Compassion, Mr. President?  How about compassion for American citizens who need jobs? How about caring more about American citizens who "live in the shadows" over and above illegal aliens who, as President Obama puts it, "live in the shadows?"

The evidence adduced by the commission [U.S. Commission on Civil Rights] shows that not only does illegal immigration depress the employment levels of low-skilled Americans, it drives down the wages for available jobs. For example, an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimated that as a result of the growth of undocumented workers, the annual earnings of actual documented workers in Georgia in 2007 were $960 lower than they were in 2000. In the leisure hospitality sectors of the economy, the wages were $1,520 lower.

Want to know what your American citizenship is worth? Try $1000. That is the fine that illegals have to pay to put them on the path to citizenship if the immigration bill forged by the "gang of eight" passes.

As for the claim from President Obama that illegal immigrants would need to pay "a penalty," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) put that assertion in perspective on the Senate floor Friday morning in responding to an identical claim by Karl Rove. "Mr. Rove says they have to pay a $1,000 fine over 6 years," Sessions said. "What is that--$170 dollars a year, $15, $12 a month? So this is the punishment?"

What fine was it that American soldiers paid in WW2 so that their sons and daughters would have the privilege and honor of being born in the USA? What fine was it that Americans farm families paid during the Great Depression, as depicted in Steinbeck's. The Grapes of Wrath, so that their sons and daughters could live the American Dream? Who built that? They built that, Mr. President. American factory workers built that. American coal miners in Appalachia built that. Blood, sweat and tears of American citizens and legal immigrants built that and they built it for themselves and their children. And that dream is for sale for $1000 with food stamps and free education and medical care thrown in for kickers.

Compassion begins at home, Mr. President. Not to mention honor and loyalty. But I forget. The President is not just President of the United States he is a citizen of the world. His compassion is not the narrow, parochial compassion that puts America and Americans first but the magnanimous compassion of the world citizen.