3 Common Arguments For Overlooking Illegal Immigration That Don’t Hold Water

If Americans don't like our immigration laws, the answer is not encouraging foreign citizens to completely disregard them. The answer is respecting the law until it can be changed. The alternative is anarchy.

The United States is the greatest country in the world in no small part because we are a nation of laws. Law is not designed to bend to individuals’ personal preferences; instead it is written, as best is possible, to have one meaning and the same application to all who encounter it. Any other approach is antithetical to what makes this country the envy of the free world and the enemy of the rest.

Unfortunately, today we see, in the context of immigration law, the desire by some to bend the law to their political preferences. More on that in a moment. First, let me present the unfortunately required identity statement that may permit me the privilege to opine on immigration.

I’m the son of legal immigrants. My father was a refugee whose family fled to America in Germany after World War II. So I have some personal understanding and appreciation for those seeking out the goodwill of the American people in the face of persecution.

By the way, my father was not in a concentration camp, but other relatives were. And, clearly, the United States does not operate concentration camps. Those words have meaning too.

Breaking the Laws Without Punishment Creates Chaos

Now back to the substance: Objectors to the administration’s plan to deport those who (1) came here seeking asylum (many never having serious asylum claims in the first place), (2) received a negative determination after undergoing full legal process, (3) were ordered to leave the country, and (4) patently ignored that lawful order from the government of the country whose grace they seek seriously undermine the basic notion of law on which this nation admirably operates.

Many objectors cannot openly state their slow-motion call for revolution because they’re elected officials who’ve sworn to uphold the Constitution — the same oath legal immigrants, including those receiving asylum, take upon being granted the distinct honor and unparalleled privilege of U.S. citizenship. Clearly, these objectors want to change the law. But to what?

Notwithstanding their vociferous claims to the contrary, it becomes increasingly difficult to decipher the scant difference between their position and one for open borders, which they dare not publicly embrace. Their verbal gymnastics demonstrate that the public significantly favors controlled immigration over the folly of the alternative.

Ultimately, objectors sing a seductive and destructive song for nullification. Such efforts alone don’t represent the four horsemen of an impending legal apocalypse, but they certainly breed even further contempt for the rule of law, seriously corroding our country’s moral foundation.

Federal lawmakers criticizing the president for faithfully executing the law argue he is heartlessly intimidating the immigrant community by enforcing immigration-court orders of removal. Let’s examine some of the arguments against removing those already adjudicated as being in the U.S. unlawfully.

Read the rest from Robert Steinbuch HERE at The Federalist.

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