Hey Guys...The Liberals Think They Finally Caught Us Admiting Our Deep Dark Secret: We Want Immigration Laws Enforced

Apparently that conservatives, well at least the ones who oppose amnesty, want immigration laws enforce inside the country as well as at the border is big news that's totally going to change everything. Or something.

[Univision's Jorge]Ramos repeatedly pressed Goodlatte to explain why it is that House Republicans refuse to act on immigration reform. Goodlatte repeatedly claimed the problem is that Republicans can’t trust Obama to enforce the law, as evidenced by the fact that deportations from the interior have dropped. Goodlatte explicitly said the problem is that only people convicted of serious crimes are getting deported from the interior.

Ramos then pressed Goodlatte on whether this means Republicans want to see more deportations from the interior. Goodlatte — who as chair of the House Judiciary Committee is a key player on immigration — refused to answer directly:

BOB GOODLATTE: That is the problem. Only people who committed serious crimes.

JORGE RAMOS: So your point is that you want more people to be deported?

BG: My point is that I want the President to enforce the law, and that way Congress will feel the pressure to reach a resolution to deal with the people who are lawfully here, who have been law abiding citizens. And if they meet the terms that the law might provide, like paying taxes and paying a fine, and learning civics about the United States, and other things like that, we could reach a solution. But if the President keeps showing that he won’t enforce current law, then we’re going to have this ongoing problem where people in the Congress don’t trust that. And that creates a problem for me. Trying to convince my fellow members to do it.

Yep that's big news alright...conservatives want the laws of the United States of American enforced.

Of course the fact that the Republican Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee can't make a counter argument that puts Team Amnesty on the defensive is rather troubling. Though it's not surprising since he's basically on Team Amnesty himself.

So how should supporters of real immigration reform respond to these types of questions? How about something like this?

It's not a question of wanting more deportations or not. It's a question of enforcing the laws. Why are immigration and employment laws the only laws we're not supposed to enforce in this country?

Yes, deportations may result from properly enforcing our country's laws and that will have a regrettable impact on some families but that's true when any law is enforced. What you're basically arguing is that immigration laws are inherently unjust and the moral course of action is not to enforce them. I disagree with that notion. A nation has the right and the obligation to set the terms under which people are allowed to enter and to stay in it. Every country, Mexico, Canada, Great Britain, South Africa, Japan, which ever one you name has border enforcement, immigration and work visa regimes. The United States is not any different from them, yet the case is being made that somehow this is an area of law than any enforcement is immoral. I reject that and I think an overwhelming number of American's agree with me on that.

No one is talking about sending police into neighborhoods with large immigrant populations to round people up and put them in buses to the border any more than they are suggesting IRS agents swoop into neighborhoods to collect the hundreds of billions of dollars the government says it is owed. But no one is demanding that tax laws in general not be enforced.

Should there be enforcement checks at workplaces reasonably suspected of illegal employment practices? Absolutely. Once you force companies to play by the rules Americans and legal immigrants are able to get jobs they weren't before.

Now if you want to make the case that there should be no border controls or that once an illegal immigrant makes it 10 or 50 or 100 miles away from a border check point they are safe from any repercussions of our existing immigration laws, then make that case. Or if you think people who came to this country by breaking our laws should have an advantage over the hard working, honest men and women who want to come to this country and are doing so via the rules we have set up, and those rules should be improved on, you are free to do so. And you know what? I'd be happy to have that debate because I'm confident that the American people are on my side of that argument.

Where's the Republican candidate making that argument? That's the man or woman I'd be interested in supporting. Sadly, I'm not seeing that from anyone of note in the GOP.

posted by DrewM. at 11:46 AM

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