A day without immigrants …

That’s today, February 16, 2017. The idea is that if all immigrants – legal and illegal – decide to stay home today, it will prove to U.S. citizens how important immigrants are to our country.

Nobody doubts that immigrants are important to our country. Almost everybody here is descended from immigrants to this nation. Immigrants have helped us become the world power we are in science, in medicine, in technology, and in a variety of other fields. 

However, not making the distinction between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants is intentionally misleading. The former are always welcome here; the latter are here illegally. And there’s absolutely no way, no wordsmithing, no weasel wording or moral equivalency that makes illegals legal. 

They have entered our country illegally. Many have used bogus Social Security numbers to gain employment, and perhaps vote. That’s all clearly against the law. 

The defense of illegal immigrants usually follows one of two paths: the Jean Valjean rationale – “they were only trying to feed their families”; or the Steve Martin “I forgot” rationale, where people “discover” that, contrary what they’ve always believed, they are in fact here illegally.

The latter is my new favorite for silliness. Unfortunately, it’s also the flawed basis for Obama’s executive order to protect “dreamers” from deportation because they were brought here illegally as children by their parents who also entered illegally.  Then, of course, their parents never told them about entering illegally and so they never knew.  Bullshit. They knew.      

Both are ridiculous.  And disingenuous. 

The media and politicians prefer to publicize the plight of poor Mexican and Central American illegal immigrants. We often see sob stories about families making dangerous crossings through deserts simply in search of “a better life” here.  The constant theme is that these are decent, honest, hard-working people whose only crime is trying to provide for their families.

So, the argument goes, is it really a crime to break the law to feed your family? 

Hence the Jean Valjean rationale.  And the drama that follows is right out of Les Miserables – a “minor” offense, like crossing our border illegally, apparently – leads to a lifetime of pursuit by the authorities out of proportion to the original “crime.”

However, we’re not talking about stealing a loaf of bread here.  Entering our country illegally is a serious violation of our sovereignty and our laws. Try that in almost any other country in the world – and especially in Mexico – and you could end up in prison for up to 10 years.    

For some reason we’re not supposed to enforce our immigration laws the same way.

The reality is that what those particular illegals from Mexico and Central America really want is not simply a loaf of bread, but to make a lot more money, have better healthcare, send their kids to better schools, and live under a less corrupt political system. 

Who can blame them? 

Actually, most citizens here would like to have the exact same things. However, most of us aren’t willing to illegally enter another country to get them; if, in fact, there were another country that could deliver all that better than here. 

I’m sorry wherever the Mexican and Central American illegals came from doesn’t offer those things on the same level as the U.S. But that doesn’t give them an excuse for breaking our laws. 

There is an alternative for these people: they could apply for legal entry. But they don’t. Having been through the process with some employees I can confirm it can be a costly and time-consuming process to get a green card.  Getting an experienced immigration lawyer to push through the process costs as much or more as some illegals paid professional human smugglers to get here. 

Instead, illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America choose to skip that step and the waiting lists and enter illegally, hoping they never get caught. Even if they do get caught and sent back many will just sneak across our border again. And again. And again. Paying the coyotes each time.  

Frankly, going the legal path might be less expensive in the end for some.      

Most deceptive in all this is that the media constantly show the anguished faces of Pepe and Maria and their kids in fear of getting caught and deported, and how they tremble at the thought of returning to whatever country they left. The media find that focusing on Latino illegals, many of whom need an interpreter to respond to reporters’ questions even after living here for more than a decade, puts a more sympathetic face on the illegal community. 

The problem with illegal immigration is much bigger than the usual Latino nanny, housekeeper, fast-food worker, or field hand here illegally and bravely struggling to survive doing jobs citizens don’t want.  The truth is, illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America comprise only a bit more than half of all the people here illegally.

The rest are those who overstay their work, education or tourist visas and then disappear. You don’t see the media devoting much coverage of that. That’s because it’s much better optics to demonstrate the “heartlessness” of our immigration laws using the plight of an ethnic minority closer to home – like Western Hemisphere Hispanics, especially if they are poor.   

It’s much harder to get the public on your side by when about 40+ percent of the illegal immigrants are from places like Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Most of these aren’t poor nor did they take a perilous journey to reach this Promised Land.

Unless you consider flying coach or having an inside stateroom on a cruise ship perilous.     

They, like their Mexican and Central American counterparts, are still here illegally, regardless of how they got here.  Yet there’s little coverage of that because they don’t further the narrative. Plus, they aren’t likely to hold public demonstrations demanding their right to stay. 

That doesn’t make them any less illegal. And for sure most aren’t here doing jobs ordinary U.S. citizens don’t want to do. A lot of them are doing jobs citizens would love to have. But many are doing these jobs for less than a U.S. citizen would get.   

Just like many of the illegals from Mexico and Central America who work on the farms, on the construction sites, in the restaurants, and in the factories across this country.  Only the visa violators aren’t usually working for minimum wage, but still below what a U.S. citizen with the same education and job skills would cost.      

So take a big guess why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is opposed to cracking down on illegal immigration, and why Silicon Valley titans are also opposed to tightening immigration laws and finding and deporting those who overstay their visas.

Go ahead. Think about it for a minute. 

Nobody is opposed to legal immigrants.  Conflating illegal immigrants with legal immigrants simply to make it seem we’re opposed to all immigrants is dishonest. 

And the media giving credence to that myth of America’s intolerance of all immigrants makes the media appear even less credible. 

If that’s possible.