What Southern Border?

What Southern Border?
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

June 13, 2014

The confluence of just some of Barack Obama’s failings – Obamacare, the Veterans Administration scandal, and now the tens of thousands of children teeming across the southern border of this country, illegally, now held in refugee-like conditions are actually related as part of Obama’s pledge during his 2008 campaign to fundamentally change the United States of America.

This administration is pledging $2 billion to help the thousands and thousands of children who have no legal right to be in the United States – including legal aid to help what many in the so-called mainstream media are calling “young immigrants,” as if they were somehow forced by this country to come here.

Being held in deplorable conditions in places like Nogales, AZ and McAllen, TX where border agents are now being used as intake human resource administrators instead of doing their job, which, as it is, is damn near impossible as the resources they need have been sliced and diced as if by a Ginsu Knife ®, the children are both economic and political pawns in a dangerous chess game that can only be lost by all involved.

Illegal aliens, because the term undocumented immigrants suggests they have a right to be in the United States, but simply forgot to fill out some form, do not have legal standing in this country, yet Attorney General Eric Holder is undertaking a precedent-setting course of action to treat these people as welcome residents.

“We’re taking a historic step to strengthen our justice system and protect the rights of the most vulnerable members of society,” said Holder. Holder seems to have forgotten a little something called the rule of law. One would think the highest ranking attorney in this country would understand and uphold the laws of the land – this land – the United States; not Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, or any other country whose children have come here for purposes unknown.

Giving rights to the illegals does not strengthen the American justice system. It weakens it by delivering the message that those who can sneak into the United States can make their way through the legal system with the hopes of remaining in this country, claiming sanctuary in some form or another. And what rights are we protecting? Holder said we are protecting the rights of these children here illegally.

This current flood of unaccompanied children in the United States illegally has reached nearly 50,000, with predictions of another 50,000 before year end. This is a product of Obama’s open borders belief. While not saying he supports open borders, his actions have certainly spoken more loudly by the cuts made in border patrol agents.

Such an influx of unaccompanied minors will only lead to parents and other relatives clamoring for entrance into the United States to be with and claims to support their children. But in reality, they are coming here for the entitlements they know they can steal from the taxpayers of this country – both citizen and legal resident alike. Free education, but they won’t learn English – they’ll demand to be taught in their native language; food stamps they did not earn; welfare which they also did not earn; and of course medical care.

Doctors are being sent to the border, when instead they should be sent to every VA hospital in these United States to provide the long overdue medical care and attention the brave men and women who don the uniform of this country putting their lives on the line every day deserve – immediately. The disastrous way our veterans are being treated, or mistreated, is simply a microcosm of the abomination that is Obamacare.

Instead, what Obama should be sending to the border is the National Guard to rein in the chaos and havoc being wreaked by those who have no legal right to be here – a concept that can’t be stressed enough. These children, who somehow got to the United States, can certainly go back.

This is an issue that should not be emotional, but logical and pertaining to the rule of law. Those who cross the border without permission are here illegally, have broken the law, and must be returned to their country of origin. Yet, by nature of the fact that these are unaccompanied children, it becomes an emotional issue as painted by the far left media. The American people are seeing pictures of what look like Third World refugee camps in the Middle East, but are actually in the American Southwest, and yes, they not only tug, but yank at the heartstrings. How could they not?

But the United States cannot, should not, absorb any or all of these children. Yes, it is a sad story, but there is still the rule of law. Allowing the children will ultimately set a poor precedent for permitting their parents or other relatives to add to the welfare rolls, compete for jobs when unemployment continues to remain over 10 percent when considering those who have removed themselves from the job hunt.

The economic ramifications will be severe as greater job loss will be incurred, demands for entitlements will soar, further crowding will occur in hospitals, and schools as demands for free breakfast and lunch becomes even more costly than it already is. There will also be the health risks. We don’t know what infestations these children are bring across the border and how that will affect the children with whom they interact in the schools and elsewhere.

This administration will never deport these children; for they are the political pawns alluded to earlier. They will eventually be absorbed with their families, as Obama’s lawlessness will become a unilateral and illegal granting of amnesty for this current crop of invaders along with the other 12 to 20 million already in the United States. Those granted amnesty will eventually become voters pledging their allegiance to the Democrats, who would loyally vote for candidates who forever keep them as a permanent underclass with the promises of entitlement and cradle to grave government care.

The emotionality of this issue must be removed and the rule of law enforced. Those here illegally must be fingerprinted, photographed, and sent home – yes, deported. There it is – the dirty magic word – deportation. This is not the 1930s and 1940s Nazi-era-style deportation. Under the Nazis, millions of legal Jewish citizens were deported to concentrations camps leading to certain slaughter. They had not invaded any country seeking entitlements and unearned benefits, as this crop of illegals is doing.

We, the law abiding citizens and legal residents of the United States welcome legal immigrants who come to the United States through the front door the way our own ancestors did via Ellis Island and other legal ports of call.

They came with a dream of a better life through education and hard work. They did not demand that the rest of America learn Italian, Greek, Russian, Polish, Magyar, or Yiddish. They struggled to learn English and did so with pride. Today it is just the opposite with demands for government documents to be printed in myriad languages. The legal immigrants of the late 1800s through early 1900s came with the promise of a job and a sponsor or they were sent back. Today it is just the opposite with demands for welfare. The legal immigrants of the late 19^th-early 20^th centuries were required to submit to a medical examination. If they failed, they were either sent back to their country of origin or quarantined until able to join their family and/or sponsor. Today it is just the opposite as we are told we can’t discriminate against those with disease or illness. They come demanding free health care, only ratcheting up the costs to the taxpayers – costs which Obama claims would be reduced under a single-payer, European-style system that is failing on the other side of the Atlantic.

But make no mistake, the issue of illegal aliens and amnesty was not born under the Obama administration, he simply waved the white flag of surrender. President Ronald Reagan, one of my three political heroes, unfortunately granted what was supposed to be the amnesty to end all amnesties in 1986. That clearly failed and the floodgates remained open. Liberals take great joy in citing the Reagan amnesty, but in their ignorance simply perpetuate the reasons as to why amnesty is terribly wrong.

All presidents since John Adams inherited the problems of their predecessors. How they handle them is part of what defines them and their legacy. Reagan handled Carter’s failings, and there were many, by not complaining, but instead by rolling up his sleeves and getting to work on day one fixing the economy, restoring pride and dignity to the United States, and returning us to the status of global leader and world power.

While Reagan lifted the United States out of the malaise that was the Carter administration, Obama is doing all he can to diminish the United States in the eyes of the world, and sadly, he is succeeding. This is not his failing, but instead, his goal as per the Rules for Radicals written by his mentor Saul Alinsky.

Obama continues to be on the wrong side of the most important issues facing the American people, and at costs too great for the United States to sustain. He must be held accountable – even via impeachment for the laws he has broken – the cover up pertaining to Benghazi (addressed in a previous column), the cover up pertaining to the VA hospitals (to be addressed in an upcoming column), as well as the failure to give the Congress the appropriate 30 day notice regarding the trade of GITMO detainees in the unconscionable Bowe Bergdahl deal with the Taliban (also to be addressed in a future column).

Obama’s continued threat to use his telephone and pen to enact the executive orders in place of legislation he knows would never pass the House of Representatives must be silenced. The House must have the temerity to do what is right, and not what may be expedient or popular simply because the media declares it to be so.

Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA) just lost his seat in an overwhelming primary defeat at the hands of Dave Brat because Cantor was too in bed with Obama on amnesty for illegals as well as losing touch with his constituents back home, a mere two and one half hour drive from the Capitol Building. It is not racist to follow the rule of law.

The establishment had better be paying attention or they will also find themselves unemployed, but if that means electing new members possessing a backbone, bring them on, and send the illegals home. With the drive and determination that they used to get to the United States, they should strive to make their home countries places to stay, work, play, and prosper.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.