What is Next for Illegal Immigration?

Michael Barone, of Real Clear Politics, writes an intelligent article summarizing why the immigration bill was not passed, and more importantly - what now?

“We have to start by recognizing why the voting public was strongly against the bill. “We have met the enemy, and he is us,” the comic strip character Pogo said, and the enemy here is the us that have not enforced the law — the executive and legislative branches, which have let the promise of the 1986 immigration law to become a dead letter and the voters who have not punished elected officials for doing so. The 1986 law purported to penalize employers who hired illegal immigrants. But because of the ease of obtaining forged identification documents, that has long been a dead letter. The 1986 law envisioned strict border security. But for too long the border remained a sieve.

As pollster Scott Rasmussen has shown, the opposition to the bill was fueled less by anger at “amnesty,” the idea that illegals would be rewarded for breaking the law, than it was by an astringent skepticism that it would provide real border security. Americans may be willing to forgive those who were, by the actions of government and the inactions of voters, effectively invited to violate the law. But they don’t seem to be willing to trust a government to enforce the law when it hasn’t seemed to.”

His point about the outdated 1986 immigration law is a great one. I would bet that not one police officer in the USA enforces this law. They aren’t allowed to!

He goes on to add that we are starting to build fences in certain border areas, and that technology will make it much easier for us to stop illegal immigration versus the previous decades. I pretty much agree with his reasons why the bill was not passed, and partially agree with the steps we should take next. However, the main point missing in the article is the obvious fact that THE TIME IS NOW to make our voice heard and force the government to steadfastly stop illegal immigration. Speed up the construction of fences, employ more technology in unsecured areas of the border, and give us real border security.

Read the full article