The One Immigration Question Every Public Official Needs to Answer Correctly
Biden’s Border Crisis has unleashed a staggering magnitude and frequency of consequence at every level of society which even the “mainstream” news media now finds hard to ignore. Thus, Americans are shocked by daily accounts of almost unfathomable reality; at least 16.8 million illegal aliens residing in the U.S. now cost taxpayers at least $163 billion annually, even as 150,000-200,000 more continue to enter each month. Most are simply released as municipalities from Chicago to Portland, Maine teeter on financial collapse as hundreds of thousands of migrants arrive destitute and unannounced. In many of those same areas, rates of violent crime by illegal aliens skyrocket and dominate daily headlines.
President Biden says over and over there’s nothing he can (or will) do. All this, while many jurisdictions continue proposing legislation to extend even more benefits. With alarming numbers, costs, crime, inaction, and public officials determined to worsen the problem, it’s no surprise immigration is a top issue for voters… as it should be.
It’s easy to get lost in the deluge of data and neglect a fundamental question, one that lies at the heart of why the current crisis continues spiraling out of control: What is the purpose of immigration and what are the principles around which our policies and laws should be made?
If answered correctly and adhered to, the answer might reverse the chaos. Yet, most politicians don’t, won’t, or can’t answer it, nor do most voters ask it often enough of their lawmakers or candidates.
Here are the wrong answers:
- Mass immigration is a means for political parties to incubate future voters.
- It is a labor pool to replace American workers with lower wage workers.
- It is a safety value for Third World nations to send citizens they cannot support or do not want.
- It is a social justice initiative to atone for real and imagined past sins.
- It is a means to achieve a non-consensual make-over of the U.S. that would inevitably lead to a balkanized nation composed of competing identity groups.
Here’s the right answer: Immigration is a discretionary social policy designed to serve our broad national interests. For most of us, those interests are balancing the supply and demand for labor by limiting foreign and illegal competition, protecting national security, ensuring that our limited social service resources are not drained dry by excessive levels of immigration, and protecting our natural resources and energy supplies. Immigration levels we do permit should be geared toward successfully assimilating new arrivals. Overall, immigration policy should be based on fairness, the rule of law, and upon the principle that a sovereign American nation has both the right and the responsibility to limit immigration and control its borders.
In a nutshell — “serving the broad national interest” — has been the raison d’etre of FAIR’s founding and mission for 45 years. By contrast, United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas — the man now in charge of American borders — demonstrates contempt for the national interest and is increasingly evasive when pressed about his agenda, as has been the case nearly every time he has been called to testify before Congress. (Tolstoy pegged Mayorkas perfectly: It is easier to produce ten volumes of philosophical writings than to put one principle into practice.)
Yes, the borders need to be secured, laws must be enforced, those who violate them should be removed, and local and state sanctuary policies that incentivize and reward illegal immigration have to be stopped. But our immigration solutions and problems may just rinse and repeat with each subsequent administration unless Americans insist that elected public officials acknowledge their understanding of, and will steadfastly apply, the basic principle underlying immigration; policies and laws that serve the broad public interest. Fidelity to that idea ensures that Americans are recognized as the true stakeholders — not business lobbies, illegal alien special interests, nor political parties — and prevents another Biden-like border calamity being inflicted on future generations.
Protecting and serving the interests of the citizenry is a fundamental principle of national sovereignty and was a core concept for our founders. It must serve as an essential, abiding principle behind an orderly, safe, and beneficial system of immigration today and tomorrow.