Michael Papincak is a member of the College Republicans
Even though last week there was a “breakthrough,” as it was called, in the Senate regarding the immigration bill, it is still up in the air and, as I see it, will not see any kind of agreement for a while.
The outcome was a compromise between two politicians from each side of the aisle. The issue was how many guest worker permits would be awarded each year to incoming immigrants. The compromise broke a deadlock in the Senate; however, as the Senate goes into a two-week recess, this compromise has made no progress and has not gained much support.
This tells me that the issue is probably going to be a long process that will most likely cause many political battles — battles over the Hispanic vote, which is going to be important in the upcoming midterm elections.
Even though some politicians don’t want to make this a political issue, we all know that it is close to impossible. Both parties want control of this issue, especially the Democrats, who are begging for some power in any government institution. What I am afraid of is that liberals will get their way and all of the illegal immigrants will just get citizenship right away — a quick fix to a big problem.
But we all know that the only things liberals are about are quick fixes: “Pull out of Iraq right now!” A quick fix to making it not our problem, we all should know that pulling out of Iraq right now would only make it even more of our problem. But this is what most liberals want — just give all immigrants citizenship and jobs and they will ease right into the fabric of our society.
This, of course, is terribly irresponsible, because you are completely undermining the people who took the time to get into this country legally and who are working hard to get their citizenship. You must notice my use of “legal,” because the people that we are dealing with are illegal, and what happens when you do something illegal is you are punished. So we either need to figure out a good way to get these people on the way to being legal, or tell them to get out.
I want to emphasize that these illegal immigrants should have to go through a fair process to citizenship. What the current bill seems to propose is that 11 million of them will just automatically have it, which I do not think is fair. I also do not agree completely with guest worker programs, because I think that they will just invite more illegal immigrants into the country.
I think you should know, though, that this is not just a fight between the GOP and the Dems — each party is fighting amongst itself on this issue. In the end, though, something will come of this, because we all know that all illegal immigrants do is cost us tax dollars, increase crime, increase the risk of terrorism, and take away American jobs. All I hope for is a bill that is tough on security and will get the useless illegal immigrants out of this country and not allow any quick fixes that will come back and bite us in the future.