Immigration

I am not against foreign nationals immigrating to the United States. My grandparents were immigrants. My grandfather, Henry Boonstra, came to the US in 1920 from the Netherlands. Four years later he brought my grandmother, Rose Kooistra, over and they were married in Iowa. They struggled, they learned English, and they worked a farm through the Great Depression until his asthma and bad heart forced them to move to the thin air of Denver, Colorado. In 1929 Gramps became a US citizen. In 1948 Granny got her citizenship.

My wife, Lhey, is an immigrant. We were married in the Philippines in 1991. In 1992 she came with me to the States. She got her green card, got a job, studied nursing at a Junior College, and became a US citizen in 1997. There were about thirty others being sworn in as citizens the same day as Lhey was. They had an interview where they were asked ten questions about America, and had to get seven right to pass. Lhey was the last one questioned, and the interviewer told her she was the only one to get all ten questions correct that day. I am proud of my immigrant wife.

Thanks to chain migration, we were able to petition Lhey's mother, Norma. She came to the States in December 1997, got her green card, got a job, moved into her own apartment, and supports herself to this day without any assistance from the government. She is 65 years old and still working. Lhey's only other immediate relative is her sister, Rachel. Rachel was petitioned in July 1998, while she was still only 19, to come to the States to live with her mother. She was the only member of her family not in the States.

It used to take on average five years for a relative petition to be accepted. But then came 9/11. In the 80's and early 90's more immigrants came from the Philippines than any other nation. Efforts were made to slow down the influx of Filipinos, but because of the close ties the Philippines had as a protectorate of the US in the first half of the 20th century, and then as an ally, Filipinos still had the advantage coming to the States through a status of forces agreement. Any Filipino who could get approval to enlist in the US Navy or Air Force, after spending five years in the service could become an American citizen and the door was open to bring their entire families.

After 9/11 that was greatly curtailed. Rachel's petition was reclassified again and again. Last week she finally received the letter she's been patiently expecting now for twelve years. She has an interview to become an immigrant in May. At last she'll be able to come to America to live with her family.

A few days ago Senate majority leader Harry Reid boastfully announced he had 56 confirmed Democrat yes votes (he needs 60) to pass an amnesty for over 13 million illegal aliens in our country. With this proposed amnesty those 13 million will become instant citizens, receive free education in our public schools (which will have to be structured to teach in Spanish so that the poor oppressed immigrants don't have to learn English), and will be eligible for Social Security benefits that they have never paid a cent into from a fund which is already bankrupt. Incarcerating illegal aliens for the multiplicity of crimes they are involved in is a major cause for California's financial woes. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) illegal aliens cost individual states between 11 and 22 billion dollars a year.

As out of touch as Reid, Pelosi, and the president are with the American public, it is not surprising that Reid would make such an announcement. What is insulting, however, is that he would make it only days after Arizona rancher Rob Krentz was murdered by illegal drug running aliens that came across his property. That came only a week or so after a drug war army came across the border to attack an American military post and had 18 of their terrorists killed. By the way, did you hear about that on the news? We didn't see a thing about it over here on CNN overseas.

The situation is so bad on our southern border that Sheriff Arvin West of Hudspeth County, Texas, warned ranchers in his county to "arm themselves." The Arizona legislature has passed a bill that would make it illegal to be an illegal alien in Arizona. Imagine that; a State having to pass laws to secure its border because the Federal government, even though it signed into law a 700 mile double fence on the border in 2006 will not secure its border by building the fence.

A Rasmussen pole from March 2010 reports that 59% of Americans believe the US should finish the fence along the Mexican border, while only 26% oppose it, and 68% believe that securing the border is more important than granting amnesty to illegal aliens, but only 20% believe Congress will do anything about it. A CNN poll (hardly conservative) from October 2009 states that 73% of Americans want to see a decrease in illegal immigration.

The argument that we hear ad nauseam is that America was settled by immigrants so we are all immigrants. I beg to differ. My grandparents were immigrants on my mother's side. My great, great, great, great grandparents were immigrants on my father's side. But I am a naturally born citizen of the United States of America. I am an immigrant from no where.

Furthermore, there is no comparison between those immigrants who came to this country when it was a wilderness, and forged a nation with their blood and their lives, or those who have come since and lawfully assimilated into our culture and helped the country progress, and these illegal, criminal aliens that come to the land of plenty in order to import their culture, keep their own language, pedal their drugs, and sponge off the earnings of hard working American citizens, while doing nothing to help advance the country or to even take care of themselves.

The problem is not that Americans are uncaring, hateful, racist, or anything else (read my last entry, Proud to Be an American). We are the most caring nation in the world. But even caring people have a right to be secure in their own homes. We have a right to expect that immigrants coming to America come here because they want to be Americans, because they want to work hard like past immigrants to make their own way through life without being dependent on the government (read you and me, the working taxpayers) to care for them for the rest of their lives.

As I said at the beginning of this article, I am not against immigration, but why should millions of criminal illegal aliens be given citizenship overnight when my sister-in-law has waited patiently for twelve years to immigrate legally? I am dead set against illegal aliens who will further strain our economy by taking jobs from citizens and increasing crime rates everywhere they go. We must demand that immigration be for those who are willing to go through the process and come to America legally with the intent of becoming Americans.

The problem is that we have elected officials who are more concerned with obtaining new voters that will keep them entrenched in the government forever while they systematically roll back our Constitution and turn us into a socialist state. This November we need to send them home and begin to reclaim our country.