Playing the child card doesn’t get any more blatant than this:
Children whose parents are illegal immigrants or who lack legal status themselves face “uniformly negative” effects on their social development from early childhood until they become adults, according to a study by four researchers published Wednesday in the Harvard Educational Review.
It is also undoubtedly the case that having a custodial parent in prison produces negative effects on children. We do not therefore suspend the consequences of deliberate law-breaking, however (unless, that is, we are California, struggling to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s May 2011 order to reduce the state prison population). Many lawful consequences of unlawful adult behavior affect children. Indeed, the effect of unlawful behavior on children should be a deterrent to that behavior, rather than a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Illegal aliens who deliberately flout the immigration law are knowingly and foreseeably subjecting their children to the consequences of their illegal action. It is of course regrettable that children may be harmed by their parents’ illegal action (though one needs to ask: compared to what?), but if having a child should cancel a parent’s illegal status, the result would be the final erasure of our immigration laws and a slap in the face to immigrants who came to the U.S. legally.
(It needs to be pointed out as well that Hispanics’ low academic achievement, which the study in question attributes to our immigration laws, continues well into the third and fourth generations, when any illegal status of parents has long been dissolved by birthright citizenship.)
This reminds me of a related issue that I've seen discussed from time to time--immigrant parents who don't speak English raising kids here, and the "need" for interpreters in schools, hospitals, and so on. Progressives will always make the point that "it hurts children" when their parents can't communicate, which it undoubtedly does, but where they tend to veer off into weirdo-land is when the "solution" is to provide (at public expense, naturally) a plethora of interpreters, as opposed to encouraging immigrant parents to face the reality that refusing to learn English is hampering their ability to interact effectively with the society in which their children are being raised.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseClearly being an illegal alien is detrimental to one's children. We must get tougher in enforcing our border and in expelling illegal aliens already here -- for the children.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis further shows why we have to enforce our existing laws in the first place, so illegal aliens won't and don't do this to their children.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI have no doubt that these children will suffer, but note the attempt to shift the responsibility of this potential suffering from those who committed illegal acts to those trying to enforce the law.
I guess the rule of law is overrated.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAccording to the Left, experiencing multiple cultures is highly beneficial to one's upbringing. Therefore, letting these children go home with their parents to live in a different country should be a terrific educational experience for them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe reason we don't suspend all jail sentences is because that would be worse than the harm caused by jail sentences. But since the anti-immigration case is so thin, even a relatively modest harm is enough to justify opening up immigration laws.
The main anti-immigration arguments are "follow the law" and "wait in line." Those are pretty weak arguments if the policy in question is causing actual damage to people's lives.
I continue to find it strange that conservatives will embrace libertarianism on the Obamacare mandate, which against all of government's crimes is fairly middling, but can't even conceive of a libertarian solution to borders.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse