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发帖数: 29846 | 1 The New Privileged Class: Illegal Immigrants
By Michael Bargo Jr.
The belief is widely held that those who are wealthy or possess great
political power are above the law and do not have to respond to the legal
constraints endured by the great masses of Americans. Those on the left
who profess to support the poor and middle classes are quick to point out
that the wealthy class can afford to have better access to the legal system.
They can afford the best lawyers and rarely receive lengthy prison
sentences.
The other social class that enjoys privilege is the political class. They
too can often find themselves given better treatment by the court system.
For example, the nephew of Chicago’s Mayor Daley II was involved in a fight
outside a bar. A person he struck fell, hit his head, and died. While it
appeared that the death was accidental, a Court trial was avoided for ten
years because the Court somehow “lost” the Court file. So the Mayor’s
nephew avoided prosecution. Eight years later the case was brought up again
by a Chicago newspaper, and finally heard. Senator Ted Kennedy received
only a slap on the wrist two month suspended sentence for the death of Mary
Jo Kopechne, whom he left to asphyxiate in an Oldsmobile he drove into the
water, reporting the accident to authorities the following day.
These are examples of how the families of the rich and famous are treated
differently by the Justice system, a system that is supposed to be applied
equally to everyone regardless of social status.
But amidst of all these examples, no one has had the chutzpah to state in
public that all rich persons should be immune from prosecution, or that all
the famous should be given immunity from state and federal laws. In other
words, up to now it has been on a case-by-case basis that individuals
enjoying high social or political status special treatment, not a general
class of persons. It would appear that in America special class privilege
can be exercised, but not explicitly declared.
But recently that has changed. Now, for the first time in American history,
an entire class of persons, a class that numbers in the millions, has been
given broad, de jure amnesty and immunity from both federal and state laws.
In this class of people are those who have been characterized as the
undocumented (i.e., illegal) immigrants.
They have been given two types of special consideration. President Obama
recently announced that he will suspend deportations of those in violation
of the 1996 Immigration law. That he has no authority to do so, and that
the power to “establish an uniform rule of naturalization” resides
exclusively with Congress, does not matter to the President, his political
party, and much of the media.
The precedent for this class immunity has two roots. One is the enablement
of illegal immigration by mayors and other government officials through
their refusal to enforce federal, state, and local laws. This has been
accompanied by some legislation that enables illegal immigrants to receive
benefits, drive cars and even vote.
The second is the pro-integration and pro-diversity programs passed, mainly
by those of the Democratic Party, to overcome the discrimination and racist
attitudes of African-Americans who were subjected to the inhumane
institution of slavery.
But overcoming negative attitudes caused by slavery and promoting a
privileged legal status to a new minority group are two different things.
But somehow, this has been sneaked by the American people, since it seems
related. After all, Democrats have promoted Hispanics as another victimized
group that is only here in the U.S. to do low paid jobs. So they have
tried to identify Hispanics, many of who arrived comparatively recently, as
oppressed as African-Americans. Lacking no legacy of slavery their
purported burden is that they are low paid and doing undesirable jobs, a
characterization Democrats have created and promoted.
This socio-political thinking has led to some curious attitudes toward both
policies to facilitate education opportunities, such as the Dream Act, and
the treatment of Hispanics compared to African-Americans. Recently a black
resident of New York City died when he was wrestled to a concrete sidewalk
while resisting arrest for selling untaxed black market cigarettes, avoiding
New York City’s high taxes. Meanwhile, Mayor de Blasio and his fellow
Democratic Party members seem to have no qualms about allowing illegal
immigrants to work for cash. They avoid paying income taxes, Social
Security taxes, and other taxes. And their employers avoid paying into
unemployment compensation and other taxes. No manager of a fast food
hamburger joint has been wrestled to the ground for avoiding unemployment
taxes for undocumented workers.
So President Obama’s executive action creating a special class of citizens
who do not have to obey federal immigration law is not new, it is just the
newest manifestation of a trend, consciously started by Democrats to grow
their constituency of the poor dependent on government handouts. Since
illegal immigrants mostly earn low wages, they are eligible to receive over
two dozen federal, state, and local benefits. I have estimated that in
Chicago these benefits amount to at least $80,000 per year, per family. The
largest amounts go to education and block grants. This figure doesn’t
include health care. The actual health care costs of illegal immigrants are
not easily found. For the most part they are not tabulated.
The privileged status of illegal immigrants has been discussed for many
years. Newspapers and TV stations have talked about illegal immigrants who
were released by Judges after being convicted of multiple DUI counts. And
the head of the Customs Enforcement officers union complained that the
President is deporting illegal immigrants who have committed felonies,
crimes that would put legal citizens into prison.
American voters have to decide whether or not they want their government to
establish a privileged class of residents who live off of their taxes. As
their property taxes go up, as fees on their cell phones, license plates,
natural gas and electricity bills go up, they can think about the privileged
few who have a lot of those expenses subsidized.
This is not due to an immigration law that is broken. That is as silly as
the idea that if someone speeds, it proves the speed limit laws are broken.
What it proves that is that Democratic Party of the U.S. continues to take
steps that elevate illegal immigrants to a status above that of citizens.
That America cannot afford this is shown by Obama’s huge expansion of the
national debt and support of the financial system through quantitative
easing. It is not a sign of what may come but proof of what is already here
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