America did not become what it is by doing the decent thing …
I was astonished to read the headline that you wrote for my Dec. 12 letter to the Sun [criticizing President Obama for granting temporary legal status to 5 million undocumented immigrants]. The headline you gave my letter was, “Obama Had No Right to Do the Decent Thing!” This is the strongest argument that the pro-open-borders people have for granting amnesty to illegal immigrants in the United States. It is the argument based on compassion.
But have you noticed that those who use this argument seem to have compassion only for the illegal immigrants and not for the millions of American citizens who have lost their jobs to the illegal immigrants? How many Marinites actually know someone who has suffered such a job loss? I have met a number of independent building contractors who have lost their businesses in the past five to 10 years because they refused to use illegal labor and were consistently underbid on construction jobs by other contractors who used illegal labor and paid very low wages.
This whole crisis, which has accelerated enormously during the Obama administration, is very complex. Real decency means we also have compassion for our own people who are being hurt by continued, massive, illegal immigration. Our own citizens are our first responsibility. Obama, and George W. Bush, have betrayed America in becoming open-borders presidents. Many Marinites are living in their own fantasyland here and are not aware of the millions who are hurting all across the country either from direct job loss or the chronic depression of their wages.
Kenneth Kelzer, Novato
