Press Action ::: Open the Borders

Monday, April 10, 2006

Open the Borders

By Tony Soldo

The solution to the current immigration issue is to open the borders and decriminalize entry into any nation and to take steps to help “prop up” our neighboring countries so that people won’t be forced to leave their homeland.

We can “prop up” our neighbors in Mexico by taking the $2 billion a week that we are spending in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the world fighting the fake “War on Terror” and redirect it to our neighbors to the South who live in chronic poverty. We could withdraw all U.S. troops around the world and become a non-intervening nation that the Founding Fathers originally planned us to be.

The reason that most Mexican people (and most of the other people entering the United States) are denied citizenship is that they have a criminal history. Most of these crimes are petty theft, or of a domestic nature, while other crimes are simply trying to enter the United States and getting caught. These laws are built into the process as a way to slow immigration, not protect U.S. citizens.

Another reason people cannot gain citizenship is lack of money (which is the reason they left their country to begin with). It costs about $5,000 in fees and taxes to become a citizen, and if you want to cut through all the red tape and hire a lawyer, add another $5,000 to $7,000.

Why should someone be denied legal entry and citizenship into a country just because he or she made a mistake 10 or 20 years ago? Don’t we all deserve a second chance in life? Why should someone who has nothing be forced to come up with $12,000 to “buy” his or her citizenship and freedom ? Where is our compassion?

As long as we continue to argue about what to do with the illegals and how to keep them out, instead of talking about fixing the root cause of immigration (poverty), we will continue to prolong this problem, instead of fixing it.

Prolonging, and sometimes causing problems, is what people within the government do to keep their jobs. This is the definition of bureaucracy and this is the problem with too much power distributed to too few people. It becomes “Big Government,” and the solution to problems within “Big Government” is to spend more money and pass more laws to fix the problem.

People don’t need more laws to be free and safe. They need more compassion and restraint from their governing representatives.

Tony Soldo is a Christian Pacifist and can be contacted at

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