Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people why today’s American is not willing to accept this new kind of immigrant any longer. Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to the United States , people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented.

Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good and bad times. They made learning English a primary rule in their new American households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home.

They had waved goodbye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into
one culture. Nothing was handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect them. All they had were the skills and craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity.

Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out. My father fought along side men whose parents had come straight over from Germany , Italy , France and Japan … None of these 1st generation Americans ever gave any thought about what country their parents had come from. They were Americans fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of Japan. They were defending the United States of America as one people.

When we liberated France, no one in those villages were looking for the French American, the German American or the Irish American. The people of France saw only AMERICANS. And we carried one flag that represented one country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking up another country’s flag and waving it to represent who they were.
It would have been a disgrace to their parents who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants truly knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the melting pot into one red, white and blue bowl.

And here we are with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges. Only they want to achieve it by playing with a different set of rules, one that includes the entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country. I’M SORRY! That’s not what being an American is all about. I believe that the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900′s deserve better than that for all the toil, hard work and sacrifice
in raising future generations to create a land that has become a beacon for those legally searching for a better life. I think they would be appalled that they are being used as an example by those waving foreign country flags.

 I wouldn’t start talking about dismantling the United States just yet.

GOD BLESS AMERICA !!

 This is one man’s opinion.

Even when I was a young Ai, growing up in the MidWest, I had very strong feelings on illegal immigration.  I had grown up respecting the idea of our grandparents coming through Ellis Island, pledging allegiance to our nation, and becoming American citizens.  It was an iconic and romantic image that was imprinted on multiple generations of people in this country.  It seemed logical to think that if our grandparents could come over here on a steam ship and go through the proper channels to become citizens, then surely, our neighbors to the South could do the same. (minus the steam ship part)

I held onto this belief so tightly, that in a championship debate, I once proclaimed that we should have an electrified fence all along our border. (and I was a teenager at the time… I told you I formed this opinion at an early age)  Believe it or not, that (highly insensitive) speech knocked me from the number one spot in the afore mentioned debate.  I’ve never forgotten that day, but… I digress.

So, from elementary school until my mid 20′s, I held a very hardline stance on illegal immigration.  I was against it.  I considered it a national security risk.  And I thought it was one of the greatest examples of government incompetence that so many people could come through our borders so easily.  Not to mention, the drain it puts on our resources as illegal immigrants milk our social services.

To be honest with you, I still believe a lot of the things I just typed, but my stance isn’t as hardline anymore, and I’ll tell you why.  I finally lived in a border state.  Two, actually. Texas and California.  And I don’t mean the northern parts, either.  I mean ground zero.  Southern California and San Antonio.

What finally changed in me was that I saw the scope of what we’re dealing with.  When I lived in Indiana or Missouri, it seemed pretty “easy” to spot illegal immigrants.  I worked, for a while, in the restaurant industry, and we all knew which employees were here illegally.  Not only did our non-citizen coworkers tell us that they were illegal, they often clung closely together and spoke hardly any English at all.  They stood out like a sore thumb.

Not so in Texas or California.  Even after more than five years of immersion in this culture, I cannot definitively tell you who in my community is here legally or otherwise.  The population is dense in the first place.  Los Angeles County is said to have a population of nearly 10 million people. (that’s larger than the population of any STATE I grew up in by the way)

And while the illegal immigrants I knew in the MidWest clung together and seemed “obvious” to me, the illegal immigrants in many border states blend in freely with the whatever community they inhabit.

This past Sunday, as a thought experiment, I challenged a friend of mine to a “game” of sorts.  We sat in a crowded IHOP and tried to figure out who we thought was there legally or illegally.  After ten minutes, we gave up without deciding on a single worker or patron.  There was just no way to know without demanding that people start randomly showing I.D.  And really, is that the society we want to live in?

You see, when we, as conservatives, demand that our politicians vow to deport each and every (illegal) immigrant, it is no different than when the Left demanded Barack Obama close Guantanamo Bay.  All we are doing is putting our candidates in a position where they have to promise something that cannot be delivered on, and then they look like a “liar” once they take office.  We have to stop doing that.

I still believe that illegal immigration is a national security risk.  I still believe that these aliens put a drain on many of our government resources.  And I still believe that our government is extremely incompetent for not having a better handle on this.  But I now realize that forcing our politicians to promise to round up and deport 11 million people is not a realistic task.  We’ve spent several weeks out of this primary making demands that cannot and will not ever be met.  And to make matters worse, all this does is further galvanize another minority group into feeling like they HAVE to vote Democrat, because Republicans are “against” them.  I’m really at a point where I feel like this immigration litmus test is not productive.

When reading this, please don’t believe it’s a piece that’s “pro amnesty”.  I’m not even getting into that part of the conversation at the moment, and even if I was, there are so many differing ideas of what “amnesty” is that it would take more typing than I’m willing to do at the moment.

All I’m saying is that we cannot round up and deport 11 million illegal immigrants, unless we’re willing to approach it with a WW II level of zeal that involves spying on our public and possibly even setting up internment camps.  The amount of resources it would take and the level of ill will it would produce wouldn’t even be worth it.  We absolutely need to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, and we need to work on deporting the ones that are here, when we find them.  But requiring our candidates to promise to round them all up is ultimately a waste of everyones’ energy, and I wish it would stop.

We need to control our country’s borders; that’s an indisputable truth.  All I’m asking is that we do it realistically.

What do you guys think?  Is this the Rick Perry Texas Dream Act all over again?  Does Newt Have a point?  Is this going to hurt him in the polls?  What are your thoughts?  Let us know on Facebook and in the comments below.

You may have remembered Rick Perry’s less than stellar showing at the Fox News/Google debate from Sep 23rd, you know, the one where he said, “I don’t think you have a heart”.  Well, it looks like Ricky Perry has spent a lot of time remembering it too, and he’s decided to walk back that statement and better explain some other ones.

Above is a segment of an interview he did with Newsmax.com.  In it, he did a much better job explaining what his positions are on many aspects of immigration.  Besides the famous “you don’t have a heart” line, he also addressed how he feels about a border fence.  He says you can build one, but without personnel to man the fence, it’s not going to keep anyone out.  He also brought up concerns about how a border fence would affect private property.

I think he clarified a lot of things in the interview, but I’m still not confident he can give solid answers when he’s under the pressure of a debate.  I’ve seen him strike out three times so far, but I would be glad to see himself do a better job in the future ones.  What do you guys think?  Did this interview help redeem the poor performance he had in last week’s debate?  And do you think Perry can handle the next debate, or is he just not good answering questions under pressure?  Let us know in the comments below; we’d love to hear from you.