Immigration Hypocrisy

By Gregory Welborn

That we have a humanitarian crisis on our southern border is beyond question.  One doesn’t need to be a bleeding-heart liberal to be deeply moved and concerned by the plight of children being thrown on the tops of trains to make a thousand mile trek across very hostile territory with the desperate hope that they will reach safety at journey’s end.  Whether you’re a parent or simply someone with a smidgeon of compassion, you have to be saddened and angered by the wave of desperate, vulnerable humanity that’s being manipulated by traffickers and the liberal elite.  Americans rightly ask why we can’t come together to solve this problem, only to find that the barricades to resolution are manned by the hypocrites of the Left.

The numbers are staggering.  Unaccompanied alien children (UACs) were fewer than 1,000 five years ago.  By 2011, there were 16,067, then 24,481 in 2012 and 38,833 in 2013. Significant numbers that are dwarfed by the 90,000 projected for 2014, made all the more devastating by the fact that the composition has shifted from Mexican children to those of Central America, thus geometrically increasing the length and dangers of the trip.  Even the simple question of why finds its answer at the doorstep of this President’s hypocrisy.  People make journeys of this length and danger because of both desperation and promise.  People may be tempted to leave their homeland to escape its desperate environment, but they only actually make that journey when there’s some degree of promise they will be able to stay somewhere better.

The crisis of civil war and drug violence in Central America actually peaked in 2009, and the situation is less desperate now than it was five years ago.  So why the increase in UACs over those same five years?  Because, Americans are not the only ones who realize this President selectively enforces the immigration laws.  While he uses a press conference to counsel Central American parents not to send their kids, his actions belie another reality.  Fox News Latino reported that upwards of 80% of these Central American children are entitled to some form of protection, extended stay, visas or asylum.  This president (like another I can remember) can look squarely into a camera to say one thing while practicing another.

But the hypocrisy doesn’t stop with the President.  There are many on the Left who are swift to vilify Americans who want a legitimate solution to the

Immigration reform

immigration problem yet secretly benefit from the current escalating problem.  Their names are not foreign to us:  Reid, Pelosi, Silicon Valley and Wall Street CEOs, and ethnic activists.  Their only policy proposal at this juncture is to guilt trip Americans into $3.7 billion of supplemental emergency spending which will pointedly not allocate one thin dime to additional border security.  We’re to believe that spending more in humanitarian aid without securing the border won’t simply entice more to make the journey in hopes of receiving expanded aid benefits.

But let’s consider the personal costs and burdens.  Nancy Pelosi vilifies those who won’t grant immigration amnesty, knowing she’s rich enough to not feel a burden from the increased taxes necessary to pay for expanded social services.  Liberal Silicon Valley and Wall Street donors will not see their neighborhoods impacted by the influx, nor will they see the quality of their children’s private school educations disturbed, but they will benefit from cheap labor for their factories.  The rest of us have to do the hard – but I would add, the very American – work of actually folding in the newly arrived to our schools, neighborhoods and hospitals.  This is not to denigrate in any way the charitable and welcoming nature which is quintessentially American, only to make the obvious point that there are limits to what our already overburdened system can further bear.

Then there are the cynical political calculations, which are more than tinged with a nasty bigotry of their own.  We witness the immigration activists who try to rally illegal immigrants under the banner of “Viva La Raza” – loosely translated as “long-live the race” while simultaneously spitting accusations of bigotry against those of us who feel the nation is better off when all immigrants – of any color or ethnicity – assimilate into American society rather than to maintain an allegiance to narrow ethnicity.  The angrier and more aggrieved newly arrived immigrants feel, the greater the constituency for the activists.  One wonders whether they will ever really want “the problem” solved.

assimilation into American culture

Despite the chants, slogans and contemptible slurs thrown at us, Conservatives want a reasonable solution.  We’re not advocating the deportation of millions who have made homes here and are contributing members of our society.  But at the same time, we suffer the predicament of those who have remained in their own countries dutifully obeying our laws while on immigration waiting lists.  We want to help those who are really in need, but want make sure we don’t simply encourage millions more to unnecessarily burden the system.  In short, we stand ready to negotiate a comprehensive solution with reliable negotiating partners.  We just can’t find any of those in the current crop of Liberal hypocrites.

Gregory J. Welborn is a freelance writer and has spoken to several civic and religious organizations on cultural and moral issues.  He lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife and 3 children and is active in the community.  He can be reached [email protected]

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