming into our country without going through the proper channels.

 

The last estimate I saw said there are about 20 million illegal immigrants in the US.  According to the Pew Research Center, only about half of them are from Mexico and about 5% of the labor force in the US is made up of illegal immigrants.

 

According to the American Immigration Counsel, the majority of illegal immigrants DO pay taxes, DON'T take jobs away from American workers, DON'T want welfare, DO want to learn English and DO want to become Americans.

 

To be perfectly honest, I don't know where either of those agencies get their information from so I can neither validate nor discredit any of the so-called "facts".   I can and will offer my personal opinions on all of it (did you really doubt I would?)

 

First of all, if you remove all the statistics from the picture - all the beliefs, the pros & cons, the good & bad, the reasons why - you end up with one undeniable fact.  It's against the law.  Pure and simple.  Now the question becomes "what can we do about it?"

 

I know there are many illegal immigrants who come here looking for a better life for their families.  I know they will take the jobs and do the work that most Americans won't.  I know that many of them DO learn English and DO obey our laws - well, except for that nasty one about immigration, of course.

 

Several years ago, my community lost two beautiful, intelligent and vibrant teenage girls who had bright futures ahead of them.  They were stopped at a stop light when they were rear-ended by a drunk driver.  He was an illegal immigrant who already had several DUIs on his record and had even spent time in jail for drunk driving.  He had also been arrested for other offenses (armed robbery being one) more than once.  His immigration status was known after his first arrest.  The community demanded to know why this man was still in America.  The answer was because he had committed no deportable offenses.  What?  Did I hear that right?  No deportable offenses?  Shouldn't illegal immigration in and of itself, by its very  nature, be a deportable offense???  That's like saying a law is not enforceable.  No it's not - that's EXACTLY what it's saying.

 

I totally understand that there are good people who break the law sometimes.  If someone is here illegally but they follow our laws and become productive members of society who give back when and where they can, then we need to work with them and help them to become legal immigrants.  If, on the other hand, they’re breaking our laws and have no respect for our way of life, choosing instead to live off of our social programs and never give anything back, send them back to their home country.

 

In my opinion, one answer to our illegal immigration problem is to make it less attractive.   Every social program we offer should be available only to those who are here legally and they should have to prove it by showing a visa or a green card.

 

Another solution is to change the immigration law itself.  It’s hard to come here legally.  The process for immigrating legally is tedious, arduous and loaded with paper work.  Maybe THAT’S what needs to be fixed?

 

In today’s world, certainly we have to be cautious but isn’t it true that no matter how little we may know about a legal immigrant, it’s certainly a lot more than we know about an illegal one. At the very least, we know he’s here and where he came from.