Arizona and the Immigration Debate

(The following is a post I made on MSNBC in response to a story about the current Arizona immigration law. I literally read every comment on the site prior to writing my response. The issue is obviously a hot-button topic, because many comments were filled with anger and resentment on either side of the issue.)

In its simplest, The Federal Govt. has failed to properly confront the problem; so The State of Arizona is exercising its State Constitutional RIGHT to address the issue of ILLEGAL Immigration.

Special Interest groups have flooded the media with propagandized statements about the Unconstitutionality of the law; and the media in turn splash image after image of sad looking illegals in an attempt to sway public opinion. Special Interest groups be damned if they side with people who have sidestepped the legal requirements toward citizenship.

President George Washington, one of our Founding Fathers said, "Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals." The Arizona law, passed by consent of the people, is indeed being trampled on by individuals and Special Interest Groups who seek to impose their personal will upon the majority of the citizenry. How, in any conceivable logic, can these individuals be granted such power?

The current problem exists not because of Obama, but because of President Ronald Reagan giving blanket amnesty to some 2.5 million illegals in the mid-eighties simply because no one was willing to properly confront the issue at that time. With his amnesty proclamation, the proverbial floodgates were thrown wide open, and the current immigration problem we have today was begun.

All the citizens of this country are asking is that anyone entering this country do so having used the proper legal channels, and go through the citizenship process as currently mandated by Federal Law. Anyone who screams "human rights!" in defense of those people who fail to enter legally, does not truly support the wishes of the citizens of the United States, nor the laws that govern us all.

What price do we, as a nation, pay if the problem of illegal immigration is either ignored, or swept aside in favor of "rights" that non-citizens have in this country? What possible outcome exists that benefits Americans if our public infrastructure is bankrupted by the growing tide of illegal immigration? Benjamin Franklin, another of our Founding Fathers stated, "Even peace may be purchased at too high a price." In this case, what is the price for peace if our nation's leaders turn a blind eye to, or our courts allow for the "rights" of non-citizens to prevail?

However you feel about this issue, no matter which camp you're in, the very basics of the immigration issue are about what is legal, according to US law, and what is illegal. That's it. Anyone screaming anything more than this basic definition is efforting a personal agenda.