Illegal Immigration and Politics

In the current political climate, the issue of illegal immigration is a very hard one to deal with. Many Tennesseans and Americans fail to understand that the reason our elected leaders fail to act to curb the current tide of illegals streaming into this country is often purely political.

One party depends on the votes of illegal aliens to remain viable in certain jurisdictions, and in some cases the votes of illegals and others ineligible to vote in an election bring about the results that party is seeking. The most famous example of this is the faux-victory of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez over Republican Bob Dornan in conservative Orange County, California. Sanchez "won" that election by 984 votes, and a later Congressional investigation found that 624 votes were cast by non-citizens-not enough, Congress said at the time, to turn the election in favor of Dornan. To this day Dornan alleges that illegal aliens were allowed to vote and those votes were counted. The Dornan case has proven to be far from isolated.

The other party, while not dependent on the votes of illegals, is very dependent on money from certain interest groups who exploit the cheap labor given by many illegals-because after all, if you hire an illegal alien, you don't have to bother with paying him or her a standard wage or even (in many cases) the minimum one. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn't want restrictions on immigration enforced, lest some of its members have to prove their workers are legal. In pursuit of money, that party has lost touch with the majority of the American people and even its own base.

This is the political part of the problem that we have to deal with-but politicians can't win without votes. Not only do we need to primary and/or defeat politicians who are pro-illegal, but we need to recruit citizens to step out of their personal comfort zone and be willing to sacrifice a part of their privacy and their time with their family and run for office.