Beyond The Headlines: Conversations Across The Divide With Nigel M. Lakey

Hot Topic Bold Talk | Immigration Policy

 

What might happen if Americans with different political perspectives stopped arguing from the headlines and started talking with one another about the principles underneath them?

That is the purpose of Beyond the Headlines: Conversations Across the Divide, an ongoing series within Hot Topic, Bold Talk featuring Jackalyn Rainosek, PhD, a Democrat, and Nigel M. Lakey, P.Eng, SPEC, who approaches these conversations from a Reagan Republican perspective.

Jackalyn and Nigel do not begin these conversations expecting to agree. They are not attempting to convert one another politically. Instead, they are exploring something increasingly difficult to find in American public life: the ability to have different opinions, listen, learn, question assumptions, identify common principles, and search together for ideas that might lead to solutions.

Podcast 193 continues their discussion of national security, moving into some of the most difficult questions surrounding immigration, citizenship, election integrity, due process, and the rule of law.

Their conversation begins with a principle they both take seriously: a sovereign nation has a responsibility to protect its borders, know who is entering the country, protect the integrity of its elections, and enforce its laws.

Yet that principle immediately raises another question:

What does responsible enforcement look like in a nation committed to liberty, constitutional government, and the rule of law?

Jackalyn and Nigel discuss their shared view that people who commit serious crimes should be held accountable under the law. At the same time, they emphasize the importance of due process and the role of courts in determining individual cases rather than treating entire groups of people as though their circumstances were identical.

That leads them to another population that is too often lost inside the political rhetoric surrounding immigration: undocumented immigrants who have established lives in the United States, work, raise families, contribute to their communities, and pay taxes.

What should happen to them?

Is there a way to maintain meaningful border enforcement while establishing a lawful and orderly process through which qualifying long-term residents can come forward without fear, establish their eligibility, obtain documented legal status, and eventually pursue citizenship?

For Jackalyn and Nigel, this is not simply an immigration question.

It is a national-security question.

It is an economic question.

It is a constitutional question.

And, ultimately, it is a question about what kind of nation the United States intends to be.

Nigel brings an especially important personal perspective to this conversation. He went through the process of becoming an American citizen himself. He also recognizes that his experience did not involve many of the hardships and obstacles faced by other immigrants.

That recognition changes the conversation.

Instead of asking only, “How did you enter this country?”, Jackalyn and Nigel begin exploring additional questions:

What have you built here?

How have you contributed?

What responsibilities are you willing to accept?

What lawful process could allow qualifying people to move from the shadows into documented status?

And:

How can America protect both the integrity of its borders and the dignity of human beings?

One historical example becomes particularly important in their discussion.

President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The legislation combined immigration enforcement and employer sanctions with legalization provisions for qualifying undocumented immigrants who had established themselves in the United States. Reagan described the legislation as an effort both to regain control of immigration and to preserve America’s tradition of legal immigration. He also spoke about people who had been living in the shadows eventually having an opportunity, if they qualified and chose to do so, to become Americans.

That history is important precisely because it complicates today’s political categories.

Policy does not automatically belong exclusively to the political left or political right.

Border enforcement does not automatically require rejecting legalization.

Compassion does not require abandoning enforcement.

Supporting immigrants does not require abandoning citizenship.

Protecting citizenship does not require abandoning due process.

National security and human dignity do not have to be opposing principles.

This is the territory Jackalyn and Nigel want to explore.

They also examine election integrity. Both support protecting the right of eligible American citizens to vote and protecting elections from fraud, cyberattacks, foreign interference, misinformation, and other threats to democratic self-government.

Yet protecting elections also requires care with evidence.

Election security cannot simply mean believing claims that support one’s political position. It requires asking what vulnerabilities exist, what the evidence demonstrates, and what policies can strengthen election administration while preserving lawful access to voting.

The same commitment to evidence extends to the courts.

Jackalyn and Nigel discuss their concerns about the perception or reality of partisan considerations influencing judicial decision-making, including decisions of the Supreme Court. Their shared standard is larger than agreement with any particular ruling: courts should interpret and apply the Constitution and laws through principled legal reasoning, and the legitimacy of the judicial system depends upon public confidence that cases are being decided according to law rather than partisan loyalty.

This brings their conversation back to a principle running through the entire episode:

The rule of law must apply even when applying it is politically inconvenient.

That principle matters at the border.

It matters in immigration proceedings.

It matters in elections.

It matters in the courts.

And it matters when the government exercises enormous power over individual human beings.

Perhaps the most significant part of this conversation, however, is not a particular policy proposal.

It is the conversation itself.

A Democrat and a Reagan Republican can begin from different political philosophies and still discover that they share important principles.

They can say, “I see this differently.”

They can also say, “I had not considered that.”

They can question one another without attacking one another.

They can distinguish facts from assumptions.

They can acknowledge where their own political communities may have fallen short.

And occasionally they can arrive at an idea neither of them possessed when the conversation began.

That is the experiment behind Beyond the Headlines.

Jackalyn and Nigel are not asking Americans to abandon their political convictions. They are asking whether we can become curious enough about one another to move beyond fear, labels, and outrage.

What could happen if we started conversations with the principles we share rather than the political identities that separate us?

What could happen if conservatives and liberals examined policies from both traditions and asked what worked?

What could happen if protecting the border and creating a humane immigration system were treated as parts of the same challenge?

What could happen if citizenship were viewed not simply as a legal status, but also as a commitment to participation, responsibility, constitutional government, and community?

And what could happen if Americans once again learned that disagreement does not have to mean disrespect?

Jackalyn and Nigel do not claim to have resolved America’s immigration system or its national-security challenges in one conversation.

They are demonstrating something more fundamental:

Solutions become possible when people are willing to remain in the conversation.

Podcast 193 is an invitation to do exactly that.

Not to surrender our convictions.

Not to fear one another.

Not to reduce complicated human beings to political labels.

Instead, to listen.

To question.

To learn.

To examine evidence.

To uphold the rule of law.

And to search together for solutions worthy of a constitutional democracy.

The next conversation in Beyond the Headlines: Conversations Across the Divide will take up two words Americans use constantly and do not always define in the same way:

Liberty and Freedom.

Episode Summary Points:

  • Navigating Immigration Rhetoric: The discussion emphasizes moving past polarized media headlines and emotional rhetoric to examine the foundational issues and principles of immigration policy.
  • National Security and Sovereignty: A primary focus is placed on national security, ensuring legal right to vote, and knowing who is entering the country and for what purpose.
  • Balancing Enforcement and Compassion: Both host Dr. Jackalyn Rainosek and guest Nigel explore how to combine robust legal enforcement with humane considerations for undocumented individuals who actively contribute to society.
  • Nigel’s Personal Migration Story: Nigel shares his experience migrating from Canada and England via an L1A visa, transitioning to permanent residency, and eventually achieving U.S. citizenship through legal channels.
  • Historical Precedents: The conversation touches on historical approaches from past administrations—such as Reagan’s 1986 immigration reform and policies under Obama, Biden, and Harris—highlighting common ground across political lines.
  • The Role of Classical Education: The speakers discuss how a classical education fosters critical thinking, historical awareness, and the ability to engage in nuanced, diplomatic discourse rather than ideological extremism.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Beyond The Headlines: Conversations Across The Divide With Nigel M. Lakey

National Security, Immigration, And The Rule Of Law

I’m delighted to have my dear friend Nigel with me because we’re trying to provide a way to show you the people who have different points of view, because one’s more conservative than the other, one’s more liberal than the other, or something, as we use these terms, that we can still have points of view, learn from each other, and possibly come to a place where we can have solutions to some of the things that are happening in our country. Nigel, we ended our last conversation around immigration, but we never had a chance to really talk about it.

I would really like to hear some of your points of view, and I’d like to be able to interrupt you, interrupt me, and we’d have a conversation about how we allow enforcement of immigration that’s reasonable, and then what all can we do to help those who have entered our country or have more than entered our country since we’ve been a country of welcoming immigrants? You start it, my dear friend.

I’m happy to do so. Once again, thanks. It’s a great venue. I hope that people, as they tune in to this, understand the idea here. It’s worth repeating. The idea is not to delve into the headlines, and it’s not to criticize. We want to stay out of that inflammatory rhetoric. Our real principle here is that of talking about the underlying issues of the headlines and just being honest with ourselves. If we’re honest with ourselves, then we can probably admit that we can strip some of the emotion out of it and really begin to understand what everybody is saying. My task here is not to draw political lines. Both you and I have been very respectful of that. Happy to continue with that.

When we talked last time about national security, we gave a broad definition of national security. It’s important to mention once again that we did not talk about military strength there at all. You can easily read between the lines and say, “There’s a military component to things like having border security, etc.” I will say this. We’re dealing with things at a higher level, and it’s appropriate to have a bit of a conversation around immigration issues at that high level, once again, staying out of the headlines. When we talked about national security, we made mention of knowing who’s voting. There’s a touchstone when we consider immigration issues.

Once again, this is not to get in the headlines, but we need to be pretty certain that the people who are voting are the people who have that legal right to vote. As we know, that’s restricted to citizens, certainly in federal elections. I’m going to say this. When it comes to immigration, let’s keep in mind why we would have an immigration policy. Part of it is around national security. It isn’t a cultural ideology. We have an American way, if you will. I’m not sure that you can easily put that into words, nor could you easily put into words a French, a British, or a Swedish way. When we think of national security and immigration issues, part of it is just to make sure that we know who’s in the country and what their purpose is. I’m a pretty strong proponent of an effective immigration policy.

 

Hot Topic Bold Talk | Immigration Policy

 

That’s not one that has the border summarily closed. We need the talent. We talked about that last time because that leads us to national security. It gives us people who are inventive, who are creative, who may be able to help us through problems we face as a society, just because they have a different way of solving some problems. I’ll put this out there, which is that absent having an immigration policy that we cannot enforce, then we’re at risk of having national security and some other issues eroded. What is an immigration policy that you can enforce?

It certainly, I would say, is not one where you can just have open borders, but it is one that needs to embrace a certain immigrant component. Why would we not want them to come in? How do we keep control of who’s coming in? Once again, it is not to get in the headlines, but a policy where there is no control over immigration. We’re seeing that in a number of jurisdictions around the world. It’s a tragedy in some cases, of course, because we have people who are truly suffering, who are trying to get in and have a better life than they’ve got, and also probably can offer some benefit to where they’re immigrating.

Balancing Border Security, Assimilation, And Cultural Diversity

We also see, and I think we have to admit this, that there’s significant abuse of that. How do we find the happy middle ground if there’s such a thing as a middle ground? How do we find a place where we can agree that immigrants are welcome? Immigrants are invited. There has to be a set of qualifications, if you will. I do not think that it’s inappropriate whatsoever to have a refugee policy because there are people who are absolutely escaping oppression.

If, once again, they want to be Americans, so be it. I’ll turn it back to you, but after this comment, my belief is that if you’re going to immigrate to a country, then you really need to be prepared to become part of that country. That’s the assimilation part of it. I believe that immigration is a little bit weak in that we’re not making that request of the immigrants. It’s almost a point where there’s identity politics being raised, where everybody is special. As we said about national security, if it covers everything, then it really means nothing. We have to be cautious of having an immigration policy that covers everything, if you will, but really cannot manage anything.

 

When we think of national security and immigration issues, part of it is just to make sure that we know who’s in the country and what their purpose is.

 

I really support what you’re saying. I want to see a reasonable, constructive, and thought-provoking, if I may say it, immigration policy that gives people opportunities. Many people have come to this country because they were refugees or because they needed to escape something that was very detrimental to them and their families. I appreciate the fact that, yes, I think we need guidelines. I know that we want to see individuals who come to our country and contribute to the United States. Now, I’ve done work in diversity for a long time. I’m going to shift it a little bit and say, Nigel, I’m not sure I want them to be assimilated.

When I say assimilation is because I know that sometimes, when we talk about diversity programs, it means they give up their culture, they give up their knowledge base, they give up many things because there’s an extreme view of assimilation. What I want people to do is to come in and bring their cultures, bring their values, and see how their values and their cultural experiences they’ve had before may contribute to America developing, growing, and changing. I know something. I’ve learned a lot because I do know some undocumented people. That has been in our country for a long time.

 

Absent having an immigration policy that we can enforce, then we’re at risk of having national security and some other issues eroded.

 

I’ve had wonderful conversations with them about how much they appreciate being in the United States prior to the present situation we’re in. They really appreciate being here. They want to contribute. They go to our churches. They pay their taxes. Their kids go to our schools. They make certain their kids behave so that our schools can function. To me, what I want to see is some way that we can define this so clearly and have some people worth serving to formulate something like this so that we can have an immigration policy and not just be searching out people to send them out of our country.

That’s where I am. I want to go to something because I think your story may help make some of the points that you and I both want to make. You are an immigrant. You came from Canada and from England, and you’ve been all over the world. We did have an immigration policy that was fairly defined when you came to the United States. I’d like to know. You wanted to come to the United States. What helped you make that decision? I know you have other citizenships as well. What caused you to want to come? How did you arrive? What did you do to not assimilate, but at least be educated about the values and the concepts we have in the United States to help yourself become a part of our community?

Navigating Legal Paths: Nigel’s Personal Journey To U.S. Citizenship

I was transferred here through my employer. I arrived with a professional visa status, an L1A. You’re allowed a certain number of renewals of L1As. You really have to elect, and of course, it’s at the discretion of your employer if they want to sponsor you for renewal. It’s at the discretion of Citizenship and immigration services, as it was then, if they want to renew your L1A status. I’m going to say there’s the unknown that your employer decides we do not need you here. We’re going to repatriate you. There’s certainly the risk that every time you cross the border, of being denied entry.

Everybody who’s on an immigrant visa faces that risk. It’s immigrant and non-immigrant visas. The non-immigrant visa is for a tourist. You have no right to work, etc. The immigrant visa is when you get a Social Security number, register, pay taxes, and all that. That’s the path that we took. Now, after the first L1A removal, I realized that from an employment point of view, there were opportunities. My employer wanted me to stay. I was advancing in the company. Both of us had an interest in my continuing to live and work outside the US.

 

If you’re going to immigrate to a country, then you really need to be prepared to become part of that country.

 

After the subsequent L1A renewals, you’re really at the point of what is it you want to do? There’s a limit to the number of renewals. I elected to take permanent resident status. Subsequent to that, permanent resident for as long as was necessary to then apply for citizenship. I’m going to say this. As I took the completely legal and above-board way of doing it, when it came to telling everybody where I was and how long I’d been there, etc., my travel history was transparent. I made no effort whatsoever to obfuscate anything about who I was and what I was doing.

Right or wrong, I think from my point of view, that gave me comfort that everything that I was doing standing in front of the immigration officer was defensible. I represented myself as being a US citizen. Person, despite not carrying a US passport for some number of years. Now with the US passport, I represent myself as a US citizen. Person wherever I go. To me, the difference is that I wanted to be here. I was adding value. My employer, my customers, and the industry were very supportive of my being here.

I wasn’t really escaping anything. Just as a point in passing, I really do not have an interest in going back to Canada. I do not fit there. It’s a number of things. It’s attitudes, it’s the culture, it’s the freedoms and liberties that I enjoy here that do not exist for me in any other place. Having said that, and following the rules, if you will, I do not have a perspective on what it would be like to be undocumented or a refugee. I know people who have done that, but I cannot speak to it personally. When I look at and to a couple of your comments, we have people who are here and are contributing. I agree that we need to think about how they might continue to be here and contribute.

 

What I want people to do is to come in and bring their cultures and values, and see how those may contribute to America developing, growing, and changing.

 

I will say this, and we both know it, that there are a lot of people here who do not have any interest in seeing the US prosper, who are very much working against the interests of this country and its population. Those are the people who have no right, no privilege. I say they’ve not earned the privilege to stay here. They really need to be removed. There is, there was, the DACA, etc. Some of that is operative, and some of it can work. What I do think we’ve got is politicians who decided to make this a very divisive issue and deny the benefit of understanding the perspective. To me, it’s not about removing everybody.

It is about those saying, “We have an immigration policy that we can craft.” It can be made if there is a little bit of effort. I’m going to say retroactive, which is to say, tell me about why you’re here. Tell me about what you’re doing. If you have been contributing, then I think that is worth an audience to say there is no reason why we would deport you. You’ve done nothing to represent yourself as being adverse to the US. To me, that’s a big difference between a bunch of, I’m going to say, undocumented people who are contributors. We like that diversity. We like their contributions.

They need to be given some dispensation. The counter to that’s an abundance of people who have no interest in seeing this country prosper. This is a place where I’m going to pull on our national security conversation. If you show up here and you want to defeat our culture, tell us that our social policies and the fabric that we have are completely inappropriate, etc., and need to be changed to like some other place, then the first question I’m going to ask you as a refugee or undocumented is, why are you here? Why are you taking advantage of it?

Moving Beyond Headline Rhetoric To Protect Social Fabric And Security

It’s pretty cold to say, but go back. None of that’s nuanced, and there are all kinds of nuances here in saying those words, but I think you can have an immigration policy. We have to have people willing to have a conversation about it, understand both sides of this, and stay away from name-calling and rhetoric. I do not know why we cannot get past that. As I’ve said in every one of our sessions here, my conservative roots go back to Reagan-Thatcher because it was a set of beliefs of smaller government, etc., less regulation, less interference.

Lately, it seems we have. Almost this burning desire to have way more regulation, way more government, etc., to protect these individual rights, if you will, that aren’t enshrined in any constitution. I’ll turn it back to you with a closing comment that immigration is a very touchy subject. One of these things is the third rail. Do not touch it. Do not talk about it. It’s like politics in the conversation with people. Stay away from it. It’s a place, frankly, where there is some ground either side, both sides, whatever, can reach. It’s a generational issue.

It’s not something that’s going to be resolved in any election cycle. To me, it is a subject where you’ve got to have some cooler heads that sit down and say, “This is important to us.” That’s everybody. It’s not just important to a faction, etc. I’m not doing it just because I want votes. Can we put this out there as a topic, along with a lot of other things that I think you and I are going to discuss? Desensitize them and say, “We need to start having conversations because it will be a long road to solve this thing.”

The first thing is that we have to get people to stop yelling at each other and really think about what the value is, and I believe we set out that touchstone of national security. Frankly, I think we spent over an hour just talking about what it meant. People would go back and reflect on that. A lot of these other things that you want to talk about, that I want to talk about, probably start to have a little more context.

 

You can have an immigration policy. But we have to have people willing to have a conversation about it, understand both sides of this, and stay away from name-calling and rhetoric.

 

One of the things that I think is really important is that both you and I are emotionally connected to the subject we’re having. We are emotionally connected to the values that we have. The things we’d like to see. There is a human aspect to our experiences in life that we care about people. We do not like to see people being harmed. I do not want the people here who are creating difficulties and creating crimes and creating all kinds of things, because I want my country to have more of an opportunity to appreciate what we have and develop each other and to be more advanced in the thinking we’re doing and advance our country.

I’ve been reading some of Reagan’s, Obama’s, and then Biden’s, and some others, but I read Reagan because I know how much it is a part of your background and interest. It is fascinating that Reagan was very clear in his immigration reform and control policy of 1986. He said, “Combine enforcement and employment sanctions with legalization for qualifying undocumented immigrants.” I see it, and I think some of my liberal friends do not realize that we have so much in common.

There’s a stream over there of individuals who want everybody taken out of our country who is undocumented. I’m just talking about some of my liberal friends who I do not think I’ve ever read Reagan’s Immigration Reform and Control Act. What is sad is if we took Reagan’s, if we took Obama’s, and if we took what a lot of people do not know about Biden and Harris and what their immigration policy was, in developing relationships with South American countries and then getting.

Some of our businesses and corporations in America support some things that they can do in those various countries so that we could have a better relationship with them, so we could then have a much more reasonable immigration policy. I have given that reference in our previous thing. I’ve given a video where people can watch, but what I think is, I think one of our biggest problems, Nigel, what I’m experiencing with you, and I’ve had it all along as a friend, but what I think is, I want to see if I can sit down with someone that’s in one of the more extreme groups and say, “Why don’t you and I just talk about values for a minute, and let’s see if we can even talk about immigration.”

Historical Frameworks And Constructive Guidelines For Immigration Reform

Here are the guidelines. You do not get to shout at me. You do not get to label me. You do not get to drop some bomb and think I’m not going to talk about it. You do not get to the end of the meeting, drop something else, so I do not have time to discuss it. We do not do those things to each other because that’s what happens in conversations. I do not want that. I want to. You want a smaller government. I appreciate a larger government because I like to see some of the things that provide those who have less privilege than I do opportunities for them.

Education is very important to me. I want to see some things like that. I do not know why we cannot just keep talking about it and saying, “Let’s study all these various immigration policies and let’s combine all of them.” I haven’t read Johnson in years, President Johnson’s concept of immigration, but I know that it had some decent stuff in it. Why don’t we study all those things and come back and say, “Here’s something that we could do.”

The problem we have right now, though, Nigel, is that we do not have an environment based on the administrative control currently in America to really make a major impact. If enough of us come together and say, “We do not want some of the things that are happening in our country right now, and we want to sit down and have these discussions,” I think we will find some fascinating answers.

I agree with you. I was going to say that both of us, I’m sure, have had conversations with people who are extremists and have no interest whatsoever in entertaining your thoughts or my thoughts. To me, there’s a systemic issue here. It may start in our education system. I firmly believe a lot of the issues are rooted there. We’ve abandoned the classical education where the normal discourse between two people, and you could say it’s more of a diplomatic approach. It’s less about insulting. We can insult each other in diplomatic terms, of course. We know that it can be done. Instead, it’s this entire complete unwillingness to even consider that the other person’s conversation, their thoughts, have any value.

 

We’ve abandoned the classical education where the normal discourse between two people is less about insulting and more about a diplomatic approach.

 

I do not really know how to stop that. I will say from my own point of view, I grew up with the benefit of a classical education. I like to think that I make use of that and probably as much of anything as critical thinking skills and recognizing that there are always two sides to an issue. Trying to stay away from being extreme. I look, I find myself from time to time being very much who I say I am. As we’ve said, that’s cost friendships and relationships because you have people who just think you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter what it is, so when I say it’s a generational issue, it’s not something that gets resolved in midterms or a cycle, etc.

Everybody’s got to stand down and start thinking about what the population wants. At the very start of these sessions, we said our purpose here. Really, what we want is for people to put aside the rhetoric, the headlines, and start asking amongst themselves, what is really important? What are we trying to do here? We cannot do that. There might be good things to take. There might be historical progress that has been achieved by one administration or the other. I do not think any of us really gets to see.

We get so embroiled in the blame and the unwillingness to take personal responsibility for some of these things. What do we do about that? That’s very much a rhetorical question, because I do not really have an answer to it. Everything is put out here to divide us, and I’ve been a person who, I would say, has tried to avoid just taking on that bias right away. Sit down and talk to people and say, “I’m a believer in a strong immigration policy and that there are a lot of people in this country who have no right, no privilege to be here and should be sent back.”

I’m in support of those and then in support of that action. We have factions within our society who are absolutely, purposefully, and willfully preventing those enforcement actions from occurring. Now, this is where the device lists and the rhetoric spring up, if you’re wrong, I’m wrong, etc. We start throwing out terms like fascist and neo-Nazi. I’m going to encourage people to better understand the definition of fascism. We do not have any of that going on, really, but it’s an open question. How do we get people around us? How do we get our politicians involved?

Overcoming Educational Gaps And Systemic Political Polarization

All they want to do is get reelected and prevent the other people from getting reelected. Almost none of the crappy policies that they espouse when they’re campaigning can ever actually be put into play. All we’re seeing here is just a step-by-step erosion of the things that are important to you and me that define our society and make it a decent place to live. I’m gravely concerned about our social fabric being eroded and frayed. Being unable to do any of the things that we think are important.

Let me interject something here. First of all, in a minute, I want you to describe your classical education, because I do not think a lot of people understand that terminology. I want to get back to that in a second. There are too many events that have happened in the last two years, and I understand the reason people want to prevent people from being picked up and sent out of our country is that they’re not the people who are creating the problems. Many of them are people who are contributing to our country.

Unfortunately, they’re undocumented. They found a way to get in here and so forth. My problem is distinguishing between those individuals who need to be removed and those individuals. There are many more that need to stay who are contributing to our country. Some of the things I’ve seen, yes, in the news and the headlines, but some of the things I see as I study and read over and over again every day, because I read every day. I do not know how many things I read in the morning, but I read lots of them, scan them, and get them ready for podcasts and all kinds of other things.

I want to take some of these people who have come from countries that really needed to escape those countries, and they’re employed, but now the administration is pressuring them to eliminate those rights. That’s the stuff that I want to see stopped. If someone is contributing and they’re going to work and their kids are going to our schools and they’re doing their job, they’re not creating crime, they’re not blasting obnoxious stuff and hate crimes and all kinds of other things. Let’s find a way to support them. It breaks my heart when I see some of the social media that’s been said, and then a child is afraid to go to school, and their parents are afraid to send them to school. That, to me, is unacceptable.

I do not disagree with you there, but how do you give them some quarter without enabling the enforcement actions that Reagan was in support of and that you yourself have said you’re in support of now? If you’re in the country and you’re undocumented, you’re illegal. We have to agree with that fact. It’s a felony to cross the border the way many of these people have. Is there some recourse that can be granted? There could be. I do not know what the mechanism is, but you can look at the contribution to society, lawfulness, support of our general culture, and our social fabric, if you will.

It’s a bit of a test that has to be applied. That’s one of the only ways that you can do this part of it. Again, I do not know what those questions look like, but that to me seems, from my classical education perspective, a logical method. Everybody can put up barriers to that. I’m going to counter that by saying, if we protect those people by not asking, if it’s a do-not-ask, do-not-tell, then we have the people who, again, have no privilege, no right to be here, who escape detection.

Which is the greater evil visited upon us? I have to say this. The greater evil, and having sat through jury selections, where I’ve had the defense attorney say, “Which is the greater evil, convicting somebody wrongfully or letting a guilty person escape? With all respect, if you’re convicted, you do have the right to appeal. You’re guaranteed that. If you escape, there’s double jeopardy. You cannot be charged again.”

Evaluating Constitutional Principles, Election Integrity, And Federalism

I’m going to err on the side of caution that protects society, which is, if you are a sanctuary and you’re protecting people who do not have any cause to be protected, then I think that’s important. That’s inappropriate. Frankly, I’m going to say it’s illegal because you’re aiding and abetting somebody who’s a fellow. Now, the counter to that is we’ve got voter issues, we’ve got polls, all these sorts of things.

The federal government doesn’t need to step into state business because, once again, the things that aren’t enumerated to the federal government go to the state. There’s a doctrine of federalism, which is fine. As a state, you can manage that, but it cannot be counter to the greater good. It cannot be counter to what’s described in the Constitution. I’ll be quite candid. There are factions in society that are working to reinterpret the Constitution and, in fact, take some of its powers away by saying that if it’s not specific in the Constitution, we leave it to the states.

Election integrity is one of those issues, just to go there briefly. Why would a state not want to ensure that the people who are voting in a federal election have the full right to vote in a federal election, which is to say, they’re citizens? Now you say you do not want the Fed snooping at your voter registrars for what reason? I do not know. They may discover their immigration status. I do not get this. Part of it is this just continued construction of barriers on either side, both sides, whatever in the middle, just to make all of this stuff unworkable.

Reflecting back on our national security conversation, we touched on all these things. Who’s voting, who’s coming into the country, etc. I cannot accept that there’s a social benefit to ignoring immigration policy. We have an immigration policy, by the way. It mostly works. It doesn’t resolve your concern about the people who are undocumented yet productive members of society. That’s a place we both would say somebody should pay some attention to.

If people are here and they’re paying taxes, they’re supporting our economy, they’re doing all the things that we need citizens to do. Unless there’s a very powerful reason not to give them citizenship or at least give them legal status. Give them legal status, allow them to contribute, and not be fearful. Maybe they become more productive and more of a benefit to our social fabric and infrastructure, etc.

 

Unless there’s a very, very powerful reason to not give them citizenship or at least give them legal status, allow them to contribute and not be fearful.

 

I will say, if you are purposeful in preventing a federal agency from discharging its duties, then that’s a problem for you as an individual. Those sorts of things, they’ve escalated, of course. We’ve seen these in the press. I would ask the person, and it’s a rhetorical question, but why are you doing that? What is it that you believe in that you think you’ve got a First Amendment right or something to prevent a federal officer from discharging their duties that they’re instructed and empowered to do?

Here’s where I’ll begin. I do not believe that I can trust the current administration to appropriately carry out our immigration policy. What I’m saying is I have no faith that the decisions they’re making to enforce their immigration policy are appropriate. There is one thing that’s very evident to me that if currently the administration goes out and seeks to bring in South Africans because they will support the political structure that exists right now, then that gives me evidence that I cannot support what is happening as far as the legal enforcement of immigration.

You have to be a certain color, and you whatever. Let me go into it more, though, Nigel, because you and I are not that far off. I’ve been an activist all my life. I marched in the civil rights movement because I did not like what was going on. I did not like what was happening in our country. I truly believe we need a change. Some of the people in various states that a citizen has been killed in the process of an immigration act by the federal government, and we see how it happened. I can understand the anger of those citizens.

I can also understand the anger of those citizens who, in their community, know that certain people could be easily picked up or watched, who have served our country. They live in our communities. They love being here. They would be great citizens. They did not have the opportunity you did. They had to find another way. Sometimes I think the law has to appreciate the human element in it. I’ve served on many juries because I’ve purposely done that, because I think it is important for me to do that.

Humanizing The Legal Process For Undocumented Contributing Immigrants

Now, I quit after a certain age, but I may go back because I still like to serve on juries. I also know that I did not have any problems with the way Reagan had his immigration policies. I did not have any problems with him. I did not have any problems because I like what he defined. I did not have any problems with Obama and what he did or what Biden and Kamala Harris did, but they never really announced it, which is tragic.

What I know is that the law, to me, the way we interpret it, has to consider the societal elements that are going on that may be coloring the picture of what is being presented. If the picture is being colored in some way that is derogatory and is not giving the right to the freedom of the human being who’s undocumented to speak out and say, “I’ve lived in this country for years. I love this country.” We do not have that right now. We have the extreme of that. We do not have that. Nigel, I’ll be honest. We’ve always been honest with each other.

Right now, I’m on the side that sometimes you have to protect someone until we get the legal process going that will support people. You mentioned something in your talk. See, I think there are some very serious misinterpretations of the Constitution of the United States right now. There are some serious misinterpretations of gerrymandering that affect all kinds of things in the educational system. I haven’t always agreed with what the Supreme Court and circuit courts have done in the past. I’m even more cautious now about what is happening. To me, we have a problem.

Let’s reflect back a few years ago, a couple of administrations ago, when the entire integrity of the census process was dismantled by an administration. What that resulted in is no longer citizenship being a factor. It’s a simple head count. You talk about gerrymandering. That’s the first step in gerrymandering, which is counting people who aren’t citizens. That gives you, of course, the seats in the House of Representatives. Quite frankly, that’s one of the reasons we see sanctuary cities. They want a large population that doesn’t vote, cannot vote, or shouldn’t vote.

Maybe they do, but they’re not necessarily contributors. They get counted in the census, and then they go to the allocation of federal funds. They go to seats in the House of Representatives, not the Senate, but the seats in the House of Representatives. That is, as soon as you deconstructed that census policy, you started gerrymandering because you’re counting people who, ten years prior to that, would not have been counted. We’re counting people who shouldn’t be counted.

This gerrymandering thing that we’re seeing on one side or the other is an escalated response to the first instance of gerrymandering, which, again, was the removal of the census counting only citizens. I’m going to go back to, again, the greater good or the greater evil or the lesser evil. We do have people who are here, and they’re contributing. We’ve also got people who should not be here. Why would we not take every step as a state? By that, I mean federally. As a state, and by that I mean our local. Where, again, the rights are not enumerated.

I just in passing will say, I do not think there’s really anything wrong with the Constitution. There are efforts to reinterpret it and escape what the originators, the founders. That’s one of the issues of the Supreme Court. We’ve got originalists, and we have idealists, perhaps. Why would we not, at every level of our society, want people out of here who have no right to be here? This just troubles me.

The only reason I can think of is that it goes to the preservation of House of Representatives seats and federal funding, not for the good of society, because we’re seeing it every day, and I do not think that we can ignore this. You might say that it’s the press, but it’s the press on all sides where we see people who are here illegally committing heinous crimes. I do not care if it’s just one, but why do we permit that? Why do we defend it? There are factions across this country that vigorously defend or deny its existence.

Enforcing Rule Of Law While Addressing Societal Realities

I want to say to you, Nigel, here’s the thing. If they are here illegally and they are committing crimes. It is time to bring them to the courts, do what is needed to try the case, and then determine how we are going to send them back, wherever they came from, or to decide what we’re going to do to legally make a decision about what’s happened to them. I think, though, that some of the situations we’re seeing, that we have seen in the last two years, are not criminal. These are not people who are being highly destructive to our country. They are citizens who disagree with the current policy.

They’re not citizens, Jackalyn. What I’m making reference to is not the citizen who’s committing a crime. That doesn’t relieve them of any responsibility. It’s the individual who is here illegally. Let’s not be scared to use that term when they have committed a crime, or they are operating motor vehicles when they’re not qualified to do so. A state government has decided it’s okay to give them a commercial driver’s license when they cannot satisfy any of the criteria. Now, I do not know.

I cannot disagree with you about that. I can honestly support what you’re saying, Nigel. I am very well aware of the trucking companies.

It’s a place to start. The impact we now know is not just isolated. It’s not just one person here, one person there. We’re seeing, in fact, an escalation of these issues. I’m going to say, for my own sake as a citizen, taxpayer, etc., who takes the rule of law quite seriously, I’m very frustrated with a judiciary that chooses to ignore the rule of law and says we’re going to reinterpret the Constitution. Now, I’m not drawing sides here. I’m not calling out an administration or another, but this is common. With all due respect, when you say the current administration, we can easily point to past administrations and say they’ve done the same thing.

It’s not my purpose here to say this administration or that. It’s mine to say, though, that there’s a problem with our society as a whole. We keep getting suckered into the rhetoric and the flammish and all these things that truly are not of any benefit. I do not know what the answer is. For me, as an informed voter, I’m looking at a handful of things that are extremely important to me. I’ll tell you right away, I take identity politics off the table. My classical education, which you refer to, is in history and the social sciences. It’s probably as much about colonialism and democracy.

We put aside colonialism, but it’s one of the reasons why borders exist, etc., and states exist. It takes us into this place where now we’ve got this person elected in seventeen political parties in one area and a two-party system here, etc. Where I’m going with that is not saying that any one of those is better. I am saying, though, that you cannot ignore that. You cannot refuse to ignore that. A classical education taught us about history. History typically gets written by the victors. We’re well aware of that. A studied mind and a classical education also teach you to look at the other side of that coin.

 

A studied mind and a classical education teaches you to look at the other side of that coin.

 

We did that, or I’d like to say my generation did that. That doesn’t happen. It’s more indoctrination that we’re escaping in university, certainly, and I believe I see it in primary schooling. We’re choosing to ignore what history brought us to. We do not have to follow it. If you ignore it, you’re probably going to repeat it. For many of us at our age, we do not really have to worry about gainful employment and that thing.

I still do.

We can look at that and say, “This thing has been tried in the past.” I do not know what will happen. Politicians do two things. They fight to get elected, and then they fight to get reelected. Almost none of them can speak the truth. Every one of them will tell you whatever it takes for you to ignore the other guy, the other girl, and vote for them.

In my opinion, classical education gives you some tools to look past that veneer and that facade and understand, you politician, what is it that you think is so good about this or this? Hardly any of them can explain how they would do it. It’s more just about the other guy, or the previous administration was all messed up. As an individual, I’m so tired of hearing that. Let’s just pass the blame along, and a Russian politician, the Premier, once said, if you’re elected to public office, do two things.

First is to blame your predecessor. Second is to write a letter telling your successor to do two things. To me, that’s just so very true. We blame the previous administration, but we cannot fix anything. We’re just running out of options. As a society, as a group of politicians, somebody has got to decide one day that they’re going to fix this. I do not know that anybody has the stomach for it because it’ll cost.

Demanding Political Accountability Beyond Party Loyalty

We have to have the stomach for it. Also, what I’m going to say is, in the episode I’ve done that you’re not a part of, or Richard’s not a part of. I am constantly proposing questions that can be asked of current politicians to find out what the heck they stand for. I started doing that. In the previous episode I did, probably in the last 2 or 3 months, I gave lists of questions. I know that I did it last week and I did it the week before, and I know there have been some others. I’m going to take the list when I talk to politicians.

I have the opportunity to talk to someone who happens to be from a different party than mine. I’m going to consider it because I think I have too much history with the other individual who’s running from my party, and I cannot vote for that person. I do not vote for corrupt people who do things. That just doesn’t fit in my value structure. I’m going to go, but I have my questions, and I’m going to ask him because one of the questions is common to my questions. Let’s say you’re on the city council.

If it comes to a place where you know that the best answer for your community is X, are you willing to go against your political party for the benefit of the constituents that you represent? That is one of them. That is the way to stop some of the insanity that we’re doing. The other thing is, I’ve made a decision to make an effort to see what I can do in a relationship with someone who is definitely much farther for me. My agreements are exactly what I described before. We haven’t had any chances because we’re both trying to get more business. We’re doing that.

I know in the next month we’re going to be able to sit down, and I’m going to have some conversations about very short comments that were made and say, “Wait a minute. Why do not we just talk about this individual?” Here are some questions that I have asked the individual. Here are the responses I’ve gotten. See, I think it comes to the place when a politician is willing to say, “What is the best thing for my constituents that I represent? I’m going to stand no matter what. Nobody can push me around and tell me to vote differently because I’m not going to be afraid of losing an election. I’m going to stand for my constituents.”

At a time, we had that with some people, and it was less purity, if you will. You might almost chalk it up to just them being naive. It’s a question that we need to ask. If I think about how I’m going to vote, I tell you, I’m looking for somebody who’s got the ideals and values that are aligned with mine. When I look at the people who are just citing absolute crap and it’s vote-mongering, then I have to say, “I do not know that I can vote for this person.”

It’s clear that you and I have a separation in our beliefs. Your own personal battle starts to well up, which is if I vote off the party ticket, do I put this at risk, and the things that I think are valuable, as a 2A proponent, is that going to be at risk? It’s unfortunate, I think, when we start having those kinds of crises of conscience, because somebody has decided that they’re going to put that at risk. To me, this goes back to interpretation or reimagination of the Constitution.

If it were an acceptance, and you may not agree with me, but if we just said, “This works. It’s not perfect. It was never intended to be perfect.” It does, by and large, and this surprises me, it does, by and large, foresee almost every event that has happened to this country. For that matter, almost around the world. It provides a very useful starting point to say, “What was the intent with this?” Does it survive the evolution from 1787 to 1987, etc.? In some cases, it does.

1960 to 64 during the Civil Rights Movement, whatever.

Leveraging Classical Education To Uncover Deeper Historical Solutions

There have been amendments to the Constitution, if you will, that help us through some of these things. To your point, I’m sorry that we’re going to be running out of time here. When we look at the politician, this is a question that I agree with completely. Ask them, what are your real core beliefs, and how do you pose a question? The press should be doing it as our agents, asking a question that demands an answer and not just rhetoric, and is that maybe a place that we can start? I think we can. If we put aside the differences and we stay out of the inflammatory responses and stuff, and you think about it, I think that I would like this.

This is an outcome that I would want. Immigration for undocumented yet highly contributory people is a good thing. Frankly, that’s a societal problem. It’s not going to go away unless somebody starts to work on it. Why don’t we start working on it? That’d be an interesting question. Which is, putting aside the problems of interpretation of immigration policy, we have a human issue here with people who do not deserve to be deported because they’ve done nothing, putting aside, and this is where somebody always pounds their desk. They broke the law, and they’re illegal. They crossed the border. I agree with that.

However, let’s look at the human condition. Let’s look at the benefit that society derives from having them around. It’s not easy to draw that calculus. If you could ask a politician, “Let’s think about the human cost of immigration and the enforcement, lack of enforcement, etc.” This is where, when you get past the headlines, you start asking those serious questions, and they demand a thoughtful response. If we could start having people around us ask those questions, not just their politicians, but their counterparts sitting around over a cup of coffee. We might be better off for it.

Nigel, here’s another thought I have. We’re not going to do it for the next podcast or whatever, but we may think about it. You and I could take an opportunity. It’s a whole other project we would go into, which I want to finish, the one we’re starting here, but I would like for us to say, because I’ve got this book that I’m reading about the Constitution, and it’s given us all the history behind a lot of the things that happened.

She’s been very fair about presenting both points of view and creating some rhetoric that has caused you to believe one’s better than the other. She has not done that in this book. What I’d love to do with you is study history because I taught world history, American history, government, and sociology. That’s what my arena was because I was in political science. History matters to me. I do recall when we had the problem with the census and how we need to define the census now. Thank you for bringing that up because I remember that.

It’s not something I’ve forgotten. One of the things I would like to say is that I think we have a topic that we all need to be talking about, and that is how we take community members who are undocumented and find a way in this country to appreciate them, and then determine how we are going to enforce our laws so that we can eliminate the situation where people are not supporting our country. I know that we need to go on to elections and some other things.

You and I need to think about it, because if the thing we need to do next is to say, “Let’s go study all the national security policies that have been around, let’s see which have the best ideas and which we can combine all of them.” That might be fun, too, and it might be a real advantage. I’m going to ask you to think about it. The last thing I want to say because I know we both have to finish this.

My classical education was knowing Texas history, knowing American history, and understanding all the processes. I never went to a university, a public school, or anything where we did not have both sides presented so that we could have that opportunity, and to try to pressure institutions right now to not provide both sides and maintain the history of this nation is something that is unacceptable to me. I’ll stop there and let you have your final points because I’ve made some other points.

The classical education part, it included history. It included civics. Often, it included the history that was relevant to where I was or where you were. I did not study any Texas history until I got here. It taught you that there’s always a story beneath the story. There are reasons. There’s logic. It’s not just talking about the Battle of Hastings, but it’s talking about the royalty in Old World England long before it became the United Kingdom, etc. Similarly, throughout Europe, I have an understanding of why World War I started.

 

There’s always a story beneath the story. There’s reasons, there’s logic. If we don’t understand and appreciate history, we’re doomed to repeat it.

 

It’s not just the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. There’s a massive amount. If you look at the map of Central Europe then versus now, it’s more on tribal lines, language lines, culture lines, than it is on these abstract political lines that we’ve drawn. Classical education taught you to understand history. It’s why we have what we have. If we do not understand and appreciate history, I do not know, we’re doomed to repeat it, whatever. We need to talk about the constitution.

We need to talk about more of the nuances, and it’s keeping us out of the headlines, and that’s worthwhile. I look forward to seeing what we can put together for an agenda for October. It might be a little time spent on election security and a few things like that. Some of the topics we touched on here, they could be built on, but I do not want to belittle points and deny the audience, those gracious audiences, who hopefully are tuning in because we’re touching on a bunch of stuff and not just beating something to death. With that, thanks again. I appreciate it. We’ll see you.

You bet. Thank you so much. I want to thank our audience because I am delighted that you are tuning in to our series, and you have a chance to decide whether you want to communicate with me or not. I’m making that much more available, and I can therefore help you get connected to Nigel if you would like to ask him some questions or something. Thank you so much. I’m very grateful that I know you. Thank you.

 

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About Nigel M. Lakey

Hot Topic Bold Talk | Immigration PolicyOriginally from Western Canada, and one of three sons of immigrant parents, Nigel has been in Houston since 2000 when as part of a company reorganization, he relocated from Calgary. While he resisted for the first year, he eventually let Texas wash over him and embraced the thing that is Texas- he now sees it as his home. A Mechanical Engineer by education but a marketer and innovator by vocation, Nigel has spent the majority of his 45 year professional career in the oilfield service and technology space, with a brief foray into private equity before returning to what he knows and understands best.

His career is marked with experience in innovative and disruptive business and technology solutions, and he’s spent considerable time in the C-suite of public and private companies. Well-travelled to some 70 countries Nigel has worked in interesting places with interesting people and has deep respect for culture and history. He can speak a few languages as a result and maintains close friendships with many people he’s met over the years.

While he is retired out of the corporate world since 2022, Nigel is unable to resist the siren call of industry and is co-founder of an energy services startup that is developing AI and ML solutions for the oilfield. He also maintains a consulting and advisory business. Nigel remains active in business and industry and at this time he is the Chair of the Communications and Editorial Committee for the Private Directors Association.

An avid SCUBA diver since 1985, Nigel is an Advanced Open Water instructor, as well as an Adaptive SCUBA instructor, bringing SCUBA to disabled and mobility-challenged veterans and others faced with ability challenges.

Nigel is regarded as an authentic and visionary leader, and a well-spoken and concise communicator, influencer, and thought partner. He has built and developed organizations, catalyzed and led transformational change, and excels in environments where dynamic thought is needed to address strategic and operational challenges.