Horowitz: Even Democrats Once Understood ‘Justice & Fairness’ in Immigration
From Daniel Horowitz, Conservative Review:
“T]here are those in the immigrants’ rights community who have argued passionately that we should simply provide those who are [here] illegally with legal status, or at least ignore the laws on the books and put an end to deportation until we have better laws. … I believe such an indiscriminate approach would be both unwise and unfair. It would suggest to those thinking about coming here illegally that there will be no repercussions for such a decision. And this could lead to a surge in more illegal immigration. And it would also ignore the millions of people around the world who are waiting in line to come here legally. Ultimately, our nation, like all nations, has the right and obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship. And no matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable.”
No, this wasn’t a quote taken from Attorney General Sessions’ statement Tuesday rescinding Obama’s executive DACA amnesty (although it certainly is in line with the principles he espoused). It was a part of Barack Obama’s seminal speech on immigration on July 1, 2010, two years before he decided to act contrarily to his own speech.
Watching one elected Republican after another trip over themselves to declare their allegiance to Obama’s executive amnesty, one can’t help but observe how far to the left our entire body politic has shifted, whereby Republicans are now to the left of where Obama was just seven years ago.
Even Obama understood that amnesty was not only unconstitutional but that it would spawn another border surge. The cruel irony is that when Obama violated his own words and implemented amnesty, we had a 610 percent increase in illegal border crossings from Central America.
This was the essence of Sessions’ message Tuesday — that lawlessness is not compassion and that focusing on illegals ahead of Americans is not proper immigration reform.
There was a time when even Democrats understood “justice and fairness” in immigration. On Aug. 4, 1993, Harry Reid introduced a bill that would end birthright citizenship (an idea he called “insane”), clamp down on asylum seekers (very pertinent to the World Trade Center bombing), expand deportation of criminal aliens, increase penalties on reentries and visa fraud, and exclude all legal immigrants from admission who “cannot demonstrably support themselves without public or private assistance.”
What did Harry Reid say at the time? In an epic speech on the Senate floor a month later, Reid spoke with more conviction than even Jeff Sessions. Here are some highlights:
I wish the statements I have been making were some kind of a nightmare or dream, an aberration. But they are true. But they do not stop. Not only do we admit more than these 100,000 people each year without knowing who they are or why they came, we actually give them all the documents they need to simply disappear into our society.
Reid was worried about anchor babies. Now even Republicans support anchor teenagers.
If making it easy to be an illegal alien is not enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again. If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee full access to all public and social services this society provides. And that is a lot of services. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at taxpayer expense in county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers?
What about the cost to Americans that Paul Ryan and Orrin Hatch seem to ignore? Reid didn’t ignore the problem:
Our federal wallet is stretched to the limit by illegal aliens getting welfare, food stamps, medical care and other benefits often without paying any taxes. Safeguards like welfare and free medical care are in place to boost Americans in need of short-term assistance. These programs were not meant to entice freeloaders and scam artists from around the world.
Compassion? What about compassion for American victims?
“Even worse, Americans have seen heinous crimes committed by individuals who are here illegally,” Reid said.
This is particularly important in light of recent comments from the ICE director stating that 10,000 illegals released by sanctuary cities have committed more crimes after being released.
To get a greater sense of how far to the left the elites have moved on illegal immigration, watch this clip of Bill Clinton during the 1995 State of the Union address.
