Sometimes I get the eerie sensation that we are all living a farce. If lawmakers really had Americans’ and immigrants’ best interest at heart, we could sit down and reach an agreement. There are options. There are solutions. The immigration debate was nothing more than a symbolic attempt to further separate and define, to set the political stage for the upcoming elections, to gain votes, to placate, to express disdain. It was not really to reform anything. It is not in our Government’s best interest to reform. We’ve been had.

I came across the article, “Out of Unenforceable Laws, Amnesties Are Born,” in the Washington Post the other day. Shankar Vedantam is talking about the immigration debate. He is talking about the way critics utter the word “amnesty” as though it were a damned word. He is talking about a situation that we have created.

This is a situation in which, “an estimated 12 million people in the country — most of whom look, sound and act like law-abiding citizens — are supposed to be apprehended, prosecuted and deported.” He goes on to state the obvious. This is “a job that is not only well beyond the capacity of the police and courts, but would wreck substantial parts of the economy were it attempted.”

Immigration reform would not have solved many of the Nation’s most pressing problems. It would not have helped thousands of poverty stricken Mexicans before their only option became risking everything to leave behind their families to try to get ahead. It would not have helped the thousands of spouses and children who are now separated because of immigration laws. It wouldn’t have solved anything.

Shankar compares immigration laws to downloading music or driving over the speed limit in that they are all unenforceable. The difference, though, is that people’s lives, families and well being are not at stake when they download music. There is no room for symbolic lawmaking or selective punishment in immigration reform.

He does make a point when it comes to over-criminalization, which, he says, “turns out to be as difficult a problem to deal with in the long run as crime itself.” That’s where “amnesty” comes in. When society has created criminals where there are none, what else do you do?

The consequence of symbolic lawmaking is over-criminalization, which turns out to be as difficult a problem to deal with in the long run as crime itself. It might sound good for a politician to sternly declare that draft dodgers are in violation of the law and at risk for prosecution, but how do you deal with thousands of Americans who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War — after the country had concluded the war was lost and a ghastly mistake? You offer them amnesty, of course.
- Shankar Vedantam

The only thing left to do is to take it into our own hands, to keep writing, talking, protesting and fighting until law makers undergo the task of creating true immigration reform that benefits us instead of divides us.

Source: ImmigrateUSA