Elite's betrayal on immigration.

Peggy Noonan gets it right about what's wrong with devaluing the blessing of American citizenship:

Here is what is true of my immigrants and of the immigrants of America's past:

They fought for citizenship. They earned it. They waited in line. . . .

They knew citizenship was not something cheaply held but something bestowed by a great nation.

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We all know it is so often so different now. Perhaps a million illegal immigrants come into the United States each year, joining the 10 million or 20 million already here--nobody seems to know the number. Our borders are less borders than lines you cross if you want to. . . .

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What does it mean that your first act on entering a country--your first act on that soil--is the breaking of that country's laws? What does it suggest to you when that country does nothing about your lawbreaking because it cannot, or chooses not to? . . .

If you assume or come to believe that that nation will not enforce its own laws for reasons that are essentially cynical, that have to do with the needs of big business or the needs of politicians, will that assumption or belief make you more or less likely to be moved by that country, proud of that country, eager to ally yourself with it emotionally, psychologically and spiritually?

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There are people who want to return to the old ways and rescue some of the old attitudes. There are groups that seek to restore border integrity. But they are denigrated by many, even the president, who has called them vigilantes. . . .

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. . . [The “vigilantes”] worry in part that what is happening on our borders can damage our country by eroding the sense of won citizenship . . . .

This is what I fear about our elites in government and media, who will decide our immigration policy. It is that they will ignore the human questions and focus instead, as they have in the past, only on economic questions (we need the workers) and political ones (we need the Latino vote). . . .

Again: What does it mean when your first act is to break the laws of your new country? What does it mean when you know you are implicitly supported in lawbreaking by that nation's ruling elite? What does it mean when you know your new country doesn't even enforce its own laws? What does it mean when you don't even have to become an American once you join America?

Our elites are lucky people. They were born in a suburb, went to Yale, and run the world from a desk. . . .

The American Way. What does it mean that your first act on entering a country is breaking its laws? By Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 12/8/05 (emphasis added).