Enforce legal immigration? Si, se puede
My column today:
The United States welcomed more than a million immigrants last year.
Legal ones. Lord knows how many slipped in uninvited.
Well, so what? It's all the same. Everyone from anywhere is entitled to a piece of America, and the rest of us had better get used to it.
That seemed to be the point of Monday's nationwide demonstrations. Illegal immigrants -- many of them, anyway -- stayed out of work to show us how important they are to the economy. They rallied in cities across the country, including Greensboro, to drive home the political lessons. Full civil rights for all, or else!
Sure, let's hear "The Star-Spangled Banner" en Espanol. And a chorus of "Esta tierra es mi tierra" while we're at it. ...
Look, I'm not opposed to immigration. Far from it. But I'm pretty sure my grandparents didn't arrive here with the attitude that this country owed them something from the get-go.
My Irish grandfather had barely stepped off the boat when he enlisted in the U.S. army and was sent back across the ocean to fight for his new country in World War I.
My Irish grandmother, widowed during the Depression, scrubbed hallways and bathrooms in a boys' boarding school to feed her kids. She had no Social Security, no AFDC, no Medicaid and no food stamps, but she never blamed the United States. She figured her children would have a better life here.
Even today, millions of people line up outside U.S. embassies applying for papers that will carry them to these shores. In country after country, by the thousands, their pleas are answered: India, China, Philippines, Cuba, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Korea, Colombia, Ukraine, El Salvador, Canada, Britain, Jamaica, Russia, Guatemala, Peru, Pakistan, Poland, Brazil.
And Mexico. More from Mexico than from any other country, by far.
Most Americans -- thinking of their own grandparents, perhaps -- open their arms and say, "Come in. Make your home here. Work hard. Thrive. Become Americans. How many are you, a million? We have room for you."
Most Americans also make an important distinction between those million legal immigrants and the many others who steal across our borders and settle in to shadowy lives of being without belonging.
Some apologists for illegal immigrants say it's racist to draw this distinction, to try to keep out those who don't have the right papers.
Racist? Look at the countries where legal newcomers were born. It's not a matter of race but of numbers and control.
Should the United States have any say in who comes here to live? Should it know their names, their health, their occupations, their criminal histories, their possible terrorist connections? Should it exercise any authority at all over its borders?
No reasonable person wants to round up and deport every illegal immigrant, however many millions there are. It's impossible, and most of them are fine people. The folks rallying at the governmental plaza in Greensboro Monday afternoon, probably 90 percent of them Hispanic, no doubt dream of becoming Americans and making good homes here.
They should have a chance to walk a path toward citizenship unless there are compelling reasons in individual cases to send them home.
But the debate about the details can't start from the premise that people here illegally are due the same rights as natural citizens or immigrants who followed the proper procedures. It can't begin with demands and demonstrations and boycotts and threats. It can't go anywhere with an attitude of esta tierra es mi tierra.
This nation of immigrants is also a nation of laws. Let's make laws that create opportunities but also obligations for newcomers. And, for heaven's sake, let's guard our borders, or else today's immigrants will be followed by more and more who won't care what legal processes the people here before them chose to respect.
The people at the plaza Monday shouted, "Si, se puede" -- yes, we can.
Yes, we can make this a nation that welcomes legal immigrants and tells others to wait their turn.
Comments (7)
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Just a thought, but is someone who habitually drives to work after their license has been revoked an undocumented driver?
Posted on May 3, 2006 6:46 AM
No reasonable person wants to round up illegals?????????? Reasonable by who standards?
News Mr. Clark these people are breaking the law!
Our seniors are doing with out, because these folks have the medical units running over! Do you have a clue whos paying for this? They are taking space in our schools,do you know whos paying for this. Go to a store and look and see how many are using WIC checks,guess who paying for this. I guess you are also in favor of in state tution for them, kicking NC students out of college. So I guess I am unreasonable in wanting to see our American elders taking care of. While you LIBERALS are worried about law breakers. Tell me about them paying taxes $7.00 hour, times 2000 hours a year, equals no taxes.
Posted on May 3, 2006 6:48 AM
What the current debate often leaves out is that these 11 million or 12 million people were let in as a matter of policy.
The were let in because the hotel industry, the construction industry, the farming industry, the lawn care industry and other industries don't want to pay the type of wages they would have to pay if there weren't a huge number of illegals willing to take these jobs for far less money.
What would a hotel have to pay documented workers to come in at 5 a.m. on weekends and holidays to do that work? What would you have to pay your painting contractor if they hired only documented workers?
Everybody talks about these workers not paying taxes, but no one talks about how major corporations like HIlton hotels, Wal-Mart and Toll Brothers are taking advantage of taxpayers by seeking out and employing workers who aren't documented.
It's also ironic that Republican and Democratic administrations never created a clear path to legal status. How would things be different now if the first Bush administration had said any illegal immigrants could gain full legal status by enlisting in the Armed Services to fight the Gulf War and subsequent wars? Serve, say, three years and you can stay forever.
The fact they never did something as simple as that tells me that the last few presidents and Congress are in favor of a system in which the workforce is filled with millions of undocumented and, thus, low-wage workers.
Posted on May 3, 2006 8:38 AM
Emery, there IS a clear path to legal status, always has been. It's called LEGAL immigration.
Illegals were not let in as a "matter of policy" no matter how much you hate the Bush administration and want to blame everything on him. They came illegally.
Were they lured here by individuals and companies that offered a market for their services? You bet.
Sort of like the N&R offering a market to someone who had the RMA Greensboro PD report and aiding and abetting them illegally getting that report.
Posted on May 3, 2006 9:37 AM
Watching 11 million people walk across the border is clearly "letting them in."
Secondly, I didn't only blame the Bushes. Allowing low-wage workers in by the millions was a policy shared by the Clintons, too.
Posted on May 3, 2006 9:55 AM
Doug Johnson,
Great points. I heard on the news yesterday that within 18 years our Medicare will run out. It was a similar period for Social Security running out. This is simply not fair to Americans who have paid into the system for years. Welfare was not meant to be a never ending hand out. As the illegals grow in this country, we will end up supporting them from cradle to paying for all their medical care when they are old.
You can't blame children of illegals but we are using our tax dollars to educate them. Sooner or later the bottom will fall out.
Letting illegals in is not fair to the many immigrants who have came here and did it the legal way. It is an insult the those of us whose ancesters came here, learned the English language, worked their butts off at menial, hard labor jobs so each generation could do better.
Posted on May 3, 2006 11:56 AM
Some of my ancestors were already here when the rest of you folks ancestors showed up. We had to learn English in order to assimulate because we were soon outnumbered. Remember, paleface's it can happen again only this time it will be you who will be doing the assimulatings and the language you speak will not be English. Think about it. Time to stop the invasion!
Posted on May 3, 2006 6:39 PM