Illegal Immigration — Laura Curtis

Proof the media isn’t liberal!

By Laura on December 20, 2010 Leave a Comment

I saw this amusing headline at Newsbusters: ABC Finds ‘Dream Dies’ for Illegal Immigrants Because of Conservatives

Proof, I guess, that the media isn’t liberal, and is in fact promoting conservative causes. Doesn’t the media realize that improving border security and opposition to amnesty are massively popular viewpoints in this country? “Blaming” conservatives for not voting for an amnesty is practically making a 2012 GOP campaign ad. Not that Michael Steele would have the wit to use it, but that’s a post for another day.

Filed Under: Illegal Immigration

If my father robbed a bank, should I be allowed to keep the money?

By Laura on December 19, 2010 1 Comment

I read these sob stories about illegal alien children whose illegal alien parents brought them to this country illegally. And I’m not without sympathy. But are we a nation of laws, or not? If my father had robbed a bank, and supplemented our family budget with the proceeds for years so that I was raised enjoying a better lifestyle than my family could have afforded on its own… if my father died and I found that box full of illegal cash, would it legally, morally be mine to keep? Should I be permitted to continue benefiting from his lawbreaking?

The sob stories are tiresome. Nearly everyone has some tragedy in their lives – most, more than one. These students were presumably raised as Americans; they’ve had the benefit of living here all these years. They’ve had the benefit of better medical care. They’ve had the benefit of an American education, which as bad as some of our schools are, is still better than they would have received in a third world country. The designated media sob story representatives are usually college students. Some of these – we’ll never know how many – have enjoyed better educations than American kids, thanks to some colleges’ race-based admissions policies.

If nothing else, the GOP should – in Obama’s parlance – hold these young people hostage until we finally get real border security and interior enforcement, particularly employer enforcement. But there is nothing shameful or wrong about sending these people to the very back of the line behind everyone who has followed the rules all along – even if that means making them submit their applications from the countries of their birth. This is not punishing them for the sins of their fathers. It’s not permitting them to benefit from the sins of their fathers. It’s an important distinction.

Filed Under: Illegal Immigration

Dr. Richard Land, So. Baptist leader, wants to disregard the law.

By Laura on July 20, 2010 Leave a Comment

Disregarding the law is a moral issue for Dr. Richard Land, just not in the way I’d expect. In this case, we’re supposed to ignore it:

“First and foremost, it’s a kingdom issue, and, second, it’s a moral issue,” Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, told POLITICO. “We have hundreds of thousands of Hispanic Southern Baptists and many of them are undocumented. … It’s no secret that we practice aggressive evangelism. Many of these people were converted after they got here.”

He’s been promoting amnesty since at least 2007, though he carefully refutes that word the way John McCain and liberals do: It’s not amnesty because we’ll make them do some of the things, like learn our history and to speak English, that we make legal immigrants do. I’m still waiting for any kind of argument that doesn’t depend on emotionalism and essentially throwing his hands up in the air and accepting the status quo because that’s the easier path. It’s also interesting that he calls upon Christians to “forgive and act redemptively” toward illegal alien lawbreakers, but he does not call upon illegal alien lawbreakers to repent, return to their home countries, and come back legally.

I’m unpersuaded, and I still stand by what I wrote in 2007:

So, how should Christians respond? If the plight of Mexicans and Central Americans is breaking our hearts, there are better ways to help them than importing their citizens. (If suffering is the criteria that drives our immigration policy, why not airlift most of Darfur over here – they are suffering a great deal more than the average Mexican; their very lives are at risk.) Christians should support churches and private charities. We should encourage our government to make it easy for banks to make micro-loans, and continue with trade policies that will increase the ability of people to earn money. Above all, promote capitalism in every way possible. It is their own governments who are most harming their citizens, and it is not the place of our government to prop up failing leftist and socialist governments – especially at the expense of the citizens the US government is actually supposed to be serving.

The governments of Mexico, Guatemala, and other nations that export their poor to America as a political safety valve to stop or delay some well-deserved revolutions are in office at the sufferance of their citizens; people who have declined to stay and try to fix their own countries, and declined to undergo the (ridiculously and unnecessarily long, drawn-out) legal process to become Americans. At what point do we say, “enough” ? And at what point do we finally hold American businesses accountable for their lawbreaking which has contributed so mightily to this problem? The addition to government subsidized “cheap” labor has cost us all – including the countries from which they draw their labor – a great deal.