Columnist
If this were a movie, I’d call it “How Barry Got His Balls Back.”
How else to describe the fact that President Barack Obama, in the wake of a devastating midterm election for his party and presidency, looked Republicans right in the eyes and essentially said, “Come at me, bro.”
It’s about time, too.
Obama announced he would be using an executive order to either issue work permits or delay deportation for many of the nearly 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Though not a full granting of “amnesty” or instant possibility of citizenship — a positive first step and a way to get the ball rolling towards a solution to the immigration issue.
It’s a well-deserved slap in the face to people who have spewed hateful, divisive rhetoric on this topic since it first entered the national discourse in the late 1800s.
It’s also a welcome sign that when it comes to doing the right thing, President Obama still has the fortitude to get it done.
After all, these are the same Republicans, Tea Partiers and “Christians” who profess their love for the Constitution but have recommended repealing the portion of the 14th Amendment that guarantees citizenship to anyone born on United States soil as their solution to the immigration crisis.
“If both parents aren’t American citizens you are not entitled to automatic citizenship in this country,” conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham suggested as a change to “finally deal with” the “anchor baby issue.”
These are people are cowards. People without the courage to admit what their wars on immigration reform and “amnesty” really are.
It’s not a war on immigration. It’s a war on Mexican people.
These people have been screaming at people to “Speak English or get out” forever. The people determined to make English the official language of America.
And the most high-minded solution they can muster is to advocate mass deportations of people back to Mexico. To take away a group of people who’ve been so central to our economy, so willing to do the backbreaking labor so many of us are not. And, in many cases, for pennies on the dollar.
The dirty secret is it’s a lot of the cheap businessman conservative types who exploit the labor. Who fight against laws that allow a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.
Our Congress has failed immigrant workers repeatedly by refusing to play ball in enacting common sense reforms to our immigration laws.
These changes would go a long way towards combating immoral business owners who exploit the system and immigrants willing to work for less.
Working in restaurants for more than a decade, I worked with a great many Mexican people. I found them, to a man and to a woman, to be hard-working, fun and interesting people who were grateful for the opportunity to live and work in this great country.
You can say “it’s too expensive” to keep illegal immigrants here but you’re on the wrong side of the Earth morally then, my friend.
The only other option floated is deportation. Back to Mexico in the vast majority of cases. Home of some of the most violent cities on Earth. Home of tremendous poverty.
You want to talk about expenses? Imagine Mexico post-mass deportation. The moral calamity inherent in that scenario is devastating to even consider.
The huddled masses of the Earth allowed to breathe free and rot.
It is a moral imperative that we figure out a way to keep all of the hard-working people we can here on our soil.
But not under the status quo.
We need everyone working for fair pay. Everyone paying taxes. Contributing to society. Perhaps with enough money earned, more can flow South of the border.
Prosperity tends to breed peace.
Once we address those who are here, then and only then can we focus on who comes in after and once and for all fix the broken immigration system. We can reestablish the rule of law in our time.
If we can do that, then Barry, take a bow. Si se puede, señor Presidente.
