I heard on the radio this morning that Sunday will be the 45th anniversary since the United States landed on the moon. I remember watching it on television with my then girlfriend, and now wife of 44 years. We sat in her living room with her mother and father and watched the grainy images of Neil Armstrong climb down a ladder and take mankind’s first steps on something other than Earth.
I remember feeling so proud of my country. For those of you too young to remember, we were in a race to the moon with the Russians…and we won! The United States of America won! We had taken up President Kennedy’s 1961 challenge to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade, and we did it! We did it!
I contrast that monumental achievement of 45 years ago with what is happening on our southern border today. We seem to be completely incapable of stopping young children from crossing our borders illegally. The greatest country on the face of the Earth, the country that put a man on the moon can not secure its own border. The media would have you think that everyone crossing the border is some poor unfortunate child. The sad fact...we have absolutely no idea who is crossing our border. If we can't stop a child from entering, what makes you think we can stop a terrorist? Couple that sad fact with this...the butchers terrorizing Iraq now have captured enough radioactive material to make a dirty bomb. How about the recent downing of a commercial aircraft? Can our government say for certain that a surface to air missile has not been transported across our border?
I will be getting on a plane in two weeks to take a vacation to California. I will be scanned and checked, and rechecked. TSA will want to see my ticket, my driver’s license. I may be taking shoes on and off, depending on TSA’s whim of the week. Belts on and off…change and wallets in plastic bins…walking through all sorts of machines. Hours standing in line to insure that I am not a terrorist.
My barber just came back from a Canadian vacation. He had to stop at the border going and coming. He had to show his passport both times. They scanned his car to insure he wasn’t a terrorist.
We waste hundreds of millions of dollars playing silly reindeer games pretending these systems will keep us all safe…all the while, tens of thousands cross our southern border illegally. It’s like thinking you are safe within your home, yet your home only has 3 sides to it. What is even sadder…our politically correct police don’t even want anyone to mention the word “illegal”.
Those who question the insanity going on at our southern border are haters, bigots, racists.
Lest anyone think I am hater, or a bigot, or a racist…my wife and I adopted a girl from El Salvador and a boy from Brazil. We brought them to this country legally. My wife and I were finger printed by the FBI. We had background checks. We were required to supply bank statements, tax returns. We had countless home studies. We had appointments at American Embassies in both El Salvador and Brazil. We went through the INS upon our return to the states, and our children became naturalized citizens.
We love our adoptive children just as much as we do our two biological children. We provided for them. We educated them. They will share evenly in what little inheritance we will leave. Most importantly, we brought them to our country legally!
So to anyone thinking that by me being critical of what is happening down there that I am insensitive to the plight of the poor…I have been to the slums of Central and South America. I know firsthand the pain and suffering, yet we cannot allow our feelings of compassion to cloud our judgment on this issue.
What distinguishes us from the vast majority of the world is our system of justice. We are a people of laws and fair play. Travel outside of the United States and watch people try to board a plane, a bus, or enter a sporting event…the Americans will always form a line, the rest of the world? The rest of the world pushes and shoves their way to the front.
We have immigration laws in place. Either they are fair and just, and do what they were intended to do, or they don't. If the laws are not worth enforcing, then they need to be altered, or repealed. We cannot be a society in which we get to pick and choose which laws we want to follow, and which ones we wish to ignore. We are a generous people. We are a kind people…but we must respect each other through our system of laws…and the world needs to respect our laws when they set foot upon our soil.
The President stated the other day that he wants Congress to allocate a little under $4 BILLION towards the humanitarian effort to care for these children. Does this simply get added to the $17 TRILLION debt we have?
Let’s see if I have this right…we borrow money from China to use to support illegal immigrants from Central and South America who cross our border with the help and blessing of the Mexican government. I guess we really do have a world economy.
Based on current numbers I see in the news, there are approximately 60,000 children here illegally in recent months. Using the President’s own numbers, that works out to just about $67,000 per child. I am all for caring for these children until we can get this all sorted out…but we should be subtracting $67,000 per child from the child’s country of origin foreign aid. When the leaders of these countries start coming up short on the aid money from US that they divert to lining their own pockets, our borders may end up being a bit more secure.
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