Our Border, Our Integrity

There is a conspicuous lack of cultural and national self-respect among the pro-amnesty Republicans, who display a corresponding excess of a misplaced compassion.

If there is one primary obstacle to border security and sane immigration policy in America, it is misplaced compassion. If we’re going to have a decent system of immigration, we need to have a fact-based, morally sound outlook on immigrants. Human sympathy is natural and good, and should extend to all peoples, including immigrants — legal or otherwise. Granted, we are all God’s children, or all special according to whatever view you may have. But the Golden Rule has been greatly distorted in its application to the immigration debate.

What would we honestly have others do unto us, if we were illegally in someone else’s country? Personally, I believe it proper to respect the laws and customs of the nation in which one lives. That means that if I broke the law in a nation where I lived, I would expect to be held accountable. In other words, I would have others deport me for violating their immigration law. For any Christian to suggest that it is their religious “duty” to reward illegal conduct is quite a stretch.

We are a nation of laws. We are supposed to be a people who follow the law. Illegal immigrants have disregarded our border, broken our laws, and disrespected all of us by the manner in which they came to this nation. Anyone whose first act upon entering this country is to violate our law should not be welcome, and those who overstay their visas should be worried. Their discomfort is a healthy reaction to the realization that our laws matter, and that there are many Americans who demand those laws be enforced.

Our territorial integrity is at stake in the debate over immigration. Either our border means something or it doesn’t. But, of course, some in the Republican leadership don’t care about the integrity of our nation’s border. Our sovereignty, to pro-amnesty Republicans, is something to be bartered away in the hope that one day Hispanics will vote for Republicans.