The perfect storm: ObamaCare, immigration and the Mexican drug cartel

Troops are seen attempting to control the violence aggravated by Mexican drug cartels, which has caused thousands of Mexican citizens to seek asylum in the United States. (REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera)

Now that ObamaCare is the law of the land, and the Affordable Care Act is here to stay, the mandate moving forward will require millions of uninsured Americans to have health care insurance starting in 2014.

But, as predicted, the rollout has been abysmal – just like the day-to-day implementation of providing all of these people with health care will be in the future. The simple reason for this is that the government’s health care infrastructure is poorly suited to provide the kind of medical care to which America has become accustomed. But that’s a story for another day.

Last week, the president signaled that his newest project will be immigration reform. As an immigrant myself, I understand the need for reform. However, I also understand that immigration reform has to have rules and regulations that allow for the civil and orderly entry of people who want to come to this country to be Americans.

One of my biggest worries is that every time the Obama administration creates a law, it tends to implement parts of that law as they see fit, and then changes its tactics, depending on how the political winds are blowing. There are numerous examples of this flip-flopping ranging from how the administration has dealt with foreign policy in the Middle East, to how it handled ObamaCare.

Now, there’s a tremendous problem brewing south of the border – Mexican immigration. It used to be that for many Mexicans, their desire to come to America was based on the pursuit of economic and educational growth. But now, thousands of Mexicans are asking America for political asylum due to the uncontrollable crime wave caused by Mexican drug cartels.

In fact, Fox News Latino recently reported on a letter sent from Rep. Robert Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressing concern over the rise in asylum requests from 5,222 in 2009 to 23,408 so far in 2013.

The federal government is considering many of the requests seeking political asylum, which is a humane consideration. But how will this problem affect immigration reform?

How is America going to manage the thousands of people who want to come to this country when our social infrastructures are failing? When our federal benefits programs are underfunded? And how will we accommodate these new arrivals to our country, now that every legal resident of the United States is mandated to purchase health insurance?

With the increase of Mexicans seeking entry to the United States as they flee drug cartels, combined with the government’s push to create easier pathways to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the U.S., working Americans will break their backs trying to foot these bills.

Our leaders better shift their focus from getting reelected to creating manageable solutions to these current problems before they lead to the demise of our society.