Find A Pathway For Citizenship - And Response

  • Friday, June 24, 2016

When I served as sheriff of Bradley County, we partnered with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Criminal Alien Program to help ensure illegal aliens from any nation who committed other crimes in Bradley County were deported when they finished their sentence.  

At one point, I recall seeing that we had turned over about 250 criminal illegal aliens to ICE for deportation, during my tenure as sheriff.   

Deporting illegal aliens who commit crimes in the U.S. is the right thing to do. No one should be allowed to come into our country illegally and then willfully or violently jeopardize the safety of our own citizens, without facing the full consequence of the law and being deported upon conclusion of their sentence. 

On the other hand, the vast majority of those coming into our country from any nation are not hardened criminals or terrorist. They are simply people, like our own ancestors once were, seeking a better life for themselves and their family, looking for work or fleeing oppression. It does not seem right, from a humanitarian and common-sense standpoint, to begin rounding up 11 million plus illegal immigrants already in the country, many of whom have been working and raising families here for years already and haven't committed crimes in the U.S. A mass deportation will just uproot and tear apart children from parents, husbands from wives, parents from grandparents etc. and hurt our own economy, which is doing pretty good right now.  

For these immigrants we should find a reasonable pathway to citizenship without deporting them first. Even Republican Ronald Reagan recognized this importance and with the help of both parties in congress, granted amnesty to about three million illegal aliens who had not committed other crimes.  

The Statue of Liberty has long been welcoming immigrants into our country. We should continue to be welcoming and encourage legal immigration.  

We need our elected leaders to work together for a better immigration policy that keeps out criminals and terrorist, but allows plenty of fellow human beings from all nationalities and backgrounds to come into our nation, assimilate and  build better lives for themselves and their families. It helps strengthen us as a people and will help build a better global economy for everyone.  

The vast majority of immigrants, legal and illegal, are hard working, decent, moral people who do not commit crimes.  

In these upcoming elections, I plan to vote for candidates that will show some reasonableness and compassion toward fellow human beings on this issue, just like Reagan did. We need leaders who will work across the aisle to have a reasonably welcoming immigration policy while taking sensible measures to prevent criminals and terrorist from coming and staying here.  

Mass deportation of over 11 million people and building a huge expensive wall between us and Mexico are not the solutions. It comes across as racist, fear mongering and isolationist. America is at her best when we are generally welcoming to others and engaged in world affairs.  

Tim Gobble  

* * *

Mr. Gobble, your statement that most illegal immigrants have not committed any crime is factually incorrect. It is simply stated in the description of those individuals entering our country, “illegal immigrants”   Their first act in coming to this country was by definition a crime and therefore every day they are here they continue in an act of breaking the law and are thus criminals. 

You cannot compare these people to ones who have come here over the years the legal way. We have established laws which govern the process in how to come to our country legally and there is no reason they cannot follow those laws. 

We have a path to citizenship and these illegal immigrants refused to follow it because our government has done nothing to enforce the laws. The security of our nation and taxpaying, law-abiding citizens is much more important to me than the 11 million illegal immigrants you so desire to protect. 

The Democrat party with its liberal agenda has created sanctuary cities who protect illegal immigrants from deportation even after they have committed further crimes. Simply because some illegal immigrant has been able to skirt by the system and avoid deportation for 20 years does not make them a law-abiding citizen. In fact they have for 20 years continually broken then law, including not paying taxes, driving without a license, no insurance all, while we the taxpayers educate their children and pay for their medical expenses.There are consequences to actions and they knew that when they came here illegally.

So they have established a family and have children here you say. Well they shouldn’t have and now they are going to pay the price for their actions. If I commit a crime and hide for 20 years, establish a family and work productively without committing another crime do I get a free pass? No, I face the law and am prosecuted.

Mr. Gobble, you and anyone else who thinks like you can call me a racist or a bigot all you want, but I follow the law and illegal immigrants did not and do not. 

Mike Cox
Chattanooga


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