Coming to America Shouldn't be a Crime; It Should be a Liberty

   Remember Elian Gonzalez, 1999? Here was a Cuban child not quite 6-years old, found floating alone on a raft or boat off the Florida coast. Family here in the states wanted to keep him, and argued that his mother, who apparently drowned, wanted him here. His father (parents were divorced) also wanted him. It became a custody battle, with the father winning.
   The child immigrants? We ought to send them back to their folks if their folks are still in the home countries. If their folks are here, let them stay for the moment. If the parents are undocumented and we feel we must deport them, deport them as a whole family, but let them live together as a family until the deportation. You deportation fans should gain great comfort noting that in reuniting them with their families, a number of undocumented people are going to be identified and thus deported.
   Although I feel the child should go where the parent goes, I do so wish we would let both the child and the parents stay, if the parents are already here, and let both the child and the parents come, if the parents aren't here yet.
   I don't see much harm in letting a person move to the United States. Somehow, we've got it in our minds that if they live here, it is somehow going to ruin it for the rest of us. How so? I am not a person who fears overpopulation. If it means we're going to have to pay school fees for more kids, well, we've been paying to send a lot of kids to school for quite some time now and nobody has ever suggested that if they live on the wrong side of town -- in the poor areas -- they shouldn't be allowed because that's going to cost the rest of us a little too much money. Nor do I fear their ruining our economy. The idea that poor people should be locked out because they will drag our economy down strikes me as strange. What's that all about? I'm thinking I'll keep on making just as much money even if I do have a poor person living next door. Is it that he's from Mexico, not that he's poor, that's going to hurt me? I still do not understand. Nor do I buy the notion that they are inherently criminals. They are like the rest of us, with some being criminals and some not. Is it that they are going to end up on welfare? We are running up a big debt on welfare, it is true, but is not allowing poor people to move here in order to save us money on welfare a noble idea? We have not only a broken immigration system, but a broken welfare system, and when we pour the immigrants into it, perhaps there are too many of them who receive it. Fix the system instead of kicking out the poor.
   Let 'em in. Let the immigrants in. We're suppose to be a free country. Originally, people were free to come here. Let's restore that freedom. Coming to America shouldn't a crime; it should be a liberty.