Bill O'Reilly
Drawing the line on the border
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
One of the problems with demanding that the feds enforce
immigration law is that you will immediately be branded a mean guy or gal.
If you want to stop poor people from illegally coming to the land of milk
and money, the USA, some of your fellow citizens will define you as
insensitive, selfish, racist, ghastly and downright anti-Christian. Those
are tough charges to digest.
A co-worker at Fox News caught me in the hallway and said: "You
don't like immigrants very much, do you, Bill?"
I gave my usual answer, which is if I were a poor man with a
family in Mexico, I'd jump the border as well. I don't blame the aliens, I
blame the corrupt Mexican government, which cannot build an effective
economic infrastructure, and a cowardly U.S. government, which will not
enforce immigration laws.
Then I asked the guy: "so it's OK with you that we pretty much
let anyone into this country who can get to the border?"
The man said it was OK with him. Immigrants are good for the USA
and how could any feeling person deny them entrance.
And so it goes, the compassionate want the doors to the nation
left wide open, the mean people would like some order to the immigration
process.
Cardinal McCarrick of Washington has also weighed in on this
from a theological view. He says that true Christians must treat illegal
immigrants with compassion because that's what Jesus would do. And the
cardinal is right. Jesus would probably not be a border patrol agent. But,
then, Jesus did direct us to "Render to Caesar, the things that are
Caesar's." And the law comes under the Caesar heading.
The good cardinal would not talk with me, but his spokesperson
did. I wondered if Jesus had a spokesperson, but that's another topic.
Anyway, the cardinal's guy said illegal immigrant should be given all
assistance possible. Then I asked him if the cardinal had any solutions to
prevent about 11 million human beings from sneaking in here. The man said
the cardinal believed the American government should reform the economies of
poor nations so folks would not have to come here. That is what the man
said.
Jesus might be able to do that, but no amount of American
largesse can lift countries like Mexico and Honduras out of poverty. We
simply do not have the power to do that. Somebody tell the cardinal.
What we do have the power, but as yet the will, to do is to tell
the world we will accept foreign workers in a well-organized program that
requires applicants to clear background checks and obey our laws. Is that so
unreasonable?
But in order to implement such a program, the borders of the USA
would have to be secured. Why bother to register and wait for legal status,
when you can dance across the border and have dinner in Tucson that very
evening?
A new study by the "Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus,"
which is fighting illegal immigration, says that deploying 36,000 military
personnel to back up the Border Patrol would stop the flow of people from
the south and severely dent the narcotics traffic as well. This, of course,
is the immediate solution to the problem, and President Bush could do that
with a stroke of the pen, he could simply sign an executive order, and it
would happen.
But the president will most likely not do that, and the chaos
will continue. Illegals will die in the desert, border states will face
bankruptcy from providing services to thousands of non-citizens, and some
very bad people will enter this country unsupervised.
It is hard to image that Jesus would be down with that picture,
but I could be wrong. Caesar certainly would not have permitted it. And so
the debate goes on — the compassionate people versus the mean people.
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JWR contributor Bill O'Reilly is host of the
Fox News show, "The O'Reilly Factor," and author
of, most recently, "Who's Looking Out for You?" Comments by clicking here.
