The Immigration Ploy
by Thomas Sowell
Recently
by Thomas Sowell: Socialist
or Fascist?
President
Obama's latest political ploy – granting new "rights" out of thin
air, by Executive Order, to illegal immigrants who claim that they
were brought into the country when they were children – is all too
typical of his short-run approach to the country's long-run problems.
Whatever the
merits or demerits of the Obama immigration policy, his Executive
Order is good only as long as he remains president, which may be
only a matter of months after this year's election.
People cannot
plan their lives on the basis of laws that can suddenly appear,
and then suddenly disappear, in less than a year. To come forward
today and claim the protection of the Obama Executive Order is to
declare publicly and officially that your parents entered the country
illegally. How that may be viewed by some later administration is
anybody's guess.
Employers likewise
cannot rely on policies that may be here today and gone tomorrow,
whether these are temporary tax rates designed to look good at election
time or temporary immigration policies that can backfire later if
employers get accused of hiring illegal immigrants.
Why hire someone,
and invest time and money in training them, if you may be forced
to fire them before a year has passed?
Kicking the
can down the road is one of the favorite exercises in Washington.
But neither in the economy nor in their personal lives can people
make plans and commitments on the basis of government policies that
suddenly appear and suddenly disappear.
Like so many
other Obama ploys, his immigration ploy is not meant to help the
country, but to help Obama. This is all about getting the Hispanic
vote this November.
The principle
involved – keeping children from being hurt by actions over which
they had no control – is one already advanced by Senator Marco Rubio,
who may well end up as Governor Romney's vice-presidential running
mate. The Obama Executive Order, which suddenly popped up like a
rabbit out of a magician's hat, steals some of Senator Rubio's thunder,
so it is clever politics.
But clever
politics is what has gotten this country into so much trouble, not
only as regards immigration but also as regards the economy and
the dangerous international situation.
When the new,
and perhaps short-lived, immigration policy is looked at in terms
of how it can be administered, it makes even less sense. While this
policy is rationalized in terms of children, those who invoke it
are likely to do so as adults.
How do you
check someone's claim that he was brought into the country illegally
when he was a child? If Obama gets reelected, it is very unlikely
that illegal immigrants will really have to prove anything. The
administration can simply choose not to enforce that provision,
as so many other immigration laws are unenforced in the Obama administration.
If Obama does
not get reelected, then it may not matter anyway, when his Executive
Order can be gone after he is gone.
Ultimately,
it does not matter what immigration policy this country has, if
it cannot control its own borders. Whoever wants to come, and who
has the chutzpah, will come. And the fact that they come across
the Mexican border does not mean that they are all Mexicans. They
can just as easily be terrorists from the Middle East.
Only
after the border is controlled can any immigration policy matter
be seriously considered, and options weighed through the normal
Constitutional process of Congressional hearings, debate and legislation,
rather than by Presidential short-cuts.
Not only is
border control fundamental, what is also fundamental is the principle
that immigration policy does not exist to accommodate foreigners
but to protect Americans – and the American culture that has made
this the world's richest, freest and most powerful nation for more
than a century.
No nation can
absorb unlimited numbers of people from another culture without
jeopardizing its own culture. In the 19th and early 20th century,
America could absorb millions of immigrants who came here to become
Americans. But the situation is entirely different today, when group
separatism, resentment and polarization are being promoted by both
the education system and politicians.
June
20, 2012
Thomas
Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford
University. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.
To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other
Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators
Syndicate web page.
The
Best of Thomas Sowell
Copyright ©
2012 Creators Syndicate
|