(Second Liberty Principle: Enforce federal immigration laws. No amnesty. Deport illegal aliens.)
The Problem is Too Much Immigration
By Seth Grossman, Political Columnist
My grandparents were immigrants to America.?? So were the parents or grandparents of most of my friends.?? Some of the nicest people I know were born in other countries, and many of them are here illegally.
?So it took a long time, and it was hard and painful for me to wake up and see that unlimited and uncontrolled immigration today is the most serious threat facing my family today.?? If we don?t fix the problem quick, my children (and yours) will live in third world conditions of violence, corruption, and poverty by the time they are my age?if they live that long.
?When my grandparents came to America, our country was empty and unable to do much about what happened beyond our borders.?? We needed immigrants to settle the land and our roads, railroads, and factories from scratch.
?But that is not true today.??? America is no longer empty and does not need more unskilled, uneducated people than we already have.?? New Jersey taxpayers now spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year ?to preserve open space?.? Every South Jersey politician campaigns against ?overdevelopment?.? Does it make any sense bring in millions of immigrants, bulldoze our fields and forests, pay a fortune for more schools, low income housing, and medical care, so immigrants can do work Americans don?t feel like doing for wages that low?
?When my grandparents came to America, this country was not big or strong enough to protect their rights in the Old Country.?? They had to leave, and America had lots of room for them.? But the world is much smaller today and America is much richer and stronger.?? Why do Mexicans and Bengladeshis have to come to America for a better life today?? Why can?t they find a better life in their own countries??? These countries have the same talent and natural resources we have.? They are only missing one thing—a government and a culture dedicated to ?liberty and justice for all?.
Why not budget some of the billions we spend on police, prisons, schools, doctors, and welfare payments for illegal immigrants, on teaching people in those countries how to fight for liberty and prosperity where they live.??? Instead of telling Wildwood High School students to feel for the genocide victims in Darfur, why not teach our Declaration of Independence and give the people of Darfur the weapons and training they need to create their own country like we Americans did??? Why should the potential George Washingtons and Abraham Lincolns of those? miserable countries be picking our crops and washing our dishes?
? When my grandparents came to America, they expected to become Americans, and the schools, and the government quickly taught them our culture.?? My grandparents junked their Old Country names and used American names as soon as they got here.?? Most immigrants in those days knew far more about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln than most native born Americans today.??? My grandparents learned English within a year, and quickly spoke it everywhere?even at home to their parents.? Baseball became popular because it was the one sport that did not exist in the Old Country.
?????????????? My grandparents, like all Americans back then, did not ask for or expect any help from the government.?? There were no government welfare or retirement programs.?? But nobody in America back then was hungry or homeless.?? Americans in every community formed volunteer organizations to help the poor get on their feet,? and the poor repaid those organizations when they did.?? And of course all immigrants were registered and inspected for diseases and criminal records before they were allowed in.?
?In the past four years, more Americans were killed by the crimes and reckless driving of illegal immigrants here, than by the battles in Iraq.
?Republican President Bush,? Democrat NJ Senators Lautenberg and Menendez, and our own Republican Congressman Frank LoBiondo think our immigration laws are broken, and should be fixed.?? But the current laws are fine?if we had a President who took his oath of office seriously, and enforced them.?? We adopted our current immigration laws just 20 years ago after much study and debate.? With a Republican Reagan as President, and a Democrat Congress, we passed a new immigration that quadrupled the number of LEGAL immigrants, and gave amnesty to more than 5 million? illegals.???? Now, 22 years later, we have 22 million new LEGAL immigrants, about 15 million ILLEGAL immigrants, and an overcrowded multicultural country of more than 300 million people.?? Our problem is too much immigration, not too little.
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Somers Point attorney Seth Grossman appears on 1400AM talk radio 3-4 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays and on 92.1FM 9-10 a.m. Saturdays. For information see www.libertyandprosperity.org, email sethgrossman49@gmail.com or call (609) 927-7333. Breakfast discussions are held 9:30-10:30 a.m. every Saturday at the Shore Diner on Fire and Tilton roads in Egg Harbor Township.
