Pause All Immigration Into the US Until There's Policy Reform

Here are just a few examples of the current immigration crisis:

• Last month more than 100,000 illegal aliens stormed the southern border, overwhelming immigration officials and border protection agents.
• Jurisdictions that claim to be sanctuaries for illegal immigrants now tell the administration they don’t want to receive any illegal immigrants.
• Liberal politicians who call for open borders also tell the administration they don’t want illegal immigrants “dumped” in their neighborhood.
• Immigrants can only apply for U.S. sanctuary at the border, even though they may travel through multiple countries and pass American embassies and consulates along the way.
• The United States’ addition of lottery and chain immigration neglects a merit-based immigration system.
• Immigrants, both legal and illegal, no longer feel the need to learn English and adapt to our culture. Instead of becoming “Americans,” they’re foreigners living, in what is to them, a foreign land.

Not only are personnel at the border overwhelmed, so too are individual cities such as Yuma, Arizona, which declared a state of emergency, as well as states that pick up the tab for illegal immigration. Just ask former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.

“When I was Governor, illegal aliens cost AZ taxpayers $1.6 billion/yr in education, health care and incarceration costs,” she tweeted. “So, why do we continue to bear these costs when sanctuary cities encourage illegal immigration?”

It’s time to end this nonsense — shut off the immigration spigot, at least for the time being.

Although the Constitution gives Congress “absolute authority” to control immigration, it didn’t exercise that power for nearly a century. Immigration was open to all.

The first restriction came in 1882 in the form of the Chinese Exclusion Act, signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur. It provided for a 10-year moratorium on the immigration of Chinese laborers.

Over the following years several other restrictions were implemented, including one in the early 20th century requiring that immigrants pass a literacy test. The most sweeping change came in the 1920s, when, according to author and columnist Ann Coulter, the United States implemented a “total moratorium” on immigration.

While that’s not completely accurate, it’s pretty close. The Immigration Act of 1924 severely restricted immigration in both numbers and in nationality.

In addition to tightly restricting the flow of immigration overall, the act sharply reduced immigration from Africa and Eastern Europe, and denied Asian applications altogether, except from Japan and the Philippines. The goal was to give preference to Western Europe and the British Isles, which were seen as more culturally aligned with America.

“In all of its parts, the most basic purpose of the 1924 Immigration Act was to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity,” according to the State Department history page.

That changed in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which eliminated nationality quotas, encouraged migration of family members and offered refugee protections.

With today’s liberal emphasis on diversity, the notion of “homogeneity” was lost. The idea of learning the customs and the language and becoming in every sense “Americanized” has taken a back seat to retaining one’s ethnic identity.

The crisis at the border is a klaxon call, warning us that something needs to be fixed, and congressional gridlock only makes it worse. The best way to silence the siren is to once-again severely limit immigration, if not eliminate it altogether.

Talk radio host and The Federalist contributor Jesse Kelly suggests that it may even be an opportunity to simplify the immigration system — under certain conditions.

“I’m fine with simplifying the process, but only to suit the needs of our country. The process should not be designed to suit the need of the immigrant or make it extremely easy to get in. Immigration is fine, but just be controlled,” he tweeted.

He closed with the warning that “more [immigration] is rarely better.”

Indeed, more immigration often leads to chaos, which is found today in Sweden, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. And now chaos is here.

It’s time to stop the flood, end the chaos, regroup and rethink our priorities.

Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to BizPac Review and Liberty Unyielding. He’s also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter, who can often be found honing his skills at the range. To read more of his reports - Click Here.