This week, several hundred illegal immigrants staged a protest rally across from the White House demanding  that President Obama “keep his promise” and use his executive authority to extend “deferred deportation” to millions of  illegally immigrants.

I am adamantly convinced that our government has to do something decisive about the 11 million illegal immigrants in this country, and also that it must do whatever it does in such a way that neither makes the United States look like Nazi Germany expatriating the Jews, nor provides incentives for every aspiring border jumper to take a shot at American largesse. It doesn’t matter how I think this should be done: solving policy problems is what we elect officials and pay government employees to do, and do wisely. However, I have every right to make my opinion known to those policy-makers, and to insist that they act as part of their duties to the American public.

Illegal immigrants and their families, however, have no such rights, not any standing to demand any policies whatsoever. Their conduct has created the problem, which challenges our laws and law enforcement, burdens our budgets, and divides our society.

There is no civil right for people who are in this country illegally to petition the government or protest, nor does a President of the United States have any obligation to them whatsoever, except to do what is in his power to ensure they are treated fairly under the laws of the land. The presumptuousness, gall, unjustified sense of entitlement and arrogance of this group to demand special rights, benefits and privileges, including making demands on the citizen-elected President of the United States, is intolerable and beyond logical defense. Illegal immigrants can ask for whatever they choose, saying please, nicely. They may demand nothing. Nobody in the United States, particularly the President, owes them anything, including the right to be heard. If their legal relatives and American citizens with whom they share a common heritage or nation of origin choose to protest, that is their right. Illegal immigrants caused this problem, and however we choose to solve it, their needs and desires are completely irrelevant. The President’s duty is to act in the best interest of the United States and its citizens, not those who are attempting to steal citizenship and its benefits

From the Washington Post story on the rally:

The Alfaros have been in the United States since 1999. Oscar, 38, a native of Honduras, has temporary legal status that will expire in June. Enriqueta, 37, is in the country illegally. Their younger daughter, Jacqueline, 5, is a U.S. citizen who suffers from autism, attends a special school and needs constant personal attention.“If my husband gets deported, how will I care for her? She is still in Pampers, and she is aggressive. The school calls all the time,” said Enriqueta, a native of Mexico. “Someone said why don’t you take her to your country, but there is no good treatment there. When one person can be deported, the whole family suffers.”

The simple answer to this dilemma, of course, is not to sneak into the country at all; then deportation isn’t a problem. Why am I, and my tax dollars, responsible for the Alfaros’ child who never should have been born here? The benefits of United States citizenship are not part of an international charity resource, available to anyone who wants it. I’m sorry there is no good treatment in your country, Enriqueta, and you know what? There never will be, unless people who need it make an effort to get their own countries to improve its services. “Never mind, American is giving it away” is not a solution, though you seem to think so, and though your country is doubtless happy to be relieved of its responsibility.

Gustavo Torres, executive director of the pro-illegal group that organized the rally, said, “This is the moment. There can be no more ex­cuses. The president has the power to act, and he must act now,” Torres demanded that Obama grant deportation relief to “all workers and parents” who are in the United States illegally.

To be blunt, who the hell do lawbreakers think they are to demand that the President waive the laws they knowingly defied, and the consequences of defying them? The President should assert the power and dignity of his office, and remind these presumptuous squatters that they have no authority over him nor status to command him. He works for the American citizenry—the legal citizenry. He would command my respect by telling these protesters that they have neither leverage nor equity on their side, and such demonstrations only increase his doubts that they understand what American citizenship is, and deserve anything more than a ticket home.

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Graphic and Source: Washington Post