Deportation: Do We “Please Migrants” — or Muster Up the Guts to Save America?

By Selwyn Duke

“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder,” said historian Arnold Toynbee. Slow suicide is tragic, too. It may be obvious that a man hooked on drugs or alcohol is headed toward destruction. Yet he still may be unable to kick his addictions. And so it is with civilizations and their addictions to bad ideas and tendencies. Examples are immigrationism and bleeding-heart, misguided compassion — both of which threaten the U.S.’s existence.

Commentator Pat Buchanan, after noting that it was hard-nosed men who founded and forged our nation, once asked if we today possess the intestinal fortitude to preserve their creation. The answer may be no, too, if Americans can’t demonstrate the virtue necessary for a certain civilization-preserving act: mass deportations.

Note also the congruence to this prescription. Mass deportation corresponds to mass migration, the latter of which has been orchestrated, calculatingly and illegally, by our immigrationist pseudo-elites.

When Remedy Is Called Disease

Nonetheless, even some good people will be swayed by the argument that it’s cruel to deport illegal aliens. In fact, all foreigners need do is sneak into our country and evade the authorities long enough, and “Voila!” Their long-term success at law-breaking is supposed to make them untouchable.

But, says Matt O’Brien, director of investigations at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, we wouldn’t apply this standard to any other crime or civil violation. He then stated, writing Thursday, that the specious amnesty

argument persists because people who advocate for illegal aliens deliberately misrepresent U.S. immigration law. They insist that illegal aliens have a plethora of rights that must be protected. They portray a hearing before an immigration judge as a “trial.” And they lead the public to believe that a deportation order is a “punishment” akin to a criminal sentence. But none of this is actually true.

As far as rights go, way back in 1892, the Supreme Court held that, with regard to aliens in removal proceedings, “the decisions of executive or administrative officers, acting within powers expressly conferred by Congress are due process of law.” In plain English, that means that immigration violators are entitled to a hearing before the Immigration Court and to the appellate process set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

A hearing before the Immigration Court isn’t a trial. It’s an administrative proceeding where the alien facing deportation is given an opportunity to show cause why he or she should not be removed from the U.S. In fact, the document summoning immigration violators to their hearing in front of an immigration judge used to be called an “Order to Show Cause” for just that reason.

Americans First, Not Migrants

O’Brien points out that “[d]eportation plans don’t exist to please migrants.” Regardless, an alien can receive “relief from deportation.” Unfortunately, this principle has been abused, mangled beyond recognition by immigrationists bent on effecting demographic change. Hardly any of the illegals crossing our borders are bona fide refugees because there’s little to seek refuge from. There is no major war, Pol Pot, or genocide to be found down and beyond Mexico way. Oh, does, for example, Venezuela have a dysfunctional government? Sure.

So do San Francisco and Flint, Michigan.

Is Mexico dangerous? Sure.

So are St. Louis and Detroit.

Life is tough all over. But this is no justification for an invasion of the United States We have our own problems — importing more is suicidal.

Deportation Isn’t Torture

Returning to O’Brien, he points out that deportation is not punishment, but akin to evicting a trespasser. Adding perspective, he then writes:

Most people who come home and find two strangers in their basement call the police and have them taken away. They don’t offer to feed the interlopers, pay for their college education, and provide medical coverage for life.

Of course, the pseudo-elites facilitating illegal migration don’t do this, either — at least not with their own money. They give aliens the shirt off the taxpayer’s back and spaces in middle-class neighborhoods.

O’Brien also emphasizes that, contrary to the narrative, our immigration system is not “broken.”

The people running it are.

They simply don’t want to enforce the law. And their rewarding of illegal migration — where avoiding authorities long enough often brings de facto amnesty — encourages more illegal migration. And do we offer such a special dispensation to other transgressors?

“If you steal your neighbor’s Mercedes,” O’Brien writes, “there isn’t a court in the land that’s going to let it slide just because you really love the car and have grown attached to the bucket seats upholstered in fine, Corinthian leather.”

Manipulation

But there are many good reasons to oppose illegal migration. The Center for Immigration Studies, for example, reported in 2017 that the net fiscal lifetime drain related to letting illegals stay in the United States is $746.3 billion. (Note: This is based on an assumption that 11.43 million illegals reside in America. In reality, that figure, and the total cost, are likely far higher.)

There is illegal-alien criminality and environmental degradation to consider, too. Even this pales in comparison, however, to the cultural costs. When your migration rate outstrips your assimilation rate, which happened in the United States long ago, balkanization becomes reality. (Never mind that not all groups are equally assimilable.) One result: Government documents and ballots may now be provided in dozens or even hundreds of foreign languages.

These facts and others, though, are often shunted to the background. Instead, articles on illegal migration often begin with emotional manipulation. Here’s an opening-line example from a November BBC piece:

Gabriela entered the United States more than two decades ago, gasping for breath under a pile of corn stalks in the boot of a smuggler’s car.

Of course, the authors know that if you keep telling “Gabriela’s story,” many readers will identify with her. They’ll then often oppose any policy that could remove poor Gabriela from our country. Never mind that everyone has a story. Never mind that thieves often just want a better life, too. The immigrationists understand that they can’t win the debate on the facts, so they target feelings.

The real question is, though: Are our feelings for our nation strong enough to inspire defensive action commensurate with the threats facing us? Do we have the guts, and wisdom, to ensure America’s story will continue, as a shining city on a hill?

If so, we should welcome the flip side of orchestrated mass migration: mass deportation.

                 This article was originally published at The New American.