Probably all I’ll ever say about immigration

For what it’s worth (2 cents?), I have a few things I’d like to add to the immigration debate currently raging.

.01  Unfair, immoral, heartbreaking things are happening all over the place every day.

This is a plea to look at the big picture. Yes, it’s distressing for both parents and children when they are forcibly and (in this case) temporarily separated. But a responsible and fair evaluation of the issue should take into account other realities, like why we have an immigration policy at all. Like the distressing situations that do and would result from a failure to control our borders.

There are likely no solutions to our current and future problems that don’t involve unpleasantness, inconvenience, hardship, or otherwise negative situations for some. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do our best to minimize such situations, nor that we can’t prioritize some needs over others. It just means that no hardship should be evaluated in isolation.

.02  Compelling images make some issues seem disproportionately urgent or important.

If the news and social media weren’t all over this story with photographs and videos of crying children would it have the “legs” it has had for the last few weeks? Does that make this issue any more important than the thousands of young people overdosing on drugs largely brought into the country through our southern border, whose images we rarely see?

How many of those condemning the current administration as heartless and cruel because of crying babies care at all about babies who will never cry because their lives were snuffed out in the womb? I wonder how many might change their minds on abortion if they saw real, in utero video footage of the deadly deed being done.

.03  Moral victories are often sought to achieve political victories.

Democrats are obviously seizing on this “human tragedy” to criticize and perhaps delegitimize a president they detest. And, of course, the morals and sensibilities of everyone who leans right are thereby called into question, with the intent to not only influence elections but also stake out the proverbial high road for themselves.

And, as can be expected, many of them are so high they can see the whole landscape of human history and cannot help but notice the similarities between this immigration issue and Nazi Germany. Yet the administration is simply enforcing the laws that both parties had a hand in enacting.

.04  Many more children suffer more and for longer periods from divorce and absent fathers than from temporary separation due to illegal immigration.

If divorcing parents allowed cameras into their children’s lives we’d see a never-ending marathon of tears and heartbreak. But I doubt many of those piously denouncing and chastising all who aren’t also vocally indignant about what’s gone on at the border, would support stricter divorce laws. Many of them have put their own children through the pain of seeing their parents split up. Nor are they likely to post impassioned condemnations on social media of men who selfishly treat sex as a recreational activity, then abandon their responsibility as fathers when a child is conceived.

.05  Illegal immigration would decrease if more Americans were willing to do the jobs the immigrants have been filling.

There was a local ICE raid at a landscaping company this past week, and when interviewed by a news crew the company representatives told of the near impossibility of getting anyone from the community willing to do the work. But men from Mexico and Central America make the journey here, often illegally and with families, because they are not too proud to do manual labor, nor do they have an entitlement mentality.

How great a disservice have we done our young people and our society by awarding our children irrespective of effort or achievement, by coddling our teens and making fun a priority instead of preparing them for the hard work of adulthood, and by insisting they go to college while the trades are devalued and the jobs go unfilled? And if they’ve managed to get a degree, of course they’re too educated now to mow lawns and weed flower beds, even though they’ve largely partied their way through school and are unprepared to do much else.

Well, that was five cents so I guess I get change. I won’t hold my breath.

Category : FAMILY, LIFE AND JUSTICE, POLITICS
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