Tarheel Red

I have no such hubris, just my humble thoughts.

Borders have meanings.  The United States is wealthy because we embrace freer and more liberal markets than does Mexico or Venezuela or North Korea.  The laws we pass codify that relationship we have with such values.

When you pass the border between the US and Mexico you are protected by those laws we have passed.  In Mexico, literally 5 feet behind you, those protections may or may not exist.

Borders matter.

We are a welfare state.

This is undeniable, and to the point that it is worthy of debate, such debate can be had elsewhere.  For this exercise, this is considered a priori.

The welfare state exits, at least in theory, for the betterment of its citizens.  It is the citizen* that contributes to the system that allows the existence of the social programs that we have in place.  If we have in place an open border state that is also a welfare state, that state cannot sustain itself.

We must be able to control for the reasonable crossing of our borders.

It is my contention that:

1. The United States is a nation of immigrants.  In fact, I believe that the United States is alone in the world in that anyone under the canopy of heaven can become an American in a way that is unique.  I do not believe that I can move to Russia and become a Russian, to Japan and become Japanese or to Zimbabwe and become Zimbabwean.
2. We should open our doors wider to the immigrant than other nations do.  We are wealthier.  We are best able to assimilate.  We best embody liberty.
3. We should be allowed to limit the number of people entering our country.
4. We ought be allowed to distinguish which qualities we find desirable in the immigrants entering the US.
5. We ought be allowed to know who those people entering are.
6. We be allowed to distinguish between the rights of the citizen and the non-citizen.
7. The sins of the father do not pass to the child – I am pro-dreamer.  This is different than pro-DACA.

I firmly believe that people be as free as possible to come and go to the United States as possible.  Limits surly apply where reasonable expectations of assimilation are no longer sustainable.  Further, I think that all kinds of legal status are valid.  For example:

1. A Mexican citizen living Mexico, wants to remain living in Mexico,  sending his Mexican children to Mexican schools but who wants to work in the United States.
2. A Canadian citizen who wants to remain a Canadian citizen but who wants to live in the United States, work and then return when she desires.
3. A German citizen who wants to live and work in America, having no desire to ever leave America or return to Germany but does not want to become an American citizen.
4. An Ethiopian citizen who wants to come to America, work and live, while attain her college degree.  At which time she may or may not return to Ethiopia.
5. A Greek citizen who wants to live and work in America and then become a citizen.

I see no reason why each and any of these conditions would require much more than a simple application taking not much longer than applying for a cell phone contract.  We need only check for a few simple characteristics:

• Is he a wanted criminal in his home country?
• Does she have an infectious disease?
• Is she on the terror watch list?

No?  Come on in and Welcome to America!

Of course we should apply limits to the number of people we allow in a given year.  And yes, we can, and should, be able to limit the number of people we let become citizens.

Now, how do we do this?  We do this by monitoring the border.  And monitoring might look like a bridge in certain cases, a physical wall in others.  Maybe drones here and laser detection there.  Guards here.  Dogs there.  And maybe nothing over there.  It is reasonable that a nation that has borders control those borders and understand who come.  And then who goes.

Finally the Dreamers.  I don’t find a single person I know that doesn’t sympathize with those people who, as children, were brought across the border by their parents and are, for all intents and purposes, are Americans.  It is impossible to not grant them legal status.  Maybe they want to remain in America and never become a citizen. Maybe they dream of going back to their native country.  Or, perhaps they wanna become a citizen.  All good.  Stay for awhile, stay for ever or, or, become one of us.

All good.

But if we’re being honest, we need to be honest.  The moral case for immigration and the Dreamers is fairly straight forward.  But not for a second do I believe democrats are ignorant of the fact that they believe such demographics will provide them a steady stream of voters.  Politics is politics.  And as such, we have to face the fact that this comes with a cost.

We have to stop the Dreamer’s parent from coming illegally in the first place.  The ‘wall’, as described above, needs to be built.

• Yes.  I am aware that the taxes paid by the non-citizen in the form of payroll, state and federal income tax as well as sales tax represents an amount of  money not zero.This is so not because we want to tax and deny the non-citizen, but because our taxation method makes it so.