A Quote by Bill Kristol
Immigration policy is a complicated issue. Or perhaps one should say immigration policies are complicated, since we have many different immigration laws and practices which interact in complex ways.
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In the pioneer West Whitopias, immigration tended to be the dominant social and racial issue. In Forsyth County, Georgia, immigration is still an issue, but because you have that complicated history of the Trail of Tears and slavery and Jim Crow, the Whitopia has a different flavor.
The problem with much of the debate over this issue is that we confuse two separate matters: immigration policy (how many people we admit) and immigrant policy (how we treat people who are already here). What our nation needs is a pro-immigrant policy of low immigration. A pro-immigrant policy of low immigration can reconcile America's traditional welcome for newcomers with the troubling consequences of today's mass immigration. It would enable us to be faithful and wise stewards of America's interests while also showing immigrants the respect they deserve as future Americans.
We've even lost the definition of immigration. "Immigration" today, if you listen to the left, equals anybody who wants to come into the country should be allowed. That's not what immigration is. That's illegal immigration, and we ought to all oppose it.
These are people - I'm for immigration - legal immigration. I've been an immigration attorney. But people who have come to our country and violated laws, we should not be providing full health care services.
Even if we didn't have a single person in the USA in violation of immigration laws, we'd still have to do immigration reform, because our legal immigration system is broken. It's not good for anybody.
We need to be discussing issues specifically to help the American people. And that would not include illegal aliens. These are people - I'm for immigration - legal immigration. I've been an immigration attorney. But people who have come to our country and violated laws, we should not be providing full health care services.
When politicians talk about immigration reform, they usually mean the following, amnesty, open borders, lower wages. Immigration reform should mean something else entirely. It should mean improvements to our laws and policies to make life better for American citizens.
Like other discriminatory legislation in our country's history, immigration laws define and differentiate legal status on the basis of arbitrary attributes. Immigration laws create unequal rights. People who break immigration laws don't cause harm or even potential harm (unlike, for example, drunk driving, which creates the potential for harm even if no accident occurs). Rather, people who break immigration laws do things that are perfectly legal for others, but denied to them--like crossing a border or, even more commonly, simply exist.
If we are to believe that our immigration laws simply have no value, as our current policies would have us believe, should we then simply throw them all out, the entire lot of immigration law? I hope not.
On immigration policy, I believe we ought to call an immediate halt, stop illegal immigration and reduce legal immigration back to about 250,000 to 300,000, to more easily assimilate the Americans who've come here in the last 30 years.
We desperately need comprehensive immigration reform in this nation, and yes, comprehensive immigration reform proposals are nuanced and complicated, but you know what shouldn't be? Our capacity to see each other's humanity.
The American people don't trust the Federal Government to enforce our immigration laws, and we will not be able to do anything on immigration until we first prove to the American people that illegal immigration is under control. And we can do that. We know what it takes to do that.
If Republicans want to change their stance on immigration, they should do so on the merits, not out of a belief that only immigration policy stands between them and a Republican Hispanic majority.
While we're members of the European Union, we don't have an immigration policy. We can't have an immigration policy. It's a charade for people to pretend we do.
Our immigration policy should be driven by what is in the best interest of this great country and the American people. Comprehensive immigration reform will strengthen U.S. security and boost economic growth.
I know that many Irish-born New Yorkers are caught in the trap of our federal immigration policies. If we are going to continue to attract the best and the brightest - and Ireland has more than its fair share - we need to inject some common sense into our immigration laws, and I'm doing my best to make that case in Washington.
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