Saturday, August 14, 2010

Immigration -- Something Worth Fighting?

Why are we fighting immigration?

When you stop to think about it, that's really all we are doing when we demand that undocumented residents be sent home. Oh, many will argue it is not immigration they opposed, but illegal immigration.

But, an illegal immigrant is nothing but a person who doesn't have paperwork. You can grant him his paperwork, and thus support immigration, or you can find reasons for not giving him his paperwork, and thus fight immigration.

What are some of the demands we might make?

"Learn English before you come in here. Everyone here speaks English, so we can all get along better."

There are many jobs employers simply cannot offer them if they do not learn English. That is as it should be. There are many opportunities they simply cannot take, including passing our driver's license test, if they do not know English. They will serve themselves well to learn English, but I suggest we shouldn't impose it as a law.

"Wait 5-10 years. It took my neighbor 10 years to get his citizenship, and he happily did it. This is a fine system we have here, and I think you should wait 10 years, too."

Perhaps we shouldn't make them wait just to wait. Standing in line five years is a long time for paperwork. If there is a reason for making them wait, I guess I am not aware of what it is. I do not know of a reason other than that we simply think they should wait. Why?

Well, there's two of the ways to fight immigration, and there are others. Now we can say, "Whatever we do, let's make it hard on them. Whatever we do, we don't want to just give them their paperwork."

Why take that thought? Are we wanting to make it hard just to make it hard? Or do we have reason for wanting to do so? I do wonder what the reason is. Is it that we might let terrorists in? Yes, keeping terrorists out is a worthy concern. But some of our laws are not shielding us against them. I understand immigrants who live here a certain amount of time then become eligible for citizenship. How would we be stopping a terrorist if we let him live here five years before granting him citizenship? He is already here.

Sometimes, it seems it is only the poorer of our immigrants who we screen out. If a person wants to come to the U.S. on a work visa, and he has the thousands of dollars to pay for it, or a company pays the fee for him, he's here. And, he usually gets a respectable-paying job, to boot.

Not so, the man without money. Not so, the man who comes looking for a low-paying job in our fields, which is what most of those coming across the Mexico border are. We require him to buy our visa, asking him to give us thousands of dollars. This only make it so the only way he can come, is to come illegally. Yes, getting paperwork is the right thing to do . . .

But consider that when we scream at them -- telling them they're breaking our laws, that they're all criminals and that we want them all to just go home -- it is the poor hod carrier we usually are yelling at.

And, yes, we tell them when they take our low-paying jobs that they are taking jobs away from us. We quickly tell them we have right to those jobs because we were born here and they shouldn't be taking jobs from us.

Some study I read of said that they actually create more jobs than they take. Either way, I say give them jobs if they will work. It is the person who won't work I'm concerned about. People willing to work are not the ones we should be angry with, although, yes, we need to work on our system so they can pay taxes. Making them legal might be a good start.

If they try to educate their kids, we remind them that we pay for those schools, and they might as well be reaching into our pockets and taking our money. Now, if we keep them from having the right to work, they aren't going to be in position to pay taxes.

Why would we not just give them right-to-work paperwork, and make it easier on everyone?

Same with our hospitals. These people are so poor they can't afford our insurance. And, they often are working for employers who don't offer insurance. Is it fair to turn around and tell them, "What are you thinking, coming in here and using our hospitals when you can't afford them, then asking our government to pay for it? That's a fine howdy-doody."

Finding a way to get them insured might be a more understanding route.

Well, these are some of the things we can do to make it hard on the immigrant. Dang him for trying to come in here as poor as he is, anyway.

Funny thing is, for all the terrorists who might be slipping through, and all the drug dealers (and it is they I'm afraid of), the people who end up catching our wrath are often the ones who just poor and needy.

That's going to happen if you oppose immigration. Instead of opposing people coming here, let's oppose just the ones who are terrorists or drug dealers or criminals.

(Note: This post was rewritten the morning of 8-16-10.)

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