THE CONSERVATIVE VIEW
BY RUSSELL TURNER
WHAT OATH
I find it strange that we Americans ask all of our elected officials to take an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of our nation before they begin their term of office, but we tolerate the ones who refuse to honor that oath. The latest example is the mayor of Oakland California, Libby Schaaf. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] is charged with the task of arresting people who are in this country illegally. The mayor of Oakland took it upon herself to tweet out a message warning the community that ICE would be conducting an operation in her town within 24 hours. This whole idea of sanctuary cities and sanctuary states has gotten out of hand.
I have said it on several occasions, what part of illegal do they not understand? Anytime someone comes into our country without permission they are violating our laws. It is no different than someone coming into our home and making themself comfortable without your permission. I wonder if Mayor Schaaf would warn carjackers and thieves when the police would be patrolling certain areas of her city. I have held public office and I took the oath of office seriously, I took that oath as seriously as I did when I took the oath when I married my wife. It is a sad day when we have people who promised to enforce the law of the land then start deciding which ones they don't want to enforce. There is a word for this kind of behavior, it is called anarchy.
We keep hearing the phrase of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, but we need to remember that we currently have laws on the books that define the legal and illegal way to come into this country. Until those laws are repealed they are the law. It was just like the penalty that was imposed upon those of us who refused to take part in Obamacare. Like many others in this nation I paid the penalty. We were not given the option to ignore the law; instead we worked to elect President Trump who promised to repeal the mandate.
The actions of the mayor have some serious consequences. She is putting the safety of the public at risk, and according to a recent article the illegal workers in California have taken over the blue collar trades in that state. The construction industry in California once offered a starting wage of about $45 an hour in the late 1980s. Fast-forward to 2018 — nearly two decades into when illegal aliens began flooding the industry — now those wages have fallen by more than half, standing at just $11 an hour.
We in the small business sector are under increasing regulations that do nothing but increase the cost to stay in business and heaven forbid if we don't adhere to the letter of the law. Now we have elected officials playing selective enforcement with our laws and often they are not held accountable. It is time for our elected officials to play by the same rules the rest of us have to do on a daily basis. It is time to put Americans first and honor the oath they took.
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