The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“U.S. immigration policy has been badly broken for more than two decades. Attempts by former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama to craft reasonable, sweeping immigration policies stalled, then cratered under the weight of partisan opposition in Congress from the party not in the White House.
“Our immigration system is no longer just broken and messy. It’s now dangerously dysfunctional, as Congress repeatedly proves the adage that if you aren’t part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem. Privately, lawmakers may agree that immigration policy isn’t working. But if they are truly serious about reform, then they should take a look at the bipartisan Dignity Act of 2023.
“Introduced by U.S. Reps. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat, and María Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican, the bill is a comprehensive attempt to strengthen border security, as well as provide legal status for immigrants illegally in the United States, including Dreamers, and pathways for asylum seekers. Most of all, it acknowledges that a functioning immigration policy must secure borders and provide legal opportunities for families to seek refuge in the United States.
“The bill, for example, would authorize at least $25 billion in funding to upgrade infrastructure and technology along the border and at ports of entry, establish processing facilities along the southern border to adjudicate asylum claims and create facilities in Latin America for in-country processing to pre-screened applicants who wish to obtain guest-worker visas or pursue other legal pathways. . . .
“If anyone thinks these are viable substitutes for a thoughtful congressional action, then they haven’t been paying attention or are benefiting from the chaos.
“Our national policy must balance border security while offering migrants a path to legal status and a future in this country. And it must happen now.” – Bipartisan Immigration Reform Is Reform We Need, Editorial. Dallas Morning News, 8/11/23 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: This editorial is right about at least one thing: Our immigration system is “dysfunctional.” But the reason it’s dysfunctional is the mindset of the editorial. That mindset would have us believe that the immigration laws promoted by Bush and Obama were “reasonable.” To the contrary, they proposed to legalize almost all the illegal aliens in the U.S. Their proposals didn’t pass, but they helped to legitimize the idea that our immigration laws really don’t matter—and by extension our country and its laws don’t matter either. During the Biden Administration these subversive notions have come to fruition with a de facto repeal, to a large extend, of our immigration laws. That is why the system is “dangerously dysfunctional.”
The so-called “Dignity Act” endorsed by this editorial will make the system even more “broken and messy.” It would provide the mass amnesty of illegal aliens endorsed by Bush and Obama, thus inviting more foreigners to come here illegally with the hope that they too–some day–can hit the amnesty jackpot. Making things easier would be the “pathways for asylum seekers” offered by the “Dignity Act.” Such “pathways” are nothing more than encouraging illegal aliens to come and settle by making phony asylum claims.
The editorial cites provisions in the “Dignity Act” to secure the border, but previous immigration laws, most notably the 1986 amnesty, made similar promises—and few of those promises were kept. The lesson to learn is that we will never fix our immigration system until we rule out the lawlessness that broke it in the first place.