By Steve Byas

Oklahoma, with the intrepid State Representative Randy Terrill (R-Moore) leading the charge, has taken the point in the fight against illegal immigration. It is an important fight. The struggle against illegal immigration, in and of itself, is an important battle.

The deeper problem is not illegal immigration, but rather unlimited immigration. If the problem were just the fact that we have millions of persons in the country illegally, with more coming across our porous borders or by birth on American soil, that problem could be solved easily. All we would have to do is just declare legal any person already here illegally, and all those who wish to come here in the future. Just throw the borders open to anyone who wishes to come to America, for any reason, or no reason, and give them citizenship papers, and the problem is solved. No more illegal immigration problem, if everyone is legal!

Of course, that is exactly what many on the Left (and some naive libertarian types on the Right) want -- Open Borders.

But, it is the sheer numbers of immigrants, or aliens, entering our nation that is the problem. Five or six illegal aliens are not a problem. Five or six hundred immigrants, legal or illegal, is not the problem. It is five or six million that is the problem. A few hundred, or even a few thousand immigrants entering our country each year would cause few problems.

Calvin Coolidge, one of our greater presidents, understood this issue very well. In 1924, he said, "As a nation, our first duty must be those who are already inhabitants." Coolidge said, "For the sake both of those who would come and more especially of those already here, it has been thought wise to avoid the danger of increasing our numbers too fast."

Some of the problems are obvious: the wave of immigrants overwhelming our health care system, our educational system, and our social welfare system. In fact, I was told by a naive libertarian recently that if we just did not have a social welfare system, immigration would be no problem because the only immigrants we would get are those that just want to work (you know, those that do those jobs that Americans just won't do).

This doesn't just miss the point, it is Fantasy Land. If we do not have the political will to stop millions of persons from entering our nation, without regard to any of our laws, then we certainly do not have the political will to end social welfare programs. More and more will arrive here to take advantage of our generous system of entitlements, until the nation collapses. And, all the while there will be those who refuse to do anything about uncontrolled immigration, because that would infringe on some foreign person's "freedom" to come here. What about our freedom?

Let us put it bluntly: The reason most on the Left favor Open Borders is because they want more voters for keeping, and expanding the Welfare State. Without the flood of immigration our nation has experienced since 1965, Congress would not be in the hands of socialists, and the biggest socialist of them all would not be living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I was told by a naive libertarian that the only way to "secure our borders" was to have a National ID Card. This is like saying that the only way stop murder is to execute everybody in the country. Laws against murder (or anything else) do not stop all murder (or anything else), but we can be certain that laws against murder drastically reduce the number of murders. The argument, "You might as well legalize it, because they are going to do it anyway," is an argument for anarchy, which is not a conservative nor a libertarian position. No man's life, liberty, or property is protected by anarchy, and the reaction to it is more likely to be totalitarianism than limited, constitutional government.

Those like me who want to "secure our borders" do not expect to stop every single person from entering our country illegally from Mexico or Canada, or elsewhere. Border fences and border guards (who are supported, not imprisoned by their own government as happened under President Bush) can stop most. Immigration enforcement agents can find many others who slip through. Most aren't living "in the shadows," but rather walk around in broad daylight. Some even go on TV and proudly proclaim they are here illegally, and nothing is done about it.

The alternative to an aggressive, limited immigration policy is to have our way of life destroyed. The majority of immigrants, whether they come here legally or illegally, will vote, at least in the first generation, for candidates who promise generous social welfare policies, and those who favor printing ballots in every language under Heaven. I have even heard some dull thinkers who say, "These folks are family-oriented and they work hard. They are our voters."

Many are, maybe most. It doesn't really matter. Whatever they think of abortion, or some other social issue, if they think about it at all, the majority of immigrant voters support an expansion of the Welfare State. Think of it like this. If 70 percent (and that may be too low) of newer immigrants vote for an expansion of the Welfare State, then increasing the number of immigrants will lead to more of the ilk of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi, not less. Thinking otherwise is like the business owner who is losing money on every sale, but thinks he can make it up in volume.

Most Americans today have an idealistic view of those immigrants who came to America in the late 1800s and early 1900s, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. Many American today are descendants of those immigrants, and many are supporters of limited, constitutional government. But, the first generation tended to support the Progressive movement. Most had emigrated from paternalistic governments like Germany that had a Welfare State, and they expected the same here. As the decades passed, these tended to assimilate and become taxpayers who had to support that Welfare State and were not quite as fond of it, but the first generation was cannon fodder for the expansion of the role of government in the late 19th and early 20th century. They gave us the Roosevelts and Woodrow Wilson.

And, let's get one thing clear: the Statue of Liberty celebrated liberty, not uncontrolled immigration.

This is not a call for cutting off all immigration, or an assertion that immigrants have caused all of our problems. I actually think that a controlled, low-level amount of immigration is good for the country. My call is to limit immigration to the point where our concepts of limited, constitutional government, respect for private property, and the rule of law, influence them, instead of their voting us away from that form of government into socialism.

This country is my country. I don't want it changed into a European style Welfare State, or a Third World country by a person from a foreign land who wants to change it into another type of the country they left behind. If someone wants to live in a socialistic nation, there are lots of them out there that they could move to.

Lastly, what is an immigrant? An immigrant is a person who comes to this nation to become an American citizen. Once that person becomes an American citizen, his children are not immigrants, they are as American as those who came over on the Mayflower or even those who met the boat. We are NOT a "nation of immigrants," but rather a nation of citizens, many whose ancestors happened to be immigrants. No person born in the United States of American citizen parents is an immigrant. That person is an American. A person born in America of United States citizen parents and calls himself an immigrant has his heart or mind or both in the wrong place.

Steve Byas is editor of the Oklahoma Constitution newspaper. He may be contacted at: byassteve@yahoo.com