Thought experiment: Your home is burglarized in the middle of the night, with the thief helping himself to your greatest earthly treasure – an antique diamond wedding ring that has been passed down through generations of brides on your mother’s side. You wore it for your own wedding, and just last week it had been carefully cleaned and restored in anticipation of your daughter’s coming marriage ceremony.
Horrified not just at the invasion of your bedroom, but also at the loss of a priceless heirloom, you alert the police and give them a detailed description of the ring. The desk sergeant on the other end of the line takes careful notes, but before hanging up he warns you that items stolen in this way, especially ones this small, are rarely recovered.
Meanwhile, the burglar decides to give the prized ring to his own daughter. His family is desperately poor, and he knows that she and her fiancé can’t afford a ring at all, let alone one as valuable as this. He presents it to the couple, sparing them the truth of its provenance.
Three weeks later you answer an unexpected call: Police received tips that the alleged invader of your home was sitting on a garage full of stolen property, and in a search of the home that he shared with his daughter, the heirloom ring was recovered and was waiting for its rightful owner to identify and reclaim it. You head for police headquarters.
Upon arriving at the depot, you become aware of a loud commotion. A young woman in tattered clothing is arguing with a clerk about what she calls a great injustice: Her father had given her a ring as a wedding present, and the police have confiscated it. It was hers, she claimed, given to her as a gift and now part of the tiny collection of belongings with which she and her future husband would start their new life.
Incredulous, you hear the police chief rule in the girl’s favor and hand her your treasured piece. After all, he opines, she is destitute, and this ring is all she has. She’s a good girl, trying hard to make the best of the bad hand life has dealt her. The loss is not going to cause you any lasting harm, and whether kept or sold it could make the difference between hopelessness and stability for her.
“But, but …” you protest, “it’s not yours to give away! It’s mine! I’m not arguing that she’s not a good person in a bad place, but that doesn’t mean you can give her my possessions!”
Back to reality: President Biden has just decided that a group of illegal immigrants can have your ring.
Most of us agree that many, perhaps even a majority, of the half-million or so immigrants the president wants to protect from the threat of deportation are good people in bad situations. Many are hard-working, tax-paying moms and dads doing their best to support their families and long for a path to citizenship. They would most likely live the rest of their lives as good Americans if given the chance. Yes, they broke our laws to get here (or were brought by parents who broke immigration laws), but aside from that initial transgression, they are law-abiding and freedom-loving. Aren’t they the kind of neighbors we want, who deserve a shot at the American dream?
Americans are a compassionate people, and for most of us it’s a tough call. But how indigent does the girl in our thought experiment have to be, or how well-meaning – or how much potential does she need to have – to “deserve” your ring?
Our Constitution gives Congress the power to make, and change, immigration law. It gives lawmakers the means to punish lawbreakers, and arguably gives them the option to lessen or remove penalties, even retro-actively, for certain crimes, including immigration crimes.
What it does not do is give the president or any government agency in the executive branch the authority to disregard law and to turn over the rights of American citizenship to those who seized them illegally. Even if Congress decides not to act.
Although immigration “activists” will claim that our immigration system is “broken,” and that we can’t close our borders until we have “comprehensive immigration reform,” the truth is that the United States is unusually generous in allowing immigrants into our country and becoming a part of what used to be referred to as “The Great Melting Pot.” The process is long, tedious, even circuitous and frustrating, but it’s designed to foster orderly and safe procedures and to protect the stability of American society and our economy.
Joe Biden has now taken it on himself to negate the validity of those procedures, to tell us that we must relinquish American ground to anyone who takes it unlawfully – as long as they can get away with it for 10 years and stay out of trouble. He is, in effect, turning over your inheritance to – or at least splitting it with – thieves.
Is this the way we want the future of our country decided?
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