In his immigration speech on Thursday President Obama should have said that it is time for America to decide. 

We cannot be both a beacon of freedom and opportunity to the world and an armed camp manning the barricades against all comers.  

President Obama had an opportunity to sound like Martin Luther King when he said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”  He could have said that people who want to live here should be judged by their willingness to contribute to America not by the place of their birth. 

Unfortunately his speech was based on the idea that a nation can pass laws that are discriminatory based on place of birth.  He assumed that it is morally all right to tell a person from Tijuana that they cannot buy a house in Las Vegas.  That we have a right to tell an employer in Los Angeles that he cannot hire the most qualified person for an available job unless the person has “papers.”

He needed to say very clearly that responsible people have the right to live where they choose and that governments have to compete for those people in the same way they compete for Nike factories and Sports teams. 

And finally President Obama should have said that he is going to stop militarizing our southern border and building walls.   He going to instead use that money to teach civic values and English to all recent immigrant from Mexico so that they can become a valuable part of this great nations fabric.  This is our tradition. 

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