Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Time for Administration's Actions to Match Rhetoric on Immigration

     For the past several years we have all been witness to the spectacle where political leaders pay lip service to helping the nation's disadvantaged. After all, the rich can take care of themselves, they say. I agree with that opinion, but it is time to actually do something..  One of the responsibilities of an effective government  is giving relief to the powerless and helpless, you know,  the very groups that can't afford the high-priced lobbyists who dole out huge campaign contributions to sympathetic Congressmen and Senators.  Who fits the definition of powerless more than the undocumented?

     This administration, although enjoying high levels of support both in opinion polls and at the ballot box from many spokesmen of these very disadvantaged groups, is deporting undocumented aliens at  a record pace, and still jailing minor drug offenders from minority groups in increasing numbers, with each year seeing tens of thousands more families and children thrown into turmoil by having a family member arrested or deported.

     There is an old saying in politics is that to find what politicians and the powerful are interested in, follow the money.  In the past year, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Obama Administration spent more on immigration enforcement, $18 billion,  than on all other federal criminal law enforcement agencies combined.  The number of immigrants processed  by Homeland Security dwarfs all other federal detentions.   According to Homeland Security's own statistics, in fiscal 2012, a record 409,849 people were deported, as opposed to the 188,467 shipped out in 2000.

  It is time to get serious on immigration reform, and  to start spending money on more important things.