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do we follow the law or do we abandon it? by current standards, the law regarding illegal entry means very little. my vote is that we enforce it.
I know I am putting my ass out there, but I feel I have to give my opinion.
Everytime we look at someone as an illegal immigrant, I think we should think, way back to the heritage of the United States. I didn't see a welcome mat for the British citizens to come in and say, "Hey! Come take the land". Infact, if my memory serves correct, many of the original natives lost their lives, and were put on bounty. Now we have them in places called "Reservations", purely out of guilt.
You may say, "There were no laws", and I cannot refute this fact. What I can refute is how much a law should mean. When we limit the individual freedoms of the people in an effort to contain what some would call an infestation, we are limiting the freedoms of all. I understand that the United States was founded on the ideals of government, and control, but I also understand that it was a land based on the people.
The people are what should decide which law passes, and only the people. Even senators cannot pass a law without the concent of the people, and when you do so, you are shifting from a democracy to some form of dictatorship. When laws are put in place, they shouldn't be the be-all, end-all. That's what amendments are for, the ability to change the law to fit the times.
I won't argue the issue of terrorism. An open border allows for people who simply wish to cause harm to others to enter unabridged. With this said, you are also limiting those few, actual honest, hardworking men and women, who followed the "American Dream". Should you punish those who can't afford to make a better lives for themselves, by making it so that no one can enter?
Where will it stop? Once you close off the borders, do you start doing crackdowns on the people already present? Then do you start denying citizens that have legally come from other countries, their rights? Then do you start denying people the right to be a citizen? It would be a breakdown on the spirit of :
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!!
I say we let them in, and we embrace them with open arms. Give them the rights they deserve, perhaps not as citizens, but as people of a country built on the thought of freedom from oppression.
I say those who would rebel against their government in protest, more power to you. It is the constitutional right of the people to petition the government for a change, based on the bill of rights, which to my knowledge, has been challenged and proven to be nearly invincible in the court of law. Perhaps they are not citizens now, but shouldn't we give them the chance to become them?
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