'Immigration Bill this year? Don't bet on it.'

This title was taken from a Washington Post article referring to congressional apathy concerning immigration. Of course, understandably, we have a lot of other (and arguably more) important matters at hand. This could also be based on the fact that core solutions proposed by Barack Obama don't really exist. Through my research, Democrats are all over the place when it comes to immigration reform.



However, the Republicans have more or less a general consensus on how to handle immigration. I found it interesting that the RNC actually does not even have immigration listed as an core issue. It's actually considered a part of national security. Many Republican leaders such as Rick Santorum (featured on the Hannity and Colmes show), advocate 'security first' - that is, building up walls on our borders then dealing with amnesty.

These 'walls' are being touted as to keep our enemies such as Al-Qaeda out. However, we all know their real purpose...to keep illegal immigrants out.

Nah...I'm sure 20 million illegal immigrants won't have any impact on tax and social program reform...

My opinion? We don't need to live in East Berlin. If a terrorist wishes to enter our country, he/she is going to do it. Our borders are FAR too large (Canada as well) to justify the enormous monetary and personnel expense to keep everyone out (and if my some magic chance it does become effective - if you look towards the far future - maybe it could also keep us locked in...?)

But back to my main point, I consider it un-American to fence out the borders to the land of opportunity. Yes, the problem with 12+ million undocumented workers IS a serious issue. However, the reason for them coming up here has a lot to do with the political and economic instability in their own countries. Proper policy changes implemented in other countries (and we can help with those policies) is the only long-term solution.

So alas, immigration reform isn't happening anytime soon. We don't seem to want it. Watch these deficits and spending though...when we realize we don't have enough people paying into our system, I can bet one place where we're certainly going to look.