Immigration bill killed

Well, the “Grand Compromise” bill on immigration died in the Senate. I despair of ever getting any substantive help from the Feds on this problem. Why can’t the Federal Gov’t simply enforce the laws that they already have on the books? I’m not sure that the immigration problem requires any more laws to solve. It only requires the determination to solve the problem – something our representatives seem to lack the will to do.

I don’t believe that the American people, by and large, object to immigration or immigrants as long as the rules are followed. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants. We will never forget that and we shouldn’t. America is as much an ideal as it is a place. However, that ideal and the place have laws in order to maintain the viability of the idea and the laws must be followed. I believe that Americans are upset about illegal immigration for the same reasons that they are upset that Paris Hilton goes to jail for 3 days for driving on a suspended license following a DUI bust: it ain’t fair. It ain’t fair that you work hard, keep your house nice and 30 people move in next door and nobody can do anything about it. The police can’t or won’t ask about immigration status and your local government is prohibited by the Federal government from doing much of anything either.

Instead of enforcing the law all along, Uncle Sam has been asleep at the switch and now we have +/- 12,000,000 illegal immigrants and a problem that is nigh unsolvable. I don’t know what the answer is but if Uncle won’t do the job, he should go ahead and dissolve the agencies responsible for the borders and give that authority and the money that goes along with it to the states. At least at that level, the voters have some slim chance of actually getting action.