By Harry C. Alford
NNPA Columnist
It appears nearly impossible for our nation to have an orderly and simple immigration program. It should be quite easy and routine with a simple application form and a written process and time lines. A big problem is that obtaining American citizenship is a very big accomplishment for a foreigner. No other nation on earth has such demand. It is because of our capitalistic society where dreams can come true and democracy flourishes. The demand is so high that corruption, manipulation and schemes get in the way of doing the right thing.
We have many thousands of educated people who have H1B work visas and work in many technical fields. When their visas expire they have to leave. Why can’t they receive permanent status as they are an asset to our workplace and society? It seems that our elected officials can’t seem to work that out.
Instead, what we have now is another big scandal coming at the request of the White House. Normally, Mexico strongly secures its southern border. Now people are crossing into the country to connect with smugglers known as “coyotes.” Each person is usually charged about $700 to be led across Mexico to our southern border. Once they arrive, our border agents who should be turning them around, actually let all of them in and put them on a bus. Then they drive them to a processing station. After a cursory screening, they are released on their own. At this point, they have completed an illegal process and become illegal aliens – compliments of the American government. Thus, we now have an administration that is involved (actually created) an illegal act. The whole thing is unconstitutional.
These illegal aliens travel through Mexico at great risk. Many of the girls are being raped along the way, some as young as 10 years old. There is no sanitation provided. Disease is spreading among them at a rapid rate. The whole picture of this is ugly. The processing centers are at full capacity as the population of the aliens is growing exponentially. Homeland Security is now taking them to military bases, causing even more confusion. Recently, more than 20,000 have arrived at various stations along the southern border.
Wait. It gets worse. As they are being processed, there are buses waiting to transport them to unsuspected towns. Phoenix, Dallas, Tucson are just some of the towns receiving these indigent, non-English speaking people. They have even put them on planes and have flown them to Baltimore and other cities. They release them to empty buildings and hope the local governments will provide for them. These buses and planes have been contracted by the federal government to do this dirty activity. What kind of contracting is that? The federal government is letting formal contracts to violate the constitution and commit illegal and dangerous acts.
When they release them, Homeland Security assigns them a date to appear for formal review. None of these illegal aliens are going to show up for the review. They are going to melt into our population and live a life in hiding and on the run. The quality of life for many of our towns and neighborhoods will be disrupted for a very long period of time.
This is indeed chaos. But the worst thing about it is that it is organized. It is well organized by the White House. The only response the White House is giving is to ask for $3.8 billion to handle this mass flow of illegal activity. They are predicting that this is going to last for a long time and as much as 50,000 more will cross the border illegally.
Another illegal act the White House is committing is to silence their employees working in the processing centers. They cannot speak to the press or anyone else about this without getting fired. Visitors cannot take pictures or speak with the illegal aliens. Even the press is denied access. Congressmen have been turned away. Is this America?
Some communities are starting to protest this government-sponsored invasion of illegal aliens. They find it detestable that our own government is doing such a low life thing. One town, Murrieta, Calif.,, formed a crowd and blocked the buses from dropping off the unsanitary, disease and lice ridden illegal aliens. The buses left and went off to another center.
America has never seen such brazen illegal acts by the federal government. I guess government officials are saying “what are you going to do? Report it to the government – ha!” It is so shameful and sad that things are going awry without an end in sight. Impoverished people fleeing despair in one place; traveling incognito across thousands of miles; being abused and raped along the way to arrive in a place called America as illegal aliens. Their dream of free citizenship is highly unlikely.
Harry C. Alford is the co-founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce®. Website: www.nationalbcc.org. Email: halford@nationalbcc.org.
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