It isn’t about the immigrants. It's About The Power

It isn't about the immigrants or immigration. If it were, then it would have been done during the first two years of the current administration when the president and the sizable majorities in both houses of Congress that he controlled were of a like mind. It would have been a trivial matter for them to have put together legislation that would have accomplished all of the president’s stated goals. However, passing comprehensive immigration reform is far from being even one of the president’s real goals. The president’s real goal is to use any and all means available to divide the public up into groups and sub groups so that they can be more easily pandered to separately, set against their neighbors, and to weaken conservatives and the Constitutional form of government that they are trying so desperately to preserve.

Progressives have a long term goal, and have had for over a hundred years along with strategies for achieving that goal which is the destruction of the United States government and its reformation as a progressive socialist utopia ruled by the educated class.

The first and arguably the most damaging step in the reformation was the promotion and ratification of the seventeenth amendment to the Constitution providing for the direct election of Senators. Sold on a socialist narrative of class warfare and the trope that big moneyed interests controlled the selection process at the state level the selection process was changed to mirror that of representatives. The federal government was formed by the several states, but as of 1911 the states themselves have no representation to the very government that they formed.

What progressives have in mind is not the government “of the people by the people and for the people” that was envisioned by and provided for by the framers of the Constitution, but a government of the people by the Ivy League educated elite governing class. Things are just too complicated in modern times for the average person to know what the “right thing” is and so the average people need someone to make those decisions for them. Progressives want to make those decisions.

Progressives will make the argument that the Constitution is an arcane document with little or no relevance in today’s fast paced society. It’s a bit odd that that was the exact argument they made 100 years ago. They are also wont to describe the Constitution as a “living, breathing document”, but this is just not the case. The Constitution is the foundation of our entire society. It’s the rule book. The Constitution is written in plain English so that everyone could understand it, but this is not to say that it should never be changed. In fact the framers recognized that the nation would change and that it might be necessary to allow for that by expanding the foundation. The procedure for amending the Constitution laid out in Article V is quite simple, but it’s an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. It was meant to be difficult. The difficulty was meant to foster stability, to prevent chicanery and capricious actions, and even with that safeguard built in we managed to gift ourselves the 17th and 18th amendments, one taking representation to the federal government away from the states and the other to make it illegal to produce, transport, or sell alcoholic beverages within the borders. The folly of the 18th became obviously fairly quickly and it was repealed with the 21st. The Seventeenth is a toxic cancer still waiting excision.

Everyone knows that the immigration system in the United States is dysfunctional. People like to call it “broken”, but it’s no more broken than a mint Model T with a lift kit and sub woofers. It was never meant to do what is now asked of it and has never been adequately modified. The problems with the system are easily fixed. Easily. The reason they have not been fixed is that the issue is too easily used by politicians as a cudgel against their opponents. Progressives accuse republicans of being heartless and republicans claw for power by accusing their rivals of being in favor of an “amnesty”. And now the president is using the issue to usurp the powers of Congress maintaining that if the divided representatives of the people can’t agree then he has the authority to act.

Currently, another part of the problem is the congressional tendency to try and pass sweeping “comprehensive” legislation. This is a mistake. A piece of legislation that has one goal can not have too many interlocking, interdependent parts. Such pieces of legislation ALWAYS contain onerous provisions buried deep where no light shines and no one expects for all of the parts of the new laws to actually work. Everyone expects the executive branch to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” and simply ignore the portions of the law that it doesn’t agree with. This has become the norm, and an administration can enforce only a part of the law and still make the claim that they are following their oaths. The current administration has so damaged the credibility of the federal executive that it may never be repaired with its now exposed and indisputable lies about the PPACA and how that legislation was promoted and passed, the weaponization of the IRS and Departments of Justice and Energy along with the EPA and Bureau of Land Management. Even the National Park Service has been made into a political tool, placing barriers around outdoor monuments to keep people out and foment resentment.

Multiple, short, easily read and understood laws will solve the problems with the immigration system. 1) Border control. 2) Reform of the immigration infrastructure to make it capable of handling the volume of applications expected for permanent residence and work visas. 3) Strict implementation of an employment verification scheme. These things alone would stem the tide of illegal immigrants at our borders. These steps could be implemented tomorrow, but of course they will not because the politicians still need the cudgel, and they need it because the Senate and House of Representatives are now identical bodies selected by the same people with the same motives. To expect a sharply divided electorate to elect anything but a sharply divided Congress is simply not rational.

It’s not about the immigrants. It’s about the power.

But that’s just what an average guy thinks.