Why have borders at all?

Tony Blankley has written a well-argued article at Townhall.com today (read it all):

It is almost inconceivable that an argument is taken seriously that we don't have the right to secure our borders and determine who shall enter our country. Not only has such lunacy become respectable, but our mainstream media instantly, instinctively embraces such a position. Every radio headline newscast, almost every newspaper and television report willfully refuses to distinguish between illegal and legal immigrants. Each report stamps the mark of evil on the forehead of all who would guard our borders.

Even the Republican president of the United States makes the nonest of non-sequiturs, when he justifies doing nothing to enforce the border laws by claiming that these are decent humans just looking for a chance in life.

Well, with the exception of the 29 percent of federal prisoners and similar numbers in state prisons, with the exception of those who seek our welfare, rather than a job -- the rest of the wayfarers are indeed far from their native lands for the most decent and best of intentions.

I would guess that of the world's 6 billion or so souls -- probably about 75 percent are good and decent folks who only want the best for their children and the world. It's the same all over -- England, Mexico, America, Africa, throughout the world -- about a quarter of the population are bums, the rest are pretty good.

And most of them would like to live in America. But why stop with 85 million Mexicans? For the open border crowd -- which apparently includes virtually the entire American political, media, academic and business establishment -- there is no reason to try to keep out anyone who wants to come in. (The Senate and the president have made it quite clear that they have no plans to actually secure the border. Their border security proposals are charades and calculated pretenses.)

There are still about 700 million Chinese peasants waiting impatiently for a decent job; probably about an equal number of Indians. And most of the African continent could surely live better in Phoenix than they do being butchered in genocidal wars or starving in man-induced famines....

I too am astonished that the mainstream media seems to be so willfully partisan on this issue. Why? Do porous borders mean more customers for them, too, just like for the big businesses that benefit from illegal alien workers?

I watched ABC Nightly News coverage of the May 1st illegal alien protests, including the de rigeur human interest piece on the nice, hard-working Hispanic waiter who hadn't missed a day's work in decades but who took the day off work to join the protest rally for "immigrant rights." He hoped that lawmakers in Washington would "touch the heart" before they make any decisions about immigration reform. Then the show turned "to the rest of the day's news."

I guess they don't even try to pretend to be "fair and balanced."

What, no touching human interest follow-up piece on overburdened hospital emergency rooms, with nice, hardworking nurses, doctors, and social workers forced to provide ever-burgeoning services out of their limited resources to illegal aliens without health insurance? No human interest interview of a nice Arizona or California family fighting the overwhelming tide of environmental damage and human refugees wrecking havoc on their homes and neighborhood? No one citing the increased drug and crime rates in the border areas--no interview of a nice teenager caught up in the Mexican drug smuggling and gangs? No human interest looks into the classrooms where non-English-speaking children have driven down school test scores and overwhelmed and demoralized the nice, dedicated teachers or principal? No interviews of nice, legal Americans denied services because the illegals have drained the coffers, emptied the food pantries, and blown the civic and church budgets? No in-depth look at a family devastated by an uninsured or drunk illegal-alien driver?

Some of my liberal friends protest, "These are good people who just want to come here and work and make a better life for their families. They are fleeing horrible situations and they don't have bad intentions. They don't want to hurt anyone." I will grant them that, but doesn't half the world want the same? Who wouldn't rather live in America if just jumping the border would accomplish it? If you give up the idea of borders meaning anything, how can you then keep anyone out? And at what point do we recognize that Americans are not only paying, but being forced to pay for this haphazard, lawless "compassionate" charity that rewards lawbreaking and unaccountability (as if making a joke of would-be immigrants who follow the rules) and still leaves these people in a limbo world of fear and no status? THIS is compassion?

No, for these stories of the other side of the equation, of our citizens and our country being hurt by the unstaunched flood of illegal immigration and the flaunting of our rule of law, we have to be watching our local TV news coverage or reading the truth on the internet. The big media players can ignore these petty details of how real, nice, legal Americans are struggling to deal with the realities of the illegals, with no solution yet to secure our borders. Too many in the media and in the Federal government are still playing artful games with words, trying to equate "undocumented workers" (or even more ridiculously, "undocumented citizens") with "illegal aliens." But they do so at their peril: not everyone is falling for it. Not everyone is lulled.

For me, the most important consideration of all, more important even than all the sad and touching individual human interest stories vying for attention on both sides of the issue, is this: are we to be a nation of law or not? Our founding fathers considered the same broad question wisely and extensively, and were quite clear on where they stood: the rule of man was to be feared and guarded against, as leading to tyranny and/or mob rule. The rule of law and an impartial judicial system together made the best government we could hope for in order to establish domestic tranquility and protect the rights of our citizens and our nation as a whole.

For 20 years our politicians, immigration officials, and law enforcement have turned a blind eye to illegal aliens. Businesses and individuals have hired them (and often exploited them) to make a quicker buck. Most of our citizens have turned a blind eye to the lawbreaking too, either out of self-interest, disinterest, or typical American live-and-let-live compassion for these individuals who sacrificed much to join us in our American dream.

But post-9/11, post-protests, post-swelling numbers of border jumpers crashing to the front of the queue, the stakes are more starkly evident. Our elected representatives are willing to let the rule of law be whittled away by the ever-growing masses of illegal-alien lawbreakers.

Who will do a human-interest story about all the Americans now and in the future hurt by that?