Countries must take care of their own
Independence Day reminds us of our forefathers who banded together and stood up to a government that was not representing them or listening to them to their satisfaction. The recent failure of the Senate to pass its “amnesty” immigration bill is a refreshing reminder that the people can still be heard. There is only one reason this bill did not pass: ordinary citizens let their elected officials know in no uncertain terms they were not in favor of it.
The failure of this bill is a noteworthy event. All the establishment powers were lined up in support of it in the weeks leading up to the final vote to kill it-the President, the leadership for both parties, big business interests, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, religious leaders, almost all of the mainstream media and, of course, the government officials from Mexico. Despite assurances from the New York Times that polls showed most Americans favored a “path to citizenship” for those who broke our immigration laws to enter our country, almost all other credible polls showed about 80 percent of the citizenry was against it.
So the “silent majority” took action. I wrote a letter published in this paper one year ago after the illegal immigration rights marches in May of last year that the sleeping giant of the American people would be awaken to the immigration issue. The giant may be slow to act, but act it did in the form of millions of individuals contacting their elected officials, most for the first time in their lives, to let them know they were not in favor of granting what amounts to amnesty for some 12 to 20 million lawbreakers.
Here are some fun facts on the immigration issue: the U.S. allows more legal immigration every year than all the other countries of the world combined. The population of the U.S. has increased by 50 percent since 1970 (from 200 to 300 million). We have mayors in most of our big cities welcome illegal immigrants and say their cities would not function without them. The richest man in the world is no longer Bill Gates-it is the guy who runs the phone monopoly in Mexico. Pretty easy to charge what you want with no competition, and phone calls in Mexico are much more expensive than in the U.S. despite the much lower per capita income.
While our media work itself into a lather over Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith, no one is doing any serious reporting about the root causes of our illegal immigration crisis: the sorry state of the governments south of the Rio Grande and the shameful job they are doing to provide opportunity for their people. I completely sympathize with the good people of Mexico and other Central American countries who come here for a better life. Who can blame them? But the answer does not lie in our facilitating the incompetence and corruption of their governments. The answer lies in their countries taking responsibility for the welfare of their citizens. There is no excuse for Mexico being the corrupt economic basket case that it is when it is sitting on the doorstep of the biggest consumer market in the world and enjoys great diplomatic relations with the United States.
It is time for our leaders to be reminded it is not a government with a country; it is a country with a government. Government works for the people. The irony of this whole issue is people come here because we have the rule of law. This amnesty bill -and our continuing tolerance of illegal immigration-is very corrosive to our tradition of the rule of law and the very fiber of what it means to be an American.
By Rick Mullen