Illegal Immigration: Pathway to Citizenship or a Gateway to Imprudence

Rarely a day goes by that an ordinary American is not reminded of some monumental contribution of the illegal workforce to the American society. Indeed, listening to such noble descriptions of illegal aliens makes one feel rather minuscule and unworthy of any sort of praise. While you, my beloved bourgeoisie, bathe in capitalistic material loving occupations such as doctors, lawyers, and businessmen – this superior working class of immigrants does, as the famous cliché puts it, the “jobs that you won’t do”.

More often than not I am tempted to leave the argument right there and then – after all, rebuking demagoguery of this sort requires a bit of disdain toward the more logically oriented reasoning to which one may be inclined. However, the problem arises in what happens next. The argument goes on to say that: a) Illegal immigrants come from poor countries with low standards of living; b) therefore, they deserve a pathway to American citizenship despite the fact that they immigrated illegally.

Ladies and gentlemen, demagoguery is one thing, but an insult to logic – the most benevolent and eloquent form of human reasoning – is quite another. There is no feasible circumstance under which “b” logically follows the “a”. There are plenty of legal, honest, and law abiding immigrants (such as myself) who came to this country after doing everything possible to respect its legal procedures in the field of immigration. Furthermore, many of us come from countries in which conditions are even more severe and intolerable than those in Latin America. We do not, however, use that as an excuse to disregard immigration law; and we wait our turn in line to receive our visas and green cards.

How disgustingly arrogant and selfish would it be if I, fed up with the poverty and oppression in Russia, left to live in another country, disregarded that country’s immigration statutes, and in the next place claim that I deserved to be its citizen! Would not that type of treatment of illegal immigration incentivize more of it? Therefore, I firmly state that a pathway to citizenship is, to borrow from the dictionary of the left, “offensive” to any honest legal immigrant who patiently waited in line from the very beginning, and paid respect to the laws of immigration of a country which they sought to call their new home.