Today’s reading is from the Book of Clinton, Chapter Two for the Price
of One, Verse 2008.
“Thus saith the angel Hillary regarding the immigration
bill passed by the House last December that would make it a felony
to be in this country unlawfully:
‘It is certainly not in keeping
with my understanding of the Scriptures, because this bill would literally
criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself.’”
When
the Clintons start sounding like Pat Robertson, the situation is grave. It was during the dark days of impeachment that Bill would orchestrate
photo ops of him walking out of church lugging a book about the size
of a laptop computer. Just so we wouldn’t miss the point, he’d
hold it so the words “Holy Bible” could be captured by the cameras.
Mrs.
Clinton has dazzled us with her theological expertise before. In 1999 she said that at Christmas, “We are celebrating the birth
of a homeless child.” Those who actually read the Bible, rather
than merely using it as a prop, know that Jesus wasn’t homeless.
The
Holy Family was traveling from their home in Nazareth and couldn’t
find a place to stay. The reason they were in Bethlehem was
because the emperor had issued a decree that everyone had to return
to his home town to be taxed, something with which Mrs. Clinton has
considerable acquaintance.
But now she is invoking the name of Jesus
to demonstrate her opposition to making it a felony to be in the United
States illegally. Her ire is better directed at her Democratic
House colleagues. They’re the ones who kept the felony provision
in the bill.
The legislation’s chief sponsor, Wisconsin Republican
James Sensenbrenner, acquiesced to Bush administration requests in
December and introduced an amendment that would make unlawful presence
here a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
When the Sensenbrenner amendment
came to a vote, 191 House Democrats voted against it. Only eight
favored it. By contrast, Republicans favored the amendment 156
to 65.
So why did Democrats, including many who are unyieldingly opposed
to tightening criminal penalties, vote to keep it a felony? Congressman Sensenbrenner explained:
“Mr. Speaker, throughout this
debate, both yesterday and today, my friends on the minority side
have been doing their best to try to make this bill unworkable, one
of which was their almost unanimous support for keeping the penalties
for illegal presence in the United States as a felony. Let me tell
you that even though my amendment to reduce those penalties was voted
down largely by people on the other side of the aisle, when this bill
gets to conference, those penalties will be made workable. You
can count on that.”
The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal
Immigration Control Act in its final form passed the House with the
support of 36 Democrats. Had they switched the way they voted,
the bill that “would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and
probably even Jesus himself” would have failed.
Mrs. Clinton’s shift
on the issue is noteworthy. It wasn’t so long ago that she forcefully
declared she was “adamantly opposed to illegal immigrants.” But in a statement posted on her Senate Internet site earlier this
month, illegal immigrants have miraculously been transformed into
“undocumented workers.”
A big problem with those undocumented workers
is we don’t know how many there are, who they are, where they are,
or what their intentions are. Maybe they’re here to earn money
for their families. Or maybe they’re here to kill Americans.
Even
setting aside legitimate security concerns, the billions of dollars
illegal immigrants cost us for medical care, education and other benefits
are constantly increasing.
Talk of guest worker provisions makes no
sense to me. A guest is someone you invite into your house,
not someone who’s invaded it.
We’re told that many illegal immigrants
are working at jobs that Americans won’t do. Is that it, or
is it that by being here they’ve driven wages down to a point where
the jobs are undesirable, in comparison to welfare, to many citizens? Yet we don’t see Congress demanding an examination of whether welfare
benefits are too generous in some instances.
Politicians including
Mrs. Clinton and the President use soaring rhetoric to acknowledge
that immigrants have benefited the nation. Ignored is that usually
those contributions were made by people who followed the rules and
came in legally, not by individuals whose first act in the US was
to break the law by entering. I see no reason to reward criminals
with any form of amnesty.
Foreigners coming here used to adapt to American
ways. They accepted our language and customs. They embraced
our culture and values. That’s not the way it is now. They march and demand we change to accommodate them.
Mrs. Clinton can
contend a crackdown on illegal immigration conflicts with the Good
Book, but there’s one question I’d ask her:
How Christian is national
suicide?
This appears in the March 30, 2006 Oak Lawn Reporter. Mike Bates is the author of Right Angles and Other Obstinate Truths
