Where, oh where, has common sense gone? Oh, where could it be? It seems as though nothing makes sense anymore. I know it's not just me, because I hear other people say the same thing. Ponder the Arizona immigration law controversy and ask yourself, what is the common sense solution?
Why would our federal government refuse to use their Supremacy clause power and secure our borders? Why would our federal government file a lawsuit against a State that is willing to help the government enforce their law? And why would our federal government allow the illegal immigration situation to get so out of hand?
One of the federal government's main duties is to protect our borders. The state of Arizona has been begging the federal government to help them with the illegal immigration problem and they have been ignored. Arizona's citizens pay the federal government, through taxes, to protect the borders and they have been short changed. Since the federal government refused to do their job and supremely enforce the law, Arizona passed a law so they could protect their citizens..
If our federal government would have protected the Arizona/Mexico border, as the law requires them to, the Arizona legislature would not have had a need to pass an immigration law. Instead, our federal government has looked the other way while people have been kidnapped and murdered by illegal immigrants along the border. Moreover, the federal government has allowed cities across the United States to pass laws declaring their city a sanctuary for illegal immigrants. Is this not an illegal act of aiding and abetting ?
Our federal government is so busy passing laws, poking their noses into our private health care records or looking to tax the next breath we exhale (carbon tax), they have been derelict in their main duty of protecting our borders.
I sense the federal government has purposely waited for this issue to explode into a full blown crisis. My biggest concern about the whole border crisis is what liberties are we, the American citizens, going to lose? You know how this Democrat administration works, "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste." With each new crisis comes new thousand-page laws aimed to further control our lives. Will we, the American citizen, have to carry a national ID card when we go to buy an ice cream cone with our children?
It's hard to imagine that there is an estimated 10 million to 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States today. That would be at least 14 times the total population of North Dakota. The illegal immigrants are of all nationalities and some of these people are here just to do us harm. Remember, they are not all Mexican citizens just trying to make a better life and do jobs Americans refuse to do.
We are a nation of laws and if we don't enforce the laws, chaos will rule. When common sense disappears, confusion appears. My senses tells me this whole immigration situation smells fishy and it feels wrong. And that is just my two cents.
(Cindy Johnson is a community columnist for The Minot Daily News)