Heres an essay on the issues page at my campaign website, danielpughforsenate. The site has been a bit in disarray the last couple of days but is better now. Take a look and give me some feedback. IMMIGRATION REFORM Amnesty: (from the Greek amnestia) A pardon extended by the government to a class of persons, usually for a political offense” More than a pardon, amnesty removes the record of the offense never to be held against the offender afterward. Americans are a generous people…for the most part anyway. And it pains an increasing number of decent and fair minded Republicans that among their leadership ranks there is an emergence of intolerant and extreme young Turks armed with reactionary attitudes that have little tolerance or interest for blending justice with mercy. Most Americans have compassion for the 11 million souls that live in fear among them and are open to lifting the illegal stigma that stalks them by extending them amnesty accompanied, of course, with the insistence that it must promise to be the last. Alas, the endeavor to work out a viable solution with the current administration Democrats has been all but abandoned for the next several years by Republicans leaders. Under the pretext that comprehensive reform would be meaningless in the hands of an administration that can’t be trusted with dedicated enforcement, Republicans have chosen a pathetic tactic of passive aggressiveness rather than leadership. We’ll just wait him out, say our intrepid leaders. What we more honest and reasonable Republicans are left with are those in our Republican Party, even candidates for Senate, who would rather feign cynicism than forge ahead with courage when faced with difficult problems. Barak Obama is our President—Republicans must be able to work with him—if you can’t work with him then you need to get out the way and let someone who can. If we insist on bracketing Enforcement from Legalization, touting one more important than the other, the political stars will never align for getting reform done and out of the way. Each party is of the mindset that the incentives toward reform are driven by their own philosophical priorities. Conservatives demand a completion of border fences first while the Democrats deem relieving the cruelty to those living in the shadows the first pressing issue. The concerns on both sides are valid and deserve addressing but if one party is determined not to show up for the conversation then the whole process is fated to fail. For political purposes the Republicans in Congress have chosen to insult the President and the Democrats to cover for their own ineptitude toward solving illegal migration. Not to mention the denigrating fashion many on the American Right characterize the undocumented community as low-life moochers who gleefully trample on U.S. sovereignty on their way to pocket government handouts at taxpayer’s expense. We can do without representatives of that kind. This is an unfortunate and unnecessary impasse. Intractable posturing leaves this urgent moral predicament unresolved and at the mercy of the blowing winds of rhetoric. The undocumented remain in limbo confined in the shadows adrift in anxious uncertainty. As long as this protracted dilemma is allowed to fester the greater the cost in moral, political, and economic capital. Our national generosity is impugned and our national interest is harmed. Here’s what needs to be done and the order in which it should be done is critical. Bring people out of the shadows. Grant Probationary legal status. This will allow the undocumented, in good faith, to come out of the shadows, chronicle with the Feds their identity, place of work, and where they live. Removing the fear of losing their job, being arrested and deported is a vital step to enlist their cooperation. In this context probationary means they can live and work here free from the fear of legal molestation while appropriate enforcement measures remain in place. Concurrent with launching probationary status start building the damned fence! Not the high tech-low success-prohibitive cost fence touted by certain Senators, rather, one modeled after the several tiered San Diego fence that has an impressive 92% drop in apprehension. The Israeli fence built along the West Bank is of similar kind and has reduced terrorist crossings to practically zero. Probation, fence construction, and enforcement must all meet and begin simultaneously. This is the answer to this national conundrum that continues to confound leading Republicans. They trip over the term amnesty as if it were a curse word. They cite Simpson-Mizolli of1986, which granted blanket amnesty and promised enforcement. The fact that enforcement didn’t accompany amnesty doesn’t prove amnesty was the wrong course—only that being faithful to enforcement must be married to legalization in order to accomplish a just immigration policy. The U.S. Senate campaign in Oklahoma has exposed other candidates as being hopelessly tone deaf about who the undocumented are and what might be the reasonable way to treat them. Essentially well-meaning they tend to be blinded by an obsession to enforce society’s laws and morality to an extreme and embarrassing extant. On his campaign website James Lankford states, “Immigration is not about race or poverty, it is about the rule of law and a commitment to respect each person as created in the image of God. But, amnesty should be prohibited and each person must be held accountable for their actions.” It’s difficult to know where to start. First off, the migrants in question are primarily of a different race and the very reason they come here is precisely to escape poverty. Secondly, it’s incoherent to say we respect other peoples being in God’s image while asserting a law insulates us from respecting their dire circumstance. Thirdly, amnesty should be prohibited”, verboten, must not be allowed to grace these undocumented “others”—these survival driven, penury fleeing, “criminals” must each be held “accountable” for these law defying “actions”. This is reminiscent of the fugitive drama played out in Les Miserable where the law crazed police inspector, Javert, invests years tracking down Jean Valjean for the theft of a coin worth about three dollars. It is an excessive legalistic stance to characterize the undocumented as “criminals”. Such a temperament has no place in the higher offices that draft legislation that shapes the world in which we live, move, and have our being. Finally, Lankford proposes a statement that dismisses the majesty of entreaty inscribed on that siren of compassion, the Statue of Liberty. He concludes, “The vision of the Statue of Liberty is still true, but the law also still stands.” Apparently to candidate Lankford the invitation, Give me your tired, your poor—Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free—The wretched refuse of your teeming shore—Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me—I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”, are just words…an archaic sentimentality no longer welcome in current immigration law. Candidate Lankford ends by saying, “We must solve the immigration problem, not just talk about it.” Indeed! Really? But congressman…you’re now not even talking about it, shelving the issue for your own political purposes. This would not happen on my watch. Yes, we need common sense immigration policy but first we must own up that it is the U.S. government that has done a poor job of managing the process. Immigration is not a thing…the undocumented are people. They are decent, hardworking, cohesive families, and valuable human beings. And unless we start treating them as such the Republican Party is soon destined to the trash-heap of defunct and discarded political thought. Submitted for your kind consideration, Daniel
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 01:39:34 +0000
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