The Republican View: The American Dream

By Mike Sigler

There’s been a lot of talk about Sanctuary cities and Tompkins County is now considering becoming a sanctuary county. In 2008 Fred Thompson said in a debate he believed in high fences and wide gates. This is the camp I am firmly in. I strongly believe in immigration and the taking of refugees. I don’t however believe our nation should have an open border and we shouldn’t make bad law to fix bad law.

We are a nation of laws. Ignoring those laws has a price despite many peoples’ best efforts and sometimes we as a society decide the price is too high and change the sentence or change the law. If a hungry man steals a loaf of bread, many Americans would be inclined to look the other way. But what if a thousand men stole a loaf of bread from the grocery store. Soon it would be the grocer who was hungry.
Millions of undocumented immigrants live and work in the United States. Regardless of the question about deportation, they are still living here illegally and sanctuary laws that chip away at the value of citizenship, a U.S. visa, or Green card, will not solve that problem. President Donald Trump’s border wall has received a lot of scorn despite the border fence being approved by Congress just a decade ago with Democrat support. While I understand the derision, the question remains, how do you secure the border? The wall may be a bad idea, but what’s the superior idea? Or do we just assent to having an open border?
I count myself incredibly lucky to have been born in the United States. I’m proud of my country. I’m proud to serve the people of Lansing. In my lifetime I’ve seen an erosion of that love of country. Some call it Nationalism to give it the stench of Nazism. I have friends who consider themselves citizens of the world, or say they will move to Canada or Denmark if so and so is elected or claim they’re Canadian if they go to Europe. While some of this is tongue in cheek, I find it incredibly disheartening and since “privilege” is the new hotness, an unawareness of their privilege. They aren’t rejecting that privilege, but are failing to own it. I don’t believe patriotism should be something to be ashamed of.
Most people I believe love John F. Kennedy’s quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” That begs the question, do undocumented immigrants consider the United States their country? I see a celebration of multi-culturalism, but is that what we should be celebrating? Shouldn’t we instead be celebrating the folding of different cultures into American culture, assimilating other cultures into the United States.
I’m proud of my Irish, German, and Polish heritage and I’m also proud that my Sigler family came to America in the early 1600s. The part that makes me most proud though is that all these merged into what makes the United States. We are not doing as well with this today as our history suggests we are able, even though we are still far ahead of Europe when it comes to merging cultures. If we are not able to incorporate these cultures, then we will create a semi-permanent underclass.
I read a lot of suggestions on splitting up the country. California may even have a vote on it regardless of whether it can actually happen. It’s a signal that some don’t like their country very much, so little they want to be another country, or as some suggest, a part of Canada.
Yes, diversity is our strength, but you don’t get that through illegal immigration. You get that through a fair immigration system where people join to be Americans first. Legal immigration into the U.S. is extremely restrictive today with each country limited to about 26,000 people a year. The State Department reported only 185,000 immediate relatives’ visas in 2015 and 198,000 family sponsored preference visas the year before. Aren’t these the folks we want in the country? People who are joining family members who’ve committed to America and being American.
I went to Philadelphia earlier this month and stood where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed. I’m proud to be an American. Other countries are great too, but I belong to the United States. We should know who’s coming into and leaving the country, just as every other country does. I want other people to have the privilege I have, of living in the U.S., but with the privilege comes responsibility, one I happily carry. Immigrants should have an opportunity at the American dream, but in the quest to do that, this idea of a sanctuary community works to destroy that very dream.
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Tompkins County Legislator Mike Sigler, a Republican, represents the Town of Lansing.