Immigration: The American Promise

Immigration is a touchy subject. Nowadays when you turn on the TV or radio and immigration comes up as a topic it seems as though the only people contributing to the discussion are wing-nuts of both sides, one arguing for no restrictions and full amnesty and another for shooting illegals as they try to gain entry. Both sides fail on every level to provide for America and her people the basic ideals of the nation.

True, illegal immigrants are a massive burden on our systems, taking an incredibly disproportionate amount of social services without contributing. Also true that most people are coming here to try to better their life and pose no real threat to the rest of us natural born citizens.

The problems I see are those of multiculturalism versus the melting pot. The people who come here are fighting to get away- putting everything on the line to escape the life they came from. Yet they are lauded and coddled by the left when they refuse to leave that nation behind them- refusing to learn the language (no law against speaking it at home) or expecting the other citizens of the country to conform to their beliefs. When one comes here it is with the tacit expectation that they will do their level best to fit in, that they will leave their past behind them and start fresh with opportunity limited only by their willingness to work hard and strive for the dream of freedom.

These are the people we want, and need, at all costs. Those who wish to set up little versions of their old countries should stay there and make a go of it. Those who wish to impose their belief systems upon us can stay in the hell-holes from whence they came. Citizenship here needs to be the entire package: the great opportunities and freedoms offset by the agreement that they are Americans now, and will live by our laws and our standards. Case and point: this means you are free to open a Mosque but you cannot expect to bind others to Sharia Law.

Regardless of the color of their skin or the nation they were born in, there are those we want, and those we cannot accept. It has nothing to do with creed or education or wealth, in fact I would venture that the majority of the ones we want are very poor and have little formal schooling. The ones we want are those who are Americans already- the ones who are free in their own hearts and minds without ever having been exposed to what freedom is. They are the ones who strive and dig in and push themselves past the breaking point to be greater than they are; they live the American dream of productive prosperity oftentimes better than those born here by good luck.

The ones we cannot take are those who wish to leech off our freedoms and economy; the indigent and lazy, the elite from another nation have no place here. This is a country founded on the dreams of farmers and blacksmiths and shopkeepers, not mighty lords and kings and aristocracy. We were the first nation to choose the path which might allow ANY person to be an aristocrat with hard work, and the will to develop their mind and manner to be so. Let princes of other nations stay where they are, we will take the people under their boots and be happy in that, because we know what they don't: the power of those individuals is greater than any army in the world, so long as they are free.

The hysterical fit of "multiculturalism" in this nation has turned what has historically been our greatest asset- the ideas and abilities of our immigrants- into a social cancer which threatens everything about our way of life. Yes, the Statue of Liberty says "...give us your huddled masses", but it makes the caveat that they are the ones "yearning to be free".

In order to facilitate the acceptance of those who would be Americans, why don't we open a new policy in immigration: all able bodied men and women seeking citizenship will be granted such after a term of 4 years in the military, preferably a combat unit. You wish to avail yourself of the opportunities here? You have to choose to put everything on the line, right down to your bones. In the military one can learn the lessons one needs to be an American that they may not have learned in the cultures they came from: The English language, modern sanitation standards, rule of American law, the value of freedom and what is costs to gain and protect it.

In the meantime their immediate family members would live on base with them, learning the same things in different ways and becoming, slowly and with care, Americans. Should the soldier be honorably killed in combat the survivors would receive standard military survivor benefits and citizenship after passing their evaluations.

Those who wish to have our opportunities must also obey our laws, and those who enter illegally have shown disdain for those laws and should be given the choice of long, hard labor imprisonment or service for citizenship, with all the familial benefits entailed. Those who hire illegals for pennies on the dollar wages should be prosecuted with prejudice. They take jobs from those who would follow our laws in order to make an underhanded profit and rob us all.

But for those politicians who seek to weaken us as a nation by robbing us of our culture and ideals, by making a mockery of the law- we must have no mercy upon them.