The Major Party Candidates and Immigration

“As president, I will secure the border” presidential hopeful John McCain claims on his website.

“In approaching immigration reform, I believe that we must enact tough, practical reforms. We need stronger enforcement of the border and the workplace. But for reform to work, we also must respond to what pulls people to America. Where we can reunite families, we should. Where we can bring in more foreign-born workers with the skills our economy needs, we should. The time to fix our broken immigration system is now. It is critical that as we embark on this enormous venture to update our immigration system, it is fully reflective of the powerful tradition of immigration in this country and fully reflective of our values and ideals.” Barack Obama said on the senate floor in May of 2007.

So McCain would be the “immigration” president, much as GWB was the “environmental” president. It was a campaign year issue, so of course you say what you think you need to say to win. But from his comments on the issue it’s fairly obvious that McCain doesn’t understand the immigration issue any better than W understood the environment. Oh, and that off-shore oil drilling that’s about to commence, yep, that was authorized by the “environmental” president, who is now the “war” president and we all know how well that is going.

Obama seems to have an understanding of the epic nature of the issue. The system is a mess held together with duct-tape and bailing wire and must be fixed from the ground up if we ever want it to be efficient. Obama obviously has given this issue a lot of thought as is evident in his numerous point by point solutions to the various aspects of the situation. Reunite families, bring illegals out of the shadows and bring in foreign workers as needed to power our economy, step up border controls and security and go after employers who hire undocumented workers. This is clearly a much deeper thought process than just “secure the border”.

Obama will probably attempt to actually “fix” our ailing immigration system, while McCain most likely will increase a couple of budgets by a hundred million dollars and figure he’s done enough for now and go back to focusing on the war he inherited. But the question is which approach is better for America? That depends on where your interests in the matter lie. If you are a small business owner that occasionally relies on below market labor to stay afloat in the economic downturn, then McCain is your man. However if your family has been split in half by an imaginary line, your best chance at reunification lies with Obama’s plan. It may happen that by the end of their second year in office either mans actions would begin to evolve into the others. The fact is that no matter who ends up as the next President of the United States, the issue of immigration will be around long after he has left office.

What we as Americans must choose is which approach will best suit our needs and goals. We have to decide if we think that simply securing our borders as a goal of a President is enough or if we want America to move in a more compassionate direction to become once again the nation that opens her door to the poor, tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Will we honor the traditions of Ellis Island and the immigrants that built America or will we become the cowering giant afraid of the slightest disruption of our ideas of the perfect America? The choice comes down to hope vs. fear. Which will you choose?

Kyle Pesonen - Staff Writer | Give your feedback on this article. | Click icon to Digg this article

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