Now, if you were to read my opening statement to yourself a few times, you may feel the same way I do. Why does it take a bill to make something that is already illegal a crime? Now keep in mind, we can be talking about Canada’s border for the sake of making a point. It’s sad that a country as great as America has to have one of its states take matters into its own hands to correct a problem. What is even sadder is that its own government would rather sue the state rather than try to correct the problem. Now some may argue there is no problem. Well, if you were to be honest with yourself, anytime someone has their hand in someone else’s pocketbook, there is a problem. I say hand in pocketbook in regards to free health care and education at the cost of the taxpayer. Any questions about what happens when that gets out of control, call the governor of California and ask how his budget is coming together. Immigration is talked about as being something that has to be corrected. This is true, but how that is to be done is where the disagreements arise. Some say we need to enforce our current laws and deport illegal aliens as they are discovered, penalize their employers and take away the health care and education. Others say we should just legalize them all and become one big happy family. OK, that’s really summarizing it, but you get the point.

Let’s look at the facts. The fact that someone would enter a country illegally is just wrong no matter what the reason for doing it is. It’s a slap in the face to all who went about entering America from another country the right way. We have laws for a reason and that’s one of the reasons why people want to come to America in the first place. Those that enter the country illegally have no accountability and thus cause a threat to the safety of American citizens when these individuals get behind the wheel of a car or maybe get their hands on a weapon. If they use them and hurt others, it’s just as easy for them to return to their country to avoid paying for their crime. After all, it was easy for them to break the law when they came here in the first place. The other aspect is the financial drain on the economy. The billions of dollars it costs the taxpayer for their emergency care and education, the amount of money that is wired to other countries and the list goes on.

The other side of the debate is how it would break up families if our laws were actually enforced. Well, let’s put this into perspective. If someone breaks the law, naturally they would have to face consequences. Would having a child make their crime any less a crime and exempt them from being accountable, especially if these children were conceived after knowingly breaking the law and knew they could be paying for their crime at anytime? Couldn’t that be a form of child endangerment? Now this may sound harsh, but sometimes common sense sounds that way, especially when society has drifted so far left, it’s hard to find right and wrong anymore.

I say, enforce the laws of the land and make sure everyone abides by them. If someone is asked for their ID during a traffic stop, we all should be asked…oh wait, we already do that; but any other law that is enforced, we should all be accountable for it…oh wait, we already are. So what is the problem here?

Why does it have to be so complicated? Sometimes you have to step on toes to do what is right. Everyone should be treated equally, and that also goes for abiding by the laws everyone else is held accountable for. We don’t need special interest groups that represent only one race, creed, color, religion or gender to preach equality. That is a prime example of a hypocrite. In other words, we all need to walk the talk.

If a president that had the House and Senate on his side were to go into the White House and look at the problems we face today like a geometry problem where every factor of the problem was represented with a letter or number and not a race or special interest group, a lot more would be done and it wouldn’t be so complicated. Get people off of welfare, get them to work and have those that are not entitled to services and that are taking jobs unlawfully return where they came from and enter the proper and respectful way. If this were to happen, there would be a lot fewer problems and less deficits in America today.

Johnnie Ray is director of the Humble Civic Center and Arena Complex as well as host on The New 107.5 the Eagle Sunday afternoons from 2 to 7 p.m.