Immigration

The building blocks of America throughout its history have been immigration.  Ask any historian. Don’t ask politicians. They hate immigration. They use it as a tool to separate those who have been citizens for a generation or two from those who are newly arrived. They especially leverage against undocumented immigrants.

To do that they hype reports about movement of illegal immigrants across the border, the disease and pestilence (?) they spread to our land, and the crime. Oh the crime! It is so large and hideous, is it not?

Not! It is not a huge issue. Far more important is crumbling infrastructure, poor results from our schools, unemployment, abandoned houses, growth of the underclass, poverty incursions within the middle class and retirees. These are huge issues. These are game changing issues.

In my mind immigration issues are important simply because it is an offhand destruction of one of the founding tenets of our nation. “Give me your tired and poor, huddled masses yearning to break free…”  That’s the inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty. That’s what she – Lady Liberty – represents to both us and the rest of the world.

Would the anti-immigrant forces be so unthinking as to toss this principle out with the trash?  Really?

It would seem so. But I think they really don’t want to. Deep down they know they are immigrants, too. We all are. 

My family came to America in 1630. Although that’s a long time ago, we are still immigrants. And we do not deserve any special consideration or power just because we have been here longer than someone else’s family. That would not be equal; it would be discriminatory. And ‘yearning to break free…” includes that tenet, don’t you think?

Huddled masses coming to our shores because they yearn for freedom and a chance at a better life. Huddled masses because they are poor and powerless. Not stupid or ignorant. Just poor and powerless. Here in America they can gather what they need for a better life and fully use their unique gifts to do so.

In that alone they enrich our nation. Each one of them. They far outnumber those few immigrants who take advantage of the system or create problems in the criminal justice system. Besides, much of the criminal justice system concerns are problems newly defined by legislatures and the US Congress in an attempt to criminalize immigration. What a pot of bosh!

The America I’m proud of accepts newcomers and encourages them to prosperity and success. Their achievements are our achievements. As such we all are strengthened. And the dream of America carries on into future years.

Eric Cantor was defeated for re-election to his congressional seat in a republican primary. He was defeated by a Tea Party republican.  Too bad; I wish it had been a defeat of Cantor on so many other grounds. But Brat won because he leveraged the immigration issue in his campaign. Although Cantor was no shining protector of oppressed immigrants, he was for reforming the immigration system to solve current problems. He has also been a prime obstructionist to that very goal at times.

But Brat won because in Virginia it is popular to be a discriminator. And to be an active anti-history buff.  Of all states. Virginia. The land of Jefferson, Washington and so many other founding fathers of the American promise.

Shame, people. Shame. I do not like Eric Cantor. He is to be reviled on so many ideological points. But immigration? That’s a travesty. It is so anti-American. In our soul!

The shame of it!

June 13, 2014