Wrong way to go on immigration issues
All politicians pander. Dick Gephardt took the practice to a new low this week.
During an appearance at the annual meeting of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic organization, the House minority leader promised to introduce legislation bestowing permanent residency status upon millions of illegal immigrants.
“Our proposal will bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows,” said Gephardt, “and into the light of accountability and greater cooperation in our fight against terrorism.”
Of course, the Missouri Democrat knows that his proposal has less than a zero chance of winning approval in the House, but that’s beside the point as far as he is concerned. His aim is to dissuade Hispanic voters from defecting to the party of Bush and Hastert (so that Democrats can make good on Gephardt’s prediction that they will pick up as many as 40 House seats in November).
Under the House Democrats’ plan, illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for five years, who have held jobs here for at least two of those years, will be able to apply for de facto amnesty.
The Gephardt Democrats also are considering a provision that will allow currently undocumented workers who have lived less than five years in this country to qualify later.
Which means that foreign nationals who have violated this nation’s borders, who have broken its immigration laws, will be rewarded with permanent residency status — including 115,000 foreign nationals from Middle Eastern countries living in the United States illegally (or quasi-legally, in the cases of those seeking refugee status or political asylum).
It’s frightening to think the man who is a handful of seats from the House speakership would dare suggest that proffering amnesty to illegal immigrants will somehow help the United States fight the war on terrorism.
For Gephardt’s amnesty program not only would apply to the 3 million Mexican illegals, but also to the 5 million or so non-Mexican illegals here in this country, such as the four Pakistani nationals working aboard a grain ship docked near New Orleans who deserted the vessel earlier this month and high-tailed it to Texas.
If the illegal immigrants — young Middle Eastern men, just like the Sept. 11 hijackers — manage to avoid apprehension for so many years, if they secure employment (using fake identification), they will eventually be eligible for permanent resident status under the House Democrat proposal.
We need look no further back than 1986, when Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which granted legal status to 3 million illegal immigrants. The law was supposed to ameliorate the illegal immigration problem. The number of undocumented foreign nationals stealing into the country was supposed to decline.
Just the opposite occurred.
In fact, the population of illegal immigrants in this country more than doubled during the 1990s, according to the Census Bureau. And those illegals are just biding their time, waiting for the Gephardt Democrats to grant them legal status.
National security demands that the United States get tough, not soft, on illegal immigration. The safety and well-being of the American people should not be jeopardized by pandering politicians.
(Joseph Perkins is a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune and can be reached at [email protected].)