btrollinger@summitdaily.com
“… Each newcomer makes America more American. ”
— Nancy Pelosi’s 12th CD website, addressing immigration, April 14, 2019
“This suggestion is beneath the dignity of the presidency”
— Nancy Pelosi reacting to a story about President Trump planning to send illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities – including San Francisco, April 14, 2019
It’s hell when people take you at your word, isn’t it?
The above quotes from the same day last week are a perfect example of what happens when a Liberal is forced to confront the repercussions of their policies and politics. The first, with its usual Leftist trick of not distinguishing between “immigrant” and “illegal immigrant” extolls immigrant virtues in ways quite truthful and unexceptionable — but because of the lack of distinction, tries to cloak the illegal entrant with the patina of respectability that should be reserved solely for the one who enters and resides in our country in accordance with the law.
The same lack of distinction characterizes the “sanctuary” movement among states and cities, most prominent in the deeply liberal bicoastal reserves, but now spreading quickly to easily manipulated polities like that of Colorado. “Sanctuary” implies that those seeking it are somehow being unjustly pursued, whereas those taking advantage of the voters’ credulity and generosity are, in this case, being sought for reasons entirely reasonable and logical. They have entered the country illegally, for the most part. They reside in it illegally. If they work here, they work illegally, often courtesy of identity theft or other species of fraud. If they claimed “asylum,” as many do these days, then disappeared into the hinterland upon being released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement pending their adjudication hearing, they have committed two crimes: failure to appear, a misdemeanor, and making false statements to a government official, a felony. So they are not the law-abiding citizens their partisans make them out to be; far from it. Thus, the second quote.
That their ability to engage in this sort of lawless behavior stems entirely from a failure of Congress to change our immigration laws in a rational direction matters not an iota. Those who break our laws are not excused because our lawmaking process is being held hostage by radical leftists who refuse to give the president any success, regardless of how necessary to the national well-being, and by Republicans who generally agree with the hapless Jeb Bush that illegal immigration is “an act of love.” But at present only President Trump and a few of his cabinet seem to understand that, while in extreme circumstances the law may very occasionally bend to the situation, desire for a lifestyle involving indoor plumbing is not one of those circumstances.
So what is the president to do? Charged by the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” he is faced with a Congress vigorously unwilling to do its part, that is, to enact appropriate legislation in the interest of national security pursuant to the fourth of its 18 named areas of authority. Meanwhile, an annual average of 100,000 people a month are illegally crossing our southern border to take up residence here. Congressional Democrats in particular seem to be willing not only to allow this to continue, but to encourage these illegal entrants to immediately demand a place at the table — driving licenses, benefits, medical care, the vote — and they support these demands because they see political gain in it. Citizens may be imperiled, services strained and broken, institutions bankrupted, the rule of law shredded but as the late Chairman Mao once observed, “A Revolution is not a dinner party.”
Meanwhile, those who propose to subject the rest of us to their experiment in creating a borderless welfare state can rest assured that they will be safe, protected by their exalted positions, their fat salaries, their publicly funded protective services, neighborhood patrols and even their occasional immoral walls. The rest of us can go fish. Except …
President Trump has now smacked them all across their smug, self-righteous, virtue-signaling faces with the mackerel of reality: If one howls dogmas of diversity and contempt for traditions and laws, one will eventually be challenged to accept the consequences of the policies one cheers. Don’t want a neighborhood full of people with a dubious relationship to our laws and only modest concern for our traditions? Then don’t try to foist them on your fellow citizens in the name of the abstraction of “diversity” or multiculturalism. Accept them yourself and don’t complain; it’s what you said you wanted, right here, right now. It’s not immoral, unworthy, sophomoric or any of the other labels panicked liberals have thrown at it from their sanctuary cities. It may or may not be legal, but it’s fine political theatre that exposes basic truths.
Donald Trump: exposing Liberal hypocrisy since 2016.
Morgan Liddick writes a weekly column for the Summit Daily.