NY Times: America is Hunkering Away From Immigration

From today’s New York Times editorial:

From San Diego on the Pacific to Brownsville on the Rio Grande, a steel curtain is descending across the continent. Behind it lies a nation so confused and conflicted by its immigration problems that it has decided to wall itself off and wait for things to fix themselves. This country once was a confident global magnet for an invigorating flow of immigrant workers and citizens-to-be. Now it is just hunkering.

I hate to write this, but the New York Times is almost right. However, it is the politicians in Washington, not us, who have failed us so miserably. As Sen. John McCain continues to say on the campaign trail, “I got the message,” Americans want the border secured first. This is the message Americans have sent to Washington, D.C. for at least the past six years. Have they listened yet? No. They haven’t. I am not a proponent of erecting a fence across the entire US-Mexico border, the border should have been closed right after September 11th and the U.S. could have completely re-done our outdated immigration policies.

This brings me to the “experience” question. Both Sen. Hillary Clinton and McCain tout their experience in Washington as reason to vote for them. But, what has their experience brought us except for more broken policies? Our immigration policy is broken, our debt is out of control, and social security and medicare are in trouble. What have they done about it?

I’m still waiting for our politicians to lead.