Membership Committee

Lets say you are the Membership Chairman for a group you belong to. It is your job to recommend to the membership at large whom to offer membership to. Let us also assume that this group is formed to further or promote the advancement of the members of the group, and is not a charity.

So, what sort of people do you look for to extend membership (with its inherent responsibilities and privileges) to?

Do you seek people who are honest and law-abiding, or do you seek those who have a demonstrated history of breaking the law, cheating and being dishonest?

Do you seek those who by their skills, education and experience will enrich the organization, or do you seek those who, by lack of skills, education and experience will become the lower-tier of the membership and drag the aggregate abilities of the organization down?

Do you seek those that will immediately assimilate and be a value-added part of the organization, or do you seek those that will take years to fully assimilate, if ever, and may never be value-added to the organization?

Do you seek those that will contribute to and enrich the organization by their labor, or do you seek those that will be net receivers and siphon off resources to send to other organizations that are in competition with our organization?

Do you seek those who will sponsor other highly-qualified members or do you seek those who will become an unobstructed conduit for others, largely unqualified and based solely on heredity, to join?
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In all the discussion about the criminal immigrants and what to do with them, we tend to forget that our Nation is not a charity for the whole world. WE should be seeking those new “members” that will add to our national capabilities, intellect and dialog. We should be seeking those that further our goals, and who become part of us, not some virtually partitioned subset.

The USA is the greatest humanitarian nation in the world. We have always targeted some regions and peoples for immigration to help alleviate suffering. But the numbers of humanitarian entries, while in the hundreds of thousands annually, are such that it won’t negatively effect the whole. And these are LEGAL immigrants.

The 12-20 million criminal (illegal) immigrants already within our borders are largely not value added. They are a drain on every facet of our system. They may well be taking bottom-tier jobs that nominally contribute to the economy, but the net result is a drain to the taxpayer and the national economy.

Ross Perot’s “big sucking sound” goes through the hands of these criminals to their relatives south of the border.

And yes they certainly ARE criminals! They broke our laws in crossing the borders illegally. They have further broken our laws by staying. More than likely, they have broken our laws by creating and/or possessing forged documents in order to work. Often, they break other laws such as traffic, driving privileges, insurance and residence. They most certainly are criminals, and must be thought of that way.

When deciding the criminal immigration issue in particular, and formulating a more rational immigration policy in general, we really ought to ensure that the vast majority of the people we allow to join us will be value-added, enrich us as a nation, assimilate and become Americans, not a cloistered sub-community of America.

That’s my thought, what’s yours?