Immigration System Broken: Opinion

Editor's Note: This is the fifth of a six-part series by Matt Horween, CPA, FSO (retired). The previous columns were Iran, Pakistan Biggest Threats, Political Class Choking America, Bring the Troops Home and Fix America First.

We have a few new religions in the U.S. They are the belief in free trade, growth, and immigration is always good. All of these new religions have new converts who are most fervent in their propagation of their new faith.

In fact, the converts are so ideologically and money driven that it is impossible for anyone to change their minds, and they do not have to change their minds because they own Congress and the president lock, stock and barrel.

We have the quaintest immigration and citizenship laws in the world. We are among the last of nations to grant birthright citizenship to anyone who happens to be here when they are born to non-U.S. citizen parents. We also radically changed our immigration laws over 30 years ago to make up for a preference toward European and or white immigrants as opposed to immigrants of all colors from other parts of the world.

We even put in a lottery system where we issue about 50,000 green cards to anyone who applies at our consulates around the world, and we then pick them in a lottery that year. We have even picked some lovely terrorists this way.

The bottom line is you can be sleeping on the streets of Mumbai one day and a happy resident of New York City the next day. We also allow into the U.S. people with very serious diseases that immediately become a burden on our health care system.