My Marietta Daily Journal column today. I have added several hyperlinks to educate the reader.

Don’t just secure the borders…ENFORCE THE LAW
Original link here.

D.A. King

It began the day after the U.S. Senate wisely stopped this year’s attempt to repeat the amnesty for illegal aliens of 1986: The question -from nearly everywhere – was repeatedly asked: “What’s next?”

What’s next? A reasonable question, but the obvious answer is not any different now than it was three weeks ago, three years ago or even thirty years ago.

So some observations and recommendations on “what’s next.”

Secure the borders and enforce the law.

If you listened to some radio talk show hosts who, a year ago, could not explain the difference between an anchor baby and a Mexican-issued ID card for illegals, called a Matricula consular – or between a guest-worker program and an immigration acceleration bill, the answer to, “What’s next after defeating amnesty-again?” is that “We win!”

Having won, let’s secure our borders.

Some are saying that if we secure our borders, it then will be perfectly acceptable to grant another amnesty to the more than 20 million illegal aliens in our nation.

Wrong answer.

That many elected officials have similar responses when asked, “What’s next” should be a point of great attention in the coming elections.

It isn’t “Secure the borders first,” it is “Secure the borders and enforce the law.

Period.

As Americans, we did win. But merely a very key battle, not the ongoing struggle to stop the official act of lowering American wages and opening our borders to the free flow of people that is so desperately sought by those whose focus is the quarterly profit report and political advancement.

As the strongest nation on the planet, we could stop illegal immigration next month – if our president had the will. But we would still be left with the fact that more than 40 percent of the illegals presently in our country did not enter illegally. They simply came here on a visa and never left as promised.

Granting them amnesty – ever, secured borders or not – is a message to the entire world that if you can just make it into the United States, you will eventually obtain the most coveted status on the planet: Legal American residency and an eventual path to citizenship.

American citizenship is not a political commodity or a reward for having evaded apprehension.

From the Democrats in Congress, ever expectant of future votes from the presently “un-legal,” the answer to what’s next is to attempt to grant smaller, hopefully unnoted, amnesties that were quietly written into the fine print of the recently defeated “whole enchilada” amnesty.

Soon to come, again, will be little-known amnesty attempts such as the DREAM ACT, an amnesty for illegal aliens who have enjoyed at least part of the free K-12 education that American law requires, regardless of immigration status. With a path to citizenship if they take an American’s seat in college, or serve in the military. An all-volunteer military is a tribute to the nation. But a “Foreign Legion” is not.

What’s next for others in Congress is something called the AgJOBS amnesty. As you may guess, it is an amnesty for those illegals who would swear they have worked in our national agriculture industry.

Expect applicants to guarantee that they have been picking pineapples from very tall trees in Vermont for years.

Expect them to produce the fraudulent documents to prove as much.

For people in the illegal alien advocacy industry like Jerry Gonzalez of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, an announced “what’s next” item is to sponsor voter registration drives. An admirable endeavor, but somehow suspect when publicly stated that to win the next amnesty battle with voter strength, the registration effort should be focused on very definite ethnic groups.

Absent the promised federal enforcement of American immigration and employment laws, what’s next should be a very united effort at local enforcement of those laws.

Here in Cobb, we are fortunate to have a sheriff who has seen what’s next for quite awhile. Sheriff Neil Warren has taken advantage of available tools and graduated six deputies from federal training to expand their existing authority to multiply the effect of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Warren is the only law enforcement officer in Georgia to have done so.

What’s next is that every candidate for public office should demonstrate the same courage and commitment to the rule of law.

That’s “what’s next.”

D.A. King is president of the Marietta-based non-profit Dustin Inman Society, which is actively opposed to illegal employment and illegal immigration. On the Web: www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org