George Rebane

“Immigration Reform” is another in the legion of lies from Washington these days.  The first order of business – bamboozling the words – has already been embedded in our brainbones, thereby making it hard to have a reasoned discussion about the subject.  What subject?  Illegal aliens, or more specifically Illegal Entrants.

We have been taught to label illegal entrants as ‘illegal immigrants’.  This fosters all the images of ‘poor, tired, and huddled’ immigrants who came off the ships from ‘their teeming shores’, and then became citizens and helped build America.  But those guys aren’t and never were the problem.

It takes two to make an immigrant.  The party of the first part is the alien who emigrates from another land, and petitions to enter a country according to the provisions of its laws in order to become a citizen and make it his new home.  And the party of the second part, the receiving country, processes the petition according to the provision of the same laws and issues the welcoming permission.  Upon arrival, the immigrant enters into a formal administrative process that obligates the immigrant to a sequence of prescribed actions/duties in order to proceed toward naturalized citizenship.

If the immigrant screws up and does not follow said process, then his legal immigration status lapses and he becomes an illegal immigrant.  If this occurs unintentionally, then there is usually recourse to being restored to legal status.  If it occurs intentionally or later becomes intentional and the immigrant avoids the authorities, then he becomes a fugitive while in this country.  That is an illegal immigrant who also belongs to the super-class of illegal alien.

But it’s quite a bit different if Jose and/or Mahmoud sneak in under the fence for whatever ultimate reason.  They become fugitives the moment their foot hits the US of A, and are immediately inducted into the super-class of ‘illegal alien’ of which ‘illegal entrant’ is a sub-class and their specific status.  The immigration reform now touted is intended to handle illegal entrants who violated our laws from the gitgo.  The sheeple are being managed to view a criminal illegal entrant, appropriately mislabeled an illegal immigrant, and – with all the juices of pathos and compassion flowing – conjure up the historical images of immigrants being processed on Ellis Island.  But for an illegal entrant, no immigration took place.  And yes, according to our laws, they are criminals.

If we can’t make such simple distinctions, then there is little hope that we will draft any reform legislation that comprehensively addresses our illegal alien problem.  Of course, this implies that there is still a broad-based willingness to address this problem so as to maintain America’s sovereignty.  The problem for this administration (see here and here) is how can America, as a strong sovereign nation-state, be made into a contrite and compliant member of the global community.