The youthful tidal wave plunging over America’s southern border has brought the immigration debate to a critical crescendo. While most Americans are struggling with what is the moral and ethical thing to do with the children, the two political parties are struggling with how they are going to out-maneuver the other in a political chess match that has the future control of America at stake. The debate centers on giving citizenship, with full voting privileges, to people who come to America illegally.

Nearly every decision, collectively made by elected officials is done with one of two main goals in mind; either to stay in political power or gain more political power. These two goals are the prime motivator for nearly every decision made, every law passed, and every political speech delivered. In short, human political philosophy holds, if a law is passed that is beneficial for the people, then so much the better, but if it is not and one can politically get away with it, then so be it as long as the law increases their chances for re-election.

For example, the Democratic Party puts millions of taxpayer dollars into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two failed but still government-supported home loan institutions that were at the center of the disastrous housing bubble. In return Fannie and Freddie heavily donate to Democratic Party candidates.

Another example is the Republican Party framing national security issues in a way to validate massive defense spending. While national defense is vitally important and government funding of it is certainly constitutional, the amount of spending and the manner in which it is spent exceed the nation’s defense requirements. The military industrial complex that has grown out of this spending supports an interventionist foreign policy[1] vice a constitutional foreign policy and the money made by the military industrial complex goes back into supporting Republican candidates all at tax payer expense.

Some may see this as an unwarranted cynical view, but it is a regretful fact of human nature that has become more prevalent as America drifts farther and farther away from its Reformed Christian foundation.[2] Individual politicians may go to Washington for altruistic reasons, but they too are frequently caught up in party politics if they have a desire to be re-elected.

The electorate must take this into consideration when weighing arguments made about questions of national magnitude. Politicians will always frame their arguments in the best light, but in order not to be led astray by political double talk and duplicitous reasoning, citizens must look past the window dressing and see the political motives behind each argument.

Immigration is not about fairness, hospitality, morality, or even the welfare of immigrants, it is about changing the electoral demographics of America. The Democratic Party has championed the illegal immigration cause, and now Hispanics, who according to the US Census Bureau’s 2013 statistics, make up 17.1% of the US population and overwhelmingly support Democratic party candidates. If the Democratic party continues to be successful in expanding privileges for illegal immigrants and in thwarting voter identification laws to make it easier for illegals to vote in elections, then the Democratic party will more easily remain in control.

If this happens, it will leave the Republican party no choice but to pander to the same voting block of illegal immigrants and Hispanics. At that point, we might as well invite the politicians from the countries from where the immigrants came to come run our country as well, because the results will be nearly identical.

If you personally do not like the thought of living under the government in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, or Nicaragua, then you should think twice about supporting any politician pandering to illegal immigrants or the community that supports them. In spite of the narrative advanced by supporters of illegal immigration, the majority of Americans are completely fine with legal immigrants, who entered America in compliance with American immigration law.

Before anyone of us answers what is moral and ethical in the current unfolding humanitarian crisis, we should consider for what purpose “We the people” gave Congress the power “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,”[3] and how that power should be wielded in our present time.

Congress first passed an act dealing with “an uniform Rule of Naturalization” on March 26, 1790, that stipulated an alien must be a “free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years…and making proof … that he is a person of good character.”

From a 21st century perspective, this is sure to seem like a very “racist” statement, yet when put within an 18th century context we should all be able to see it for what it was, a statement of self-preservation.

While people of non-European ethnicity and skin color lived in America as freemen during our struggle for independence and even made significant contributions to that independence, they were the exception not the rule. Their contributions came primarily from an adopted world view that was not common in the countries or continents from where they descended. Whereas, “white” people who came primarily from Europe could easily be assimilated into American culture without too much risk of their overwhelming the culture and changing it irrevocably.

Preservation of American culture was the goal of our earliest immigration laws and it should be the goal of our current immigration laws as well. Much has changed since the 18th century and skin pigmentation is not and rightfully should not be a factor in determining modern day immigration eligibility, but a person’s motives for immigrating and their world view still should be.

On January 29, 1795, Congress passed another naturalization act that extended the length of time of eligible residency to five years and added the stipulation that an applicant must make proof that they are “of a good moral character, attached to the principles of the constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.”

If illegal immigrants do not respect our laws in coming to America, what evidence is there to support the claim they will respect our Constitution afterwards? By breaking our immigration laws they have demonstrated a lack of moral character and complete disregard for our laws and our way of life.

In 1795, the term of eligibility was extended to five years to better assimilate 18th century immigrants into American culture. What would it take to assimilate modern immigrants coming across our southern border?

Most all Americans welcome with open arms anyone who wants to come to America for the purpose of upholding the principles that made us free, but if immigrants come or came illegally, they have already demonstrated the lack of character to do this and no amount of time will change this within them.

It is for this reason, citizenship with full voting privileges should never be an option for anyone who has ever come or will come to America illegally. While mass deportation is not a fiscally or functionally viable option, selective deportation should be swift and sure to any legal or illegal immigrant, given amnesty or not, who does not conform to American laws, language, or customs.

On November 6, 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, also known as the Simpson-Mazzoli Act. This act passed Congress as a quid pro quo in which one political party accepted amnesty and full voting privileges for illegal aliens living continuously in the United States since 1982; the other political party accepted increased border security to deter further illegal immigration and avert another immigration crisis.

Since the immigration deterrent portion of this measure has proven completely unsuccessful, the other part of the quid pro quo should be equally null and void by rescinding voting privileges of all illegal immigrants, no matter when they arrived.

Rescinding voting privileges needs to be enacted at the State level, because the Constitution did not originally grant the national government authority over who is authorized to vote. Except for the clause “the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislator” [4] no other clause in the Constitution addresses voter qualifications. This means, without a legitimately ratified amendment granting voter qualification authority to the national government, which the Fourteenth Amendment is not,[5] the national government is restricted from making any law concerning voter qualifications.

Another issue the coercively and fraudulently ratified Fourteenth Amendment has caused, is the “anchor baby” issue in which illegal immigrants claim citizenship for their children simply because they are born on American soil. It takes more than being born in America to be an American and it is past time our national government legally recognizes this. Children reared by parents who openly violated US law in coming to America are not the people we want as citizens.

The Simpson-Mazzoli Act was based on the flawed theory that if the US limited job opportunities through employer penalties for hiring illegal aliens, mass illegal immigration would stop. This theory may have proved true if our national government had not created a social welfare state in which nearly everything needed in society is provided free of charge. This list includes education at publicly funded schools, health-care at hospital emergency rooms, housing and even spending money directly from the national government. Such handouts make it possible for people coming from third world countries to live better in America than they did from where they previously lived without even getting a job. What reasonable, and most likely desperate, person would pass up such an opportunity?

Nationally imposed minimum wage laws also contribute to continued illegal immigration, because illegals are willing to take sub-minimum wage pay “under the table” and still live better than they did before they came.

Eliminating all social welfare spending at every level of government,[6] de-funding public schools,[7] allowing hospitals to determine to whom they will provide charitable health-care, restricting voter privileges indefinitely for all illegals, and allowing States or even individual counties to set minimum wage standards, if they so choose, within their jurisdiction would go a long way to deterring mass illegal immigration. Even if these measures would not stop mass illegal immigration, they would significantly reduce the tax burden Americans now bear to support others transgressing our laws and it would eliminate a major political motive to encourage and protect illegal immigration.

While the children inundating our southerner border is a heart rendering situation, our national government, which is already deeply in debt, does not have the resources to provide for the volume of children flooding in, much less every child in the world living under similar situations and conditions.

Neither is it the responsibility of the American taxpayer to bear this burden; it is the responsibility of the adults living in the society from where these children have come to change their government in a way that will rectify the wrongs they are living with instead of exporting the ideology that created the corrupt, tyrannical beast under whose authority they now suffer. Americans were and still are willing to fight for their independence, others must be willing to fight for their own as well.

The President, who frequently has claimed he has “a pen and a phone”, should stop pretending to hide behind an obscure law written to prevent human sex trafficking and immediately send the children back to where they came. If for no other reason than to dissuade others from sending more children our way and further overwhelming our ability to provide for them.

To answer the ethical and moral dilemma of the youthful human tidal wave plunging across America’s southern border, we as a nation, should not support their remaining in America funded by our tax dollars and we should minimize expenditures made in handling them, because there is nothing charitable about giving other people’s money away.[8] But, if individuals or groups want to take fiscal responsibility of the children or adopt them outright then our President, Congress and every other citizen should encourage them to do so.

 

[1] American Founding Principles, Constitutional Foreign Policy, August 28, 2013.

[2]  American Founding Principles, Freedom in America: The Unifying Idea, June 17, 2013.

[3]  U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 4.

[4]  U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 2, Clause 1.

[5] The Fourteenth Amendment was allegedly ratified on July 9, 1868, but the northern controlled House and Senate had made ratification of the amendment a requirement for “allowing” the individual Confederate States to “rejoin” the union. Not only did their coercion not work, but several “Union” States: New Jersey, Ohio, Kentucky, California, Delaware and Maryland, also refused to ratify the amendment. Unable to obtain the three fourths of the States required to ratify it, Congress did the next best thing and announced that it had been ratified and acted as if it were.

[6] American Founding Principles, Who is General Welfare?, October 15, 2012.

[7]  American Founding Principles, Fixing Public Education, September 13, 2012.

[8]  American Founding Principles, Who is General Welfare?, October 15, 2012.