Biting the Hand That Feeds You

Okay . . . we've stayed away from the immigrant issue because it's highly sensitive and controversial and provokes strong emotions from both sides. However, after having read the news reports on the planned boycotts for Monday, May 1 -- well, we just can't keep silent any longer.

Organizations who favor immigration reform are doing themselves absolutely no favors by taking actions of this kind. In summary, pro-immigration reform activists are planning on boycotts of business, are encouraging their children to skip school, and are putting together large protest rallies in major cities which are aimed at halting business and impacting the economy of the country. "We're going to close down Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Tucson, Phoenix, Fresno," said Jorge Rodriguez, who is a union official who has helped organize previous rallies.

We have two words for Mr. Rodriguez and to anyone else who thinks that breaking our laws and flaunting it in the face of American citizens and people who have made their way here legally -- GO HOME.

For anyone who is here illegally to have the temerity to stand up and insist on "full amnesty, full legalization for anybody who is here (illegally)," as Rodriguez has stated, and for US law enforcement officials to stand by and allow this to happen, to allow our cities to be disrupted and allow lawbreakers to flagrantly thumb their noses at the rules, just defies logic and, we hope, will have the opposite affect of what the movement is looking to do. We hope it makes people angry. We hope that the millions of immigrants who are here legally, who wait years to attain their citizenship, will speak out. We hope that law enforcement officials will take notice. We wish that law enforcement officials would attend these rallies and insist on seeing documentation that proves these people have a legal status. They are, by their own admission, here illegally, and therefore, there's probable cause to insist on identification. There is reason to believe that everyone taking part in these protests is breaking the law simply by being there.

Perhaps we'll be thought of as intolerant or racist or hate mongering for expressing these views. We're willing to accept that. What we're no longer willing to accept is the notion that people who come here illegally deserve some sort of special treatment, as though they're some sort of protected class, instead of the law breakers that they are. Democrats and Republicans alike need to stop pandering to these groups and start paying attention to the needs and wishes of the American people.