The man who jumped the White House railing Sept. 19 deserves the right to live in President Barack Obama’s home, just as the president is allowing hundreds of thousands of border-jumping Central Americans to live in Americans’ homeland, says a new tongue-in-cheek petition posted at the White House website.
“We urge President Obama to immediately and publicly recognize that Mr. Omar J. Gonzalez, an oppressed migrant, was merely looking for a better life when he entered the White House after going over the classist, divisive and needless fence,” says the petition, which was authored by D.A. King, founder of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society, which advocates for actual enforcement of immigration law.
“In the interest of White House diversity and what will surely result in adding to the rich tapestry of love and community, we further demand that the President reform the mean-spirited laws regulating access to the People’s House,” says King’s’ petition, which mimics the pro-amnesty language used by business and ethnic lobbies.
“For justice and peace, upon his next return from the back-nine, Mr. Obama must award permanent lawful WH residency to Mr. Gonzalez and his family, along with a permit to work there. Because.” concludes the petition, which can be electronically signed at the White House website.
Once the petition gets 150 electronic signatures, the petition will be posted on the public side of Obama’s website.
White House officials say they will post a public response to any petition that gets 100,000 signatures.
King’s sardonic petition was posted Saturday, one day after Gonzalez jumped Obama’s household fence and dashed inside one of the doors into the president’s house. The president’s bodyguard detained the man, and exiled him to a federal law enforcement facility outside the White House border.
That’s a very different reaction than Obama approved for the 200,000 Central Migrants who have crossed the nation’s border since 2009.
Obama allowed nearly all of the unskilled and poor migrants — including roughly 135,000 adults, youths and children who have arrived since October 2013 — to apply via the courts for Green Cards that would allow them to stay in Americans’ homeland. They’re allowed to apply regardless of education, productivity or possible criminal records.
Obama’s deputies have only repatriated about 300 of the 200,000 migrants.
Roughly 70 percent of the migrants are children and youths who claim to be aged 17 or below. Many of those are being sent to U.S. schools, where they’re expected to absorb education resources originally approved for Americans’ children, including the children of low-income African-Americans, Latino-Americans and white Americans.
Other observers noted the contrast between the administration’s treatment of people who cross Obama’s border and the nation’s border.
“To be fair, the guy who made it over the fence at the White House should be able to live there now….with his family,” said a tweet from Richard Grenell, a liberal Republican.
Obama has the authority to repatriate the young migrants. Instead, he choose to let them apply for Green Cards via a 2008 law, which was written to protest young people who were forced by criminals to serve as prostitutes.
The president’s acceptance of the migrants is part of a larger effort to relax enforcement of immigration laws. In 2013, Obama’s deputies deported less than 0.2 percent of the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States for violating immigration laws.
Partly because of immigration, fewer natural-born Americans have jobs in 2014 than had jobs in 2000, despite a population growth of 16 million.
Because of Obama’s policy for the nation’s border, more Central American migrants are expected to arrive in September and October.
The president’s support for the huge wave of Central American migrants and for greater immigration overall is so unpopular — including among Latinos — that even five Democrats and many business-backed Republicans voted Sept. 18 to limit his ability to provide unilateral amnesties to illegal immigrants. Those polls reflect long-standing public opposition to greater immigration.
King’s petition is intended to highlight Obama’s double-standard.
“We recognize that Omar has endured the oppression of the unfair White House entry system and that that building belongs to the entire world,” said a press release announcing King’s petition.
“We are the world,” the petition says, sarcastically.