I've been trying to post for two weeks about something I'm not sure how to talk about...
I have written a number of posts, edited them, and deleted them...all because I'm not sure how to say what I want to say on this very difficult and inflammatory issue, about which I am extremely emotionally connected.
All to no avail. So...on the excellent advice of my friend Steve...I've promised myself I'm just gonna write it and let it be what it is. Here is what I've been trying to say:
...
...I think being an illegal should be illegal.
...
...
...there, I've said it.
Whew...that feels better.
I'll expound a little.
I tend to think of myself as a liberal, progressive, dare I say Democratic kind of guy. I tend to think that I'm a compassionate kind of guy...at least in certain squishy areas of humankind. I also tend to think that I tend to speak without thinking, so I took some extra time to think about this one before I started speaking. And I still think being an illegal should be illegal.
If you've turned on the TV...or the radio...or the newspaper...(let that one go)...you've surely seen the great debate on immigration in America. Or, more specifically, the debate on Hispanic immigration into America. Nobody seems too concerned about the extraordinary number of people from India, or Korea, or China, or Eastern Africa who are streaming into the United States. And there's a perfectly good reason for that...
...they came here legally.
What's pissing everybody off is that people from Cuba are floating in on rafts, people from the D.R. are stowing away in the bottoms of freighters, and people from Mexico are t across the border in the middle of the night to get into this country. And get in they are...to the tune of an estimated 700% growth in illegal Hispanics living in the U.S. over the last ten years.
...wait, I'm not done. That part isn't pissing everybody off. In fact, as you may have noticed, illegal Hispanic workers have been living in the U.S. for quite some time, and doing a fine job at it. I don't know who was legal and who was illegal, but I know that Hispanic workers with very little English at their disposal have cooked my meals, mowed the lawn where I work, constructed my gym, cleaned my hotel rooms, delivered my Chinese food (which was a strange surprise), and so much more. And you didn't hear me complaining. They work cheap, they work hard, and they seemed happy enough.
That's where we get to the part where everybody is pissed off.
The seemed happy enough...for a while. And then, protests started. Protests about equal pay for equal work, protests about getting social services and schooling for the children of illegal immigrants, protests about minimum wage increases...and...here's my very favorite...protests about the U.S. Government's attempt to enforce and toughen immigration laws.
You know what, let's change the POV here to make things easier...
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The following is an open lettter to pissed off illegal Hispanic immigrants:
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Dear pissed off illegal Hispanic immigrants,
Thank you for doing all that hard work for me. You do really good work...truthfully, you do better work than I would have done, and you worked twice as hard without complaining. Thank you for doing that...I'm really glad that you chose to do that work, and I'm thankful that I could benefit from your tremendous work ethic.
However, I'm a bit concerned. You see...you're not supposed to be here. I know it sounds insensitive and elitist...but I'm actually just telling you what the law says. The law says that you're not supposed to be here. It says that you're welcome in this country...as tired and/or poor as you may be...and that you may come and work our fertile lands to make your living. All you have to do is what everyone else on the planet who wants to come and work in America has to...you have to apply, and you have to be accepted. I'm sorry that we let you make your living here without kicking you out sooner, because I can see why you'd get the impression you had the right to be here after a few years of nobody saying anything. That was our bad. But now you need to go home.
You see, I have a good friend named Maria. Maria is a brilliant woman, and a gifted lawyer. She wants to move to America from Peru so she can be a lawyer in the US and make a life for herself here. She went to school here on an educational visa, she fell in love with an American man, and now she wants to work here. She applied for a work visa and was denied, unfortunately, so she went back to Peru where she now waits for a chance to return to America, see her love again, and try to get a visa again. She's playing by the rules, and it hurts her. My prayer is that she gets her visa, moves here, and gets married to that man. My hope is that she may even some day wish to be a citizen of the US, though I will always respect her even if she doesn't.
So, here's the thing...I don't think you should be here. You weren't invited, you weren't cleared, and you sure as heck weren't approved for a work visa. In fact, we did everything we could to keep you out...we spent millions and millions of dollars building fences and hiring guys to drive up and down the border, just so you wouldn't come. But you made it through our fences, and you made it past our guards, and somehow you made your way into your current job. I admire your courage and your resolve...but you still shouldn't be here. This isn't "Red Rover"...just because you made it across the border and through the locked arms of the patrol doesn't mean you get to stay on this side. You don't get to stay, you don't get to work, and you sure as shit don't get to live off our social services.
You are here against the laws of this country. You broke the law, and like any other resident of the US who breaks the law, you are subject to consequences. You can march in the streets, sing our anthem in your language, and fly your flag above ours...you may be as polite or rude as you like (that's the beauty of our first amendment), but you're still here illegally. And until we make running over the border in the middle of the night a legal shortcut to the immigration process, you will remain illegal.
It sucks that you come from a shitty country. It sucks that I was fortunate enough to be born into a free country with great opportunity, and that you weren't. I hope that your country changes, and I hope that my country changes its laws so that good people can find good homes here easily. But that hasn't happened yet, and you're not supposed to be here.
Go home, find the application office for an American work visa, and get in line. While you're there, look for Maria...I'm praying she's up near the front.
Good luck,
Justin
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Peace,
Justin
12 comments:
As long as we don't do a guest worker program I'm fine.
Guest worker programs are the stupidest possible solution for the problem.
Holy crap! You've been listening to 700 haven't you?
I started reading this last Thursday and just finished. Good stuff
Justin, (this should be a post, not a comment, so make yourself comfortable)
Good post. And in the end I think I agree -- get in line, wait your turn, follow the law.
But...I have seen that process (or at least a slice of it) from the other side. Let me tell you about it.
I have been to the US Embassy in Colombia to apply for a visa twice now. Both times we went to get a visa so our newly adopted children could enter the US with us. Both times we went very early in the morning, shortly after the Embassy had opened. Both times there were 300-400 people already waiting. Most were waiting for an “interview.” They had waited outside; many of them overnight, to be the first ones in line. They were at the end of their process; a process that in Colombia can take more than a year from application to completion. So, they have filed their applications, filled out all their paperwork, gathered all the required documentation and they have in their pockets the fee…a ridiculous amount of money that most Colombians cannot and will never be able to afford (Even our adoption representative’s assistant who took us to the Embassy, a professional woman, married to a professional man, said the fee was too expensive for her) They wait all day to get their number called and many of them won’t get to a window that day or even the next.
While they are waiting they get to watch two US citizens, with a Colombian born infant, walk right past them, march right to the front of the line, get an interview and walk out less than 30 minutes later with a VISA in their hands. All this...and then 90% of their applications will be denied. They can of course reapply, and wait another year for their “interview,” most only to be denied again.
They are denied for many reasons of course. But mostly because the US doesn’t want cocaine dealing, guerilla assassins in their country even though the vast majority of Colombians have no ties to that life. They are denied because in the end we are elitists bastards who get off on the power of granting and denying people a better life. (oops, how did that soapbox get under my feet)
Anyway, like I said, in the end I agree with you -- illegal is illegal. What I can’t say for sure is this -- if I thought I could make a better life for my family and my children (and I’m talking exponentially better here) by crossing a desert in the middle of the night and getting a great paying job with a farmer in Texas the next morning, after waiting in line for years just to be told NO! I must just try it, illegal or not.
Thanks again for the great post.
Brooke
This is an interesting and thought provoking post...much like the rest of your posts. I kind of feel myself being pulled in two directions. As far as the laws of this country...and what's "best" for America, I would have to agree with this post. But, as far as loving your neighbor (from Mexico) more than yourself, I would have to disagree with this post. Thus my confusion ensues.
I think that my bottom line is that if truely loving and serving and caring for our brothers and sisters who are poorer than us weakens our country than that's ok. I know that might come across ignorantly...but sometimes ignorance isn't the worst thing.
Justin,... I never thought I would consider you the conservative one and me the liberal; but at last it has happened. Go Hillary 2008!!!!! Keith
Wow good stuff. But like Brooke said if I had to live like they do, where they come from I think I'd take the risk and be illegal. Suffer the consequences if I got caught. At least I had it good for a little while.
Hey, anonymous un-re-anti-poster...
Please leave your comments! I hate to see 'em deleted...especially when I never got to read 'em!
Thanks for your comments guys. I really appreciate the perspective of folks who have seen the struggle to immigrate first-hand. I would do the same thing, were I in their shoes, fer sure. Truth is, if my wife and kids were dying of starvation and I saw a man walking down my street alone and carrying a briefcase of money, I would certainly tackle him, kill him if necessary, and take the money to feed my family.
That doesn't make it right.
Peace,
Justin
I’m responding to your post and picking a fight. I don’t even know if I’m right, but this will be a fun debate.
Now on to picking a fight…
Speaking of natural law...
You're tackle & kill analogy misses the point.
There are laws that are per se unjust & these laws don't merit following. Jim Crow is the most obvious in America, but Thoreau wrote Civil Disobedience when in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax that would support of what he believed was an unjust war. Rosa Parks broke the law.
Am I suggesting that being an illegal is an act of noble civil disobedience tantamount to those of the civil rights movement. No. You don't jump a fence in a spirit of high minded idealism. What scares me is the “But it’s against the law” thing as if American law necessarily should mean dick to a Christian.
Put another way… If there are laws that make kids die you break them.
Ryan,
You're right, there is a place for civil disobedience. Hell, our country was founded on an act of disobedience against the English monarchy, and I'm quite happy with how that turned out.
However, you're also right when you say that hopping a fence in the middle of the night and scrambling across the border is not civil disobedience. Neither is breaking the window of an electronics store and taking a TV. It's civil disobedience when you break the law in order to change the law, and you suffer the consequences as an act of protest. When you break the law in the hopes of not getting caught in order to profit from it's breaking, that's called "crime."
You said, "If there are laws that make kids die you break them." That's a great sentiment, but I disagree. There are lots of laws that make kids die. There are trade embargoes, export tariffs, drug patents, shipping regulations, customs inspections, pharmaceutical administration, federal aid statutes, and many more bits of policy that limit who can get what and when. And because of these things, lots of kids die. But, let's go beyond that. There are also laws that say "you can't steal from other people's houses," and "you aren't entitled to the contents of other people's wallets" and "you're not allowed to take things off the shelves at stores and walk out without paying for them." These laws also make kids die, if you want to look at it that way. Children die of hunger in America...it's a sad reality, but it's true. And these deaths would have been prevented if someone had broken into a house and taken food or mugged a wealthy man and taken money to buy food or shoplifting to get food. Does that mean that the law "made kids die?" Not to me. It means that life, bad choices, drug-addicted mothers, bad economy, market crash, absent fathers, bad policing, poor public services, failing welfare system, and shitty fortune made kids die. The law just prevents the last-ditch measure of anarchy from stopping it.
I refuse to accept that it's acceptable to break the law because you're in dire straits. I do, however, accept that it is natural and human to break the law because you're in dire straits. In fact, I guarantee I'd do the same thing. However, when a turn of fortunes puts me on the streets and I break into your house in the middle of the night to take the money from your wallet, I dare you to tell me it's OK. People with their backs up against the wall will break the law...I just thank God that the law itself doesn't concede to bleeding hearts like yours and mine when they do, lest we succumb to a law of passions rather than a law of right and wrong.
The law needs to change...immigration law needs to change. And this last week I have busied myself in discovering what I might do to help change it. But in the mean time, the law is the law because we need laws. And being illegal here is still illegal.
Peace,
Justin
Great response!!
I agree almost 100%
Let's keep debating it.
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