It seems like everywhere I go, I hear conservatives talking about immigration from two perspectives: on the one hand, they say everyone who has crossed our border illegally has already broken the law and for that they should be deported. I agree with that to an extent, but it’s not going to happen. It’s almost as unrealistic as saying we should make firearms illegal, then expect voluntary compliance from both, criminals and law-abiding citizens, by turning in
their guns. It’s not fair, it’s not feasible, it’s not realistic. Beyond that, it’s kind of asinine. Like court cases for asylum-seekers, a mandatory self-deportation would probably result in only a fraction of immigrants, here illegally, actually reporting to the border for processing, and the only people who would voluntarily comply are those who follow the rules. In essence, the only people who would leave are the people we would want to stay.

On the other hand, I hear people talk about the immigrants who are just coming here to build a better life for themselves. They talk about their work ethic, their skill sets, and their commitment to family—character traits which, today, would put a great many natural-born Americans to shame. I hear about how they’d like to trade all the “whiny snowflakes” in America for even a handful of hard working immigrants, legal or illegal, who have seen real oppression and real hardship, and have a great respect for the freedoms which today’s young Americans have little or no respect for at all. I agree with that too, but of course, that’s not going to happen either.

We’re all in the same boat, whether we recognize it or not. There are people coming here with insidious intentions, and it’s easier and safer to simply shut the whole thing down than to risk allowing our country’s mortal enemies to walk across that border unchecked. So, I get it. America’s “Land of Opportunity” doesn’t mean what it used to—at least not to a lot of folks who are coming here to take advantage of our hand-outs rather than our freedoms. The problem is, even if we could implement a mass deportation, we would be throwing out the baby with the bath water. We’re not just talking about the eight to ten million people who have come into the country illegally since the Biden adminstration took over, we’re talking about twenty or thirty million more who came during previous administrations. A lot of them were children when their families came here, and they don’t know any country but this one as their home. Don’t get me
wrong, some of those people are just as useless as the whiny snowflakes who were born here. So there’s a big mess, and someday that mess is going to get cleaned up. It would be a shame to throw out perhaps millions of people who love and respect this country, but don’t have the “pathway to citizenship” because no one is willing to sign on the dotted line beneath their names. There needs to be a way to find the “good ones” and get them on the path with permanent residency, so that they’re not accidentally tossed out with the all the riff-raff when the political pendulum swings back the other direction.

The truth is, we’re not all that different. If you woke up and found yourself and your family living in San Francisco, surrounded by homeless camps and human feces, you’d move Heaven and Earth to get your family out of there. Imagine, now, if you woke up to find yourself living in some other third-world city, but in Central or South America. You’d look at your children’s faces and realize their only path to any kind of prosperity is to join a cartel. You’d think about America; you’ve dreamt of it all your life, but it’s different now—your children are living in a different world. The town you hoped would get better has only gotten worse. America isn’t just a dream, it’s a necessity. Damn the red tape–you’d move Heaven and Earth to get your family out of there. They’re doing exactly what you would do.

Four hundred years ago, or three or two or even just a hundred years ago, people risked everything to get to our shores just to get a chance at a better life in America. People are still willing to risk everything today. That hasn’t changed. If you think northern California is bad, you can certainly imagine how badly they want to get out of Venezuela, and getting on a ten-year waiting list to get into the United States would fall well short of “acceptable” measures to get away from the circumstances these folks are facing in poor and authoritarian-led nations around the globe. You could come to the border, you and your family, fill out the forms, provide the documentation, provide your proof of vaccination, sign on the dotted line, and wait a few years, a thousand miles from home, for enough visas to become available that everyone in front of you in line, and then finally your family, would be allowed the opportunity for an interview to determine your eligibility for a green card; or, choice B: you could simply utter the word, “asylum,” and walk right in. Which of these options gets your family out of danger faster?

We have always been welcoming to those who truly appreciate what America has to offer, and who are willing to earn their place here in the States. We want law-abiding members of society, and coming into the country illegally checks the wrong box right off the bat. But the world is becoming more dangerous—particularly the part of the world south of our country—and as a law-abiding patriot, I can tell you without hesitation, that I would absolutely sneak across that border if it meant keeping my family safe.

Once they’re here, the good and decent people get to work. People like these aren’t hard to find. They’re working everyday just like the rest of us. They won’t take hand-outs, only buy what they can afford—with cash—and teach their children the same values and principles they were taught by their parents. They’re self-motivated and self-sufficient, contributing to society instead of leeching off of it—the kind of folks who the land of opportunity was made for and created by. They deserve to be here more than a lot our current citizenry. Again, it would be a real shame to see people like them tossed out with the bath water. Our opportunity to make sure that doesn’t happen is getting them sponsored, petitioning to grant them residency, and getting them on the road to naturalization.

Becoming a financial sponsor for an immigrant means putting your money at risk should that immigrant fail to uphold his or her financial obligations once they’re granted residency, and that risk carries on until they become naturalized citizens. That’s a hard pass for most folks, but that’s what we can do through the End of the Tunnel immigrant sposnsorship initiative. Would you risk thousands of dollars to give a good family their opportunity to become citizens? Would you risk a dollar a week? With enough people subscribing, specifically supporting this initiative, we can make this happen, one family at a time.