Wheeling News-Register (West Virginia)

Illegal Immigrants' Woes Not Fault of U.S.

The Intelligencer - 4/6/05

Nothing less than an open border between the United States and Mexico will please those who view the problem of illegal immigrants as one created by Americans. A comment made by a human rights group official makes that clear.

Mexican men frequently sneak across the border into this country in order to find better jobs than those available in their homeland. Human nature being what it is, their families often try to join them. But it is easier for a man or group of men to evade Border Patrol agents than it is for a woman with children in tow. "It is a simple fact of wanting to be with their families," commented Kat Rodriguez of Derechos Humanos, a human rights group based in Tucson, Ariz. "Our policies have caused separation of loved ones," Rodriguez added.

Whoa. "Our policies?" Not at all. What has caused "separation of loved ones" is Mexican men coming into this country illegally and leaving their families behind. Rodriguez's comment is a bit like blaming U.S. laws for separating Martha Stewart from her family for several months. It just won't wash.

Americans and U.S. immigration laws are not the villains in this picture. But the open borders crowd continues to paint a misleading - and dishonest - picture of the situation in an attempt to convince big-hearted Americans that we are, somehow, evil for attempting for placing any limits on immigration. That's absurd and dangerous in any number of ways. We shouldn't fall for it.


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