| March 24, 2009 |
AN EDITORIAL
Our Leaders Betray Us The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers is dedicated to the education of the American public and our elected representatives about issues surrounding the immigration policies of the United States. With one previous exception, we have refrained from editorializing on the subject. We have preferred to avoid opinion in favor of simply sharing with the public the knowledge we have gained in our cumulative millennia of experience. However, we must speak out editorially now. We believe that the people of this nation are being betrayed on several fronts by our leaders’ attitudes toward immigration laws. The effects of the policies they propose are so predictably, demonstrably bad that there is no credible justification for them. Callous indifference to the effects on Americans is the only possible explanation. Understand this: America, considered as a nation, a political entity, is a different thing from individual Americans. “America” is a group of people come together for the common defense and mutual support. It is one thing to say that immigration is good for America; it has been, and it always will be. It is quite another thing, though, to say that unlimited immigration (and that is what is being proposed) is good for individual Americans; it is not. Every American is entitled to expect that his government will protect him from malign influences. Immigration laws are one of the tools to do that. The current administration, and others before it, have ignored their duty to protect with respect to enforcement of our immigration laws. Now, we see an administration that is not just ignoring that duty, but abandoning it entirely and inviting among us the very things that immigration laws ought to protect us from. The reasons for immigration laws are rarely discussed in public and are poorly understood by the public, so let us state them here. Immigration laws exist to · Protect national security · Protect public safety · Protect public health · Protect American workers from foreign competition in their own land The United States does not exist for the benefit of foreign nations or foreign people; that is not why our country was formed and it is not why our soldiers have bled and died. It is not the duty of Americans to bail out other lands that have not or will not help themselves by being a pressure relief for their social ills. Nevertheless, demands are being made by those nations (particularly Mexico) that we open our borders to their people. To the extent that we accept their people here, it is an act of grace that should be only allowed when we can do it without harming our own people. That is not what’s being proposed in Washington—proposals there amount to erasing our borders as meaningful elements of immigration control.
Kent Lundgren Chairman National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers
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Post Script: Modern America being what it has become, with weak-minded types incapable of rational discussion being inclined to cry “racism” and “jingoism” at the drop of a word, let us say this: When we refer to “Americans” or “American workers,” we include in that characterization our honored permanent resident guests, those who have chosen to join their futures with ours, who contribute to our nation, and who suffer along with the rest of us from the callous indifference and inattention of our leaders. If you want to find a racist, go somewhere else; he's not here. |
