Catoosa Vision

Immigration Reform

This morning, Congressman Nathan Deal (R-10, soon to be 9 again) spoke to a breakfast meeting hosted by Fuller Rehabilitation and the Catoosa Chamber of Commerce. Cong. Deal highlighted three subjects as "most important" at present:

1. Immigration Reform
2. Terrorism / Iraq
3. Budget Reform

I have some thoughts on the first topic. In Georgia, this week Governor Perdue signed a fairly tough piece of legislation that will deal strongly with illegal immigration, while not saddling businesses with the unreasonable burden of doing the job of INS or Homeland Security. It's a balanced bill, phases in over time, and involved bi-partisan input.

Congressman Deal said that at the Federal level, they're looking at (and he supports) an approach based on an "enforce the laws first" concept. This would be different from the "give amnesty" or guest-worker approaches. "Control the border first," he says, "else why would an immigrant bother to register?" (paraphrase) Now, I agree in concept. Where I disagree is that all of the currently-debated approaches deal with the symptoms, and not the causes.

The current focus on immigration reform stems mainly from our xenophobic fear of terrorists coming in unchecked across our very porous borders. Since 9/11, we've been afraid (trained to be afraid by the current administration) of similar attacks, preventable apparently only by locking down the borders -- isolationism a la Pat Robertson. However, what we're conveniently forgetting is that for decades, nay generations before 9/11 we had the same basically open borders and didn't have any significant terrorism issues.

We are a country of immigrants, first and foremost. Granted, we are also a country of laws, as Congressman Deal stated. But immigration has never been a problem for America. In fact, it's been just the opposite -- our ability to accept and assimilate the different cultural, personal and professional experiences of immigrants has made us the great nation that we enjoy today. It makes me think that the problem of terrorism (the symptom), especially evidenced by the 9/11 attacks, stems not from porous borders, but from some other cause.

Plain and simple, we were attacked because some people "out there" didn't like us. They didn't like the way we lorded over parts of the world. They didn't like they way we exported, and arguably imposed our culture and values onto other parts of the world. They didn't like being told that their cultural and social choices were bad or wrong. They didn't like us judging them. As a result, they finally said "enough is enough."

Sure, I think everyone out there should be democratic and with mutually-respectful social values that incorporate TOLERANCE for our intrinsic and unavoidable differences. But if other populations accept to live in a society that is different than ours, what right do we have to force them to change?

Imagine this: China has significant financial investment in US assets -- T-bills, real estate, loan portfolios, commodities, etc. China's economic future (current and the sustainable future) RELIES on an uninterrupted supply of raw materials, finished goods and services they receive from the US. China then decides that our current isolationist-leaning policies, not to mention governmental budgetary incompetence, threatens their access to mission-critical resources. China decides to do something about it. China decides to "invade" California and take control of one or two major port cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc.) while creating military bases to protect their interests -- all in the name of "national security."

Does any of this sound familiar?

I suspect that we, as a nation, would react fairly strongly and probably violently.

So, where am I going with this? What does this have to do with the current discussion about immigration reform? I think the true cause of the problems, again, is not access across our borders. The true cause of current terrorism threats is our world policy -- the image we display to (and sometimes impose on) the rest of the world. The terrorists reacted to our "policy" of defending "our right" to protect "national interests" by taking or securing their natural resources. Perhaps if we started treating others with the soverign respect they're due (we don't have to like or even agree with them), they might not hate us so much. Perhaps if we didn't judge them so publicly, they might not hate us so much. Perhaps if we weren't so hypocritcal, they might not hate us so much.

Immigration is both a blessing and a curse. Sure, we have to take some bad people in with the good, but all in all, it's been a good thing for our society. Immigration is not the problem, and severely limiting it is not the solution. The solution lies in our public policy. We have an image problem that needs to be corrected in the world. There have been people in the world who have not liked us and what they deemed as "excessive and decadent freedoms." But something finally pushed them over the edge of dislike to active terrorism. Immigration had nothing to do with that change.

posted by Chris Casey @ 10:09 AM