What In The World Are They Thinking?

Well, I’m not talking about jay-walking here. I’m talking about ignoring a law that costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m speaking of a law that, through lack of enforcement, endangers millions of our citizens and exposes them to violent crime and the potential for disabling and even fatal diseases. I’m talking about our immigration laws. The “humanitarian crisis” along our southern border is currently a hot topic for discussion, and yet I constantly wonder why. Have the governments in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and the other nations in Central America suddenly ceased to function? Has the world, no doubt via the United Nations, decreed that the United States is responsible whenever any other nation fails to fulfill its obligation to protect its own citizens? Believing that the United States will move to care for those who these nations cannot, or will not, succor, feed, clothe or house, is based on what assumption, exactly? Could it be that the political leaders in these nations just see the good ol’ USA as a soft touch? Can these political types from south of the border really believe that America is still the richest nation in the world and that we, as a nation, can afford to take in their cast-offs without daring to protest?

Did we elect complete idiots?

And not to put too fine a point on it, what about the reactions of our own political “leaders”? Did we elect complete idiots? For the past decade, between the explosion of government spending on wars, stimulus, bail-outs for failed corporations and their unions and the standard political pork distributions, the federal government has spent literally trillions of dollars more than it took in as tax revenue. From this enormous deficit we are supposed, now, to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” to fund medical/dental care, education, housing, food, and for all I know sex-change (oops, I forgot, the politically correct description is now “gender reassignment”) surgery effectively in perpetuity. But not for our citizens, but for the citizens of at least three other nations. None of these nations have come forward saying “Thanks so much for your help. We’ve been overwhelmed. Can we help pay for your aid in this crisis, at least?” In fact, the presidents of the three nations, from whence the vast majority of these unaccompanied alien children originated, visited Washington to demand to know what WE were going to do to care for THEIR citizens. Their suggestion was give them $2 Billion. This has to be one of those extremely rare times when a Latin American nation is linked to the word chutzpah. The Brookings Institute has explained that this surge in illegal immigration was due to:

• Economic conditions with endemic poverty, high youth unemployment and a close correlation between poor geographic areas and outflows of child migrants.
• Violence in the region. Organized criminal violence plagues the three Central American countries with homicide rates among the highest in the hemisphere. Recruitment into maras, or other local gangs is pervasive and grandparents seek to protect their grandchildren by sending them to join a parent al norte.

Can anyone think of anywhere else where there might be endemic poverty, high youth unemployment and violence from organized criminals as well as high homicide rates? How about Detroit? Perhaps Chicago or New York? Los Angeles? We have exactly the same conditions in many of our own inner cities. Does that mean that we can transport children from Chicago to Des Moines and expect the federal government to pick up the tab just so the little tykes can live in peace without fear of being a victim of a random drive-by shooting? No? Well, I didn’t think so either. In addition to the idiocies being spouted by those who claim to be our political “leaders”, support is being thrown their way by many über-liberal religious types. Prominent among these are the Pope and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. And before anyone gets all up in arms that I’ve mentioned Catholics, let me just say that I was raised a Catholic, spent twelve excruciating years in parochial grammar and secondary schools, and even started college in a Catholic institution. But the NCCB and His Holiness miss one key point when they call for financial support for these very short illegal aliens. When a religion suggests that charity to one’s fellow man is the proper thing to do, it is normally a message to that religious group’s followers. They don’t normally shanghai passers-by and shake them down for contributions for their cause. Suggesting that the government of the United States borrow even more money from China to support children born and raised in Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador (money that will be repaid by my grandchildren) might be heartfelt, generous, even saintly, but they are being generous with someone else’s money. And suggesting that the U.S. government should pick up the tab for these unaccompanied illegal children is doing exactly that – being generous with someone else’s money. Finally, if the three primary sources of these illegals are admitting that they are incapable or incompetent to care for their own people, and are asking (to put it as politely as I can) that the United States take over responsibility for the well-being of their citizens, perhaps we should ask them if they would support asking the United Nations to authorize the United States government to take over the administration of all three of them as “protectorates.” After decades of being called “Yankee Imperialists” why not actually do what we have always been accused of? The answer of what to do with all these underage illegals is actually pretty simple, even if the political repercussions could be catastrophic domestically. Send these young people home. In this particular case, we are not our brother’s keepers, nor are we the babysitters for his kids. They are his children, his responsibility, his burden and his cross to bear. We should wish him all the luck in the world, but since so many of our own children are facing the very same threats that are blamed for the surge in illegals at our southern border, that has to be the primary thrust of our efforts to help anyone. If the politicians want to toss scripture around to buttress their position, how about they try this moral teaching for a change: Charity begins at home.