I understand why liberals love the word "undocumented." It sounds nice, as if their paperwork was just lost in the office shuffle. "Undocumented, but not illegal" is a frequent rallying cry. In reality, we're talking about a group of people whose first act in this nation is to violate the laws of the United States.

Which brings us to the ruckus in Charlotte, NC over the past few days where illegal immigrants proudly came out and declared their status: "undocumented and unafraid." What they really mean is "here illegally and pretty darn sure I won't be punished for it." And they were mostly right. The goal of these individuals (who were demanding in-state tuition for illegal immigrants) was to get arrested. They succeeded, but only because they were literally sitting in an intersection blocking traffic and refused to move their protest from the middle of the road.

But all of this is irrelevant. That we're even talking about what "benefits" should be given to illegal aliens is a testament to the success of the unabated assault on the rule of law. If Joe Carpenter, the T-ball coach and minister, was jailed for fraudulently collecting a Social Security check, I doubt we'd see the handwringing that arises whenever we discuss immigration policy. That's not to say our policies are perfect—far from it. But amnesty is not the solution.

It might be reasonable to argue that our borders should be looser—that we should allow more people in each year— but what is not reasonable is to say there should be no consequence for entering the country illegally. Having a border is not immoral or unjust. In fact, borders are an essential part of statehood. To claim it is somehow immoral to enforce immigration laws is to claim that borders are irrelevant and states are nothing more than lines on a map.

ErikSoderstrom.com

Illegal, not Undocumented

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