Are We Really Having the Illegal Immigration Argument Again?

(Selena Gomez, I'm talking to you.)

In 1996, one of my very best, soul-sister friends was working for the American photography agency Superstock. Susie was amazing at her job and happened to be fluent in French, so she was tapped to be part of the team opening their new Paris office.

It was a literal dream come true.

Superstock sponsored Susie’s work visa but continued to pay her in American dollars for tax purposes. What difference did it make?

It turned out, a lot. Five years into her dream Parisian gig, Superstock announced they were shuttering that office. Susie went to all of the official agencies to determine what she would need to do to be able to stay in France. But with what appeared to be a questionable commitment to her adopted home, the answer was simple: Find another company to sponsor a work visa tout de suite or leave the country, merci beaucoup.

Susie did not want to leave the country. The clock was ticking. She applied for every position imaginable, but the employment market at the time was tighter than a pair of skinny jeans after a two-week cruise. Susie had built a magnifique life in France. She loved the culture, the food, the music, the art, the wine, the people, even the relentlessly persistent pigeons. She tried everything she could think of, but the clock ran out. Left with no other choice, Susie took a train to Spain. Then she crawled back into France in the dark of night, where she lived and worked under the table for the next twenty years, dodging immigration officers and paying cash for her croissants so as not to leave a paper trail.

Obviously (I hope), I’m being facetious. Susie, of course, came home.

It was a literal nightmare come true.

Daily I’m shook by the way people are melting down over “Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants”. By the very title of the targets, these people are breaking the law. There *is* a legal path to citizenship in this country, of course, but it’s super annoying because it requires you to submit an application for naturalization, pay a filing fee, undergo a background check [that does not reveal a criminal history], pass an English language and civics test, take an Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America, and then contribute productively to society while giving a hefty chuck of every paycheck to the government. See? Annoying.

As I’ve detailed in the past [in one of my very favorite posts ever], there is not a country on the planet one can simply decide to move to tomorrow and then live there, duty- and consequence-free, while enjoying all of the benefits that lawful citizens fund with their tax dollars.

It’s not even complicated.

Celebrities with 422 million social media followers don’t seem to grasp that, though.

“Selena Gomez breaks down in tears over Trump’s deportation efforts,” hundreds of headlines roared, referring to a quickly deleted, tearful video the Emilia Perez-actress posted to Instagram (which will nevertheless live in perpetuity in the ether because the internet is forever, kids).

“All of my people are getting attacked… The children… I don’t understand… I’m so sorry, I wish I could do something, but I can’t… I don’t know what to do,” Gomez sobbed, seemingly forgetting about the hundreds of thousands of missing migrant children who came here unaccompanied and then disappeared, or the countless others who have been trafficked, abused, exploited, and—yes, tragically—murdered thanks to our porous border. Where are the tears for them?

I don’t understand.

“Apparently it’s not ok [sic] to show empathy for people,” Gomez wrote in a follow-up, and later deleted that post as well.

As with just about every other issue that’s become partisan but shouldn’t be, the knee-jerk reactions are predictable, oversimplified, and weaponized by the establishment and the media. It’s all Trump’s fault. He’s a raging xenophobe. His policies are racist and inhumane. Never mind the complex realities or consequences of unchecked illegal immigration. That’s not the point. Orange man bad.

Certainly every decent person on the planet believes it’s okay to show empathy for people, wishes for a better system, and aches for their fellow humans—many of them children—who are caught in the heartbreaking crosshairs of the current one. The suffering is real and unimaginable. But that brutal truth doesn’t justify a complete disregard for the law. If it did, every hungry person would be automatically pardoned for stealing your food; any transient would be permitted to march into your home and declare it their own. Love your job? Too bad. That unemployed guy just called it. Better luck next time.

A functioning society depends on a secure and orderly system of entry; one that promises safety and ensures equity and accountability. Allowing sneak-in-however-you-can-and-beg-for-amnesty-later to become the default pathway to citizenship only perpetuates a broken system—incentivizing dangerous journeys, empowering human traffickers, straining public services, and creating a perilous precedent that threatens national security.

I’m pretty sure compassion without common sense can only lead to chaos.

“In the 1970s, my aunt crossed the border from Mexico to the United States hidden in the back of a truck,” Gomez wrote in an essay for Time magazine in 2019. “My grandparents followed and my father was born in Texas soon after. In 1992, I was born a US citizen thanks to their bravery and sacrifice. Undocumented immigration is an issue I think about every day, and I never forget how blessed I am.”

I give you an A for effort and empathy, Selena. I really do. That’s your story and it’s personal and powerful and I applaud you for using your massive platform to bring attention to a cause that’s important to you. But…

I want you to imagine something along these lines: A young man—with a baby on the way, let’s say, who has been out of work for months—is about to head to his first day at his new, desperately needed job when his beat-up old car won’t start. He needs this job; his family will starve if he doesn’t start bringing home a paycheck. He’s desperate. So he steals a car to get to work. And somehow, magically, he gets away with it and he turns his life around. He becomes super successful and is able to take care of his family forever and he’s a good person and an amazing dad and maybe he even finds a way to repay the person whose car he stole in the first place. It’s a beautiful tale with a fairytale ending that anyone with a heart would be rooting for. But are you going to decriminalize car theft because that one guy did it for noble reasons and had a picture perfect outcome? What if it’s your car being stolen, and the guy stealing it is just trying to get to a frat party? What if it’s your daughter’s car, and the guy stealing it is going to use it to kidnap her and her friends and sell them into his uncle’s prostitution ring? Where do you draw the line?

Laws exist for a reason, namely to protect a populace. Don’t agree with your elected leaders? Move. Love where you live but think the laws could be better? Fight to change them. Make your world a more equitable place. But pretty please, stop trying to justify questionable or even criminal behavior to suit the narrative du jour.

What do you think? I know you’ll LMK in the comments. ;)

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