The Federal Government's handling of illegal immigration is indefensible. For several decades it has deliberately failed to enforce border security through existing law, while giving illegal aliens all the economic benefits of citizenship and ultimately granting them actual citizenship through amnesty. In short, the government lures illegal immigrants. Since the government itself bears responsibility for the invasion, we can expect those responsible to deny that illegal immigration is a problem. That's what we see in the recent remark by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. She appeared on CNN recently and said that "crossing the border is not a crime per se."
This failure of government is not merely from incompetence. The unspoken motives of many who excuse illegal entry into our country are to get cheap labor and to gain support from the growing minority of potential voters. These are self-serving aims for the narrow political benefit of the two major parties, and can’t in good faith be openly used in defense of bad immigration policy.
I want to propose another explanation for the Central Government's failure to enforce immigration laws. But first, let me enumerate some of the straight-forward arguments against unregulated immigration. They are so sound and so obvious that they should convince any right-thinking person. But they have fallen on deaf ears of those in government and the nation's elite.
Using the money of citizen taxpayers to provide goods and services to non-citizens is unfair.
Giving illegal aliens amnesty citizenship is unfair to those who are trying legally to become citizens.
Failure to secure borders puts an extra financial burden on Southern border States.
Rewarding law-breaking sets a bad precedent in a country that pretends to be a nation of laws.
Ignoring border violations undermines the fundamental sovereignty of the nation.
Unprotected borders are a threat to national security.
Unprotected borders invite drug trafficking and invasion by criminals.
The influx of illegal aliens puts a strain on the nation's infrastructure, schools, and other public facilities.
Illegal alien workers are taking jobs that could and should be available to U.S. citizens.
These and other arguments have been put forward by many citizen organizations opposed to the central government's promotion of illegal immigration. Such groups include the Southern National Congress, which passed seven Remonstrances and Petitions for a Redress of Grievances at our First Congress in December 2008.
Our Remonstrance on mass immigration warned among other things that “Federal power is being used to displace us as a People in our own land. It is hard to imagine anything more abusive and faithless on the part of our government and political leaders, whose legitimate function is the protection of society. This situation requires immediate and comprehensive remedies if the Government is to retain its moral authority and legitimacy, and thereby to expect the continued allegiance of the Southern People.”
Advocates of uncontrolled immigration are unable to refute these points with reasoned argument. Instead they resort to tactics which have no place in civil discourse. An instance of these tactics occurred recently at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where former Congressman Tom Tancredo was scheduled to speak about immigration. A group of students in sympathy with illegal immigrants and led by like-minded faculty rioted in protest. According to the Chancellor of the University, guest speaker Tancredo "felt threatened and left without making his remarks."
Unfortunately, it’s not just isolated special-interest groups who have been hostile to a reasonable discussion of illegal immigration. Recently the Department of Homeland Security circulated a paper asserting that those who oppose unregulated immigration are potential threats to national security.
These observations bring me to another, more ominous reason among the nation's elite for promoting illegal immigration. I am not saying there is an articulated conspiracy. Rather it is just part of a mindset of the Washington Regime and the elites in mainstream media who wish to alter our society and our culture. To people of this mindset illegal immigration is a principal device for altering our national habits, traditions, and beliefs.
One can only speculate what kind of nation these elites intend to create.
As long ago as 1998 this attitude was revealed when President Clinton jubilantly proclaimed in a speech at Portland State that "In a little more than fifty years there will be no majority race in the United States," and he said it is "largely because of immigration." For several decades, we have seen an intensifying assault on Christianity, traditional marriage, English as a national language, and other values that Southerners cherish.
Similarly, under assault are individual rights embodied in the Constitution. But we should not be surprised that a government which disregards its own laws (as the US has with its immigration laws) will likewise disregard its Constitution. Today freedom of speech is one of the most threatened of the original Bill of Rights. With the tacit support
of the Federal Government, schools and colleges are able to suppress freedom of speech using lists of forbidden words they have labeled "hate speech." Disregard for the Constitution, begun more than a century ago, is intensifying. Former President Bush called the Constitution just a piece of paper. And President Obama has said that it’s outdated.
When the fundamental law of the land is ignored or derided by those responsible for its enforcement, then we no longer live under a government of laws, we are no longer citizens of a self-governing constitutional republic. In which case we Southerners had better look to our own traditions, our own historic principles, and our own resources for an alternative if we wish to remain a free people.
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Kearney Smith is a North Carolina Delegate to the Southern National Congress.
