I have watched, with some dismay, the ongoing crisis concerning illegal alien unaccompanied children over the past few months.
Let me start off with some personal background here. I grew up believing in America, as the 'land of the free and the home of the brave', the nation that has sent its military out time and time again to make and keep other people free. We earned our own liberty from Great Britain, against tremendous odds, and with a considerable amount of assistance from the French; we fought our bloodiest war, against ourselves, in order to make those held as slaves free; we kept Europe free of German domination twice, and Asia free of Japanese domination once. We kept half of Korea free, and subsequently there is no clearer delineation between free and oppressed societies on the face of the earth than North and South Korea. We fought the long, difficult, twilight struggle against oppression once again, during the Cold War, starting with the Berlin Airlift, and I was there for the beginning of that particular end, on November 9, 1989.
It is to America that those seeking freedom from oppression have come over the past two centuries, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the opportunity to better oneself and to excel, and to make a better life for ones family, ones children, grandchildren, and for generations to come.
You may recall the Statue of Liberty; the statue's formal name is Liberty Enlightening the World, and the poem, by Emma Lazarus, mounted inside the pedestal, is "The New Collossus", which reads, in part:
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I learned all these things, absorbed all these things, and believe in all these things. To me, these represent America at it's best.
So, as one might imagine, I've been rather disappointed in our treatment of these minors who've arrived at our nation's southern doorstep, looking for safety and freedom. As for me, I have volunteered to work with Catholic Charities here in Oklahoma; I've completed all their application process (which is rather lengthy) and they've contacted my references, and so I'm just waiting for a phone call.
[As an aside, over 600 of my fellow Oklahomans have also volunteered to help with Catholic Charities' relief work in support of these unaccompanied children. It sort of reminds me of the story of the prophet Elijah, in 1 Kings 19, where after the showdown on Mt. Carmel, he flees into the desert, depressed and despondent that he has so little support. But God appears to him, and among other things, assures Elijah that he is not alone; that there were 7,000 others in Israel who had not worshipped Baal. Then, as now, there are far more people willing to do the right thing than what we might realize.]
But putting all that aside, and [finally] getting to what I was wanting to write about, the fact remains that no matter what punitive measures we might choose to put into place, how draconian and unfeeling, uncaring, spiteful, and even hateful measures we choose to adopt, none of them are going to work. Unless we line them all up and shoot them, or herd them Nazi-style into death camps--something I cannot imagine even the hardest-line conservatives would even contemplate--no punitive measures are going to work.
We will only end illegal immigration when we remove the reasons why people choose to immigrate illegally.
Does the United States have legitimate security concerns with these people crossing our borders without authorization? Of course. This would probably be the easiest way for al Qaeda or other terrorist operatives to enter the United States in the post-9/11 environment. So, yes, we need to secure our borders.
But we also need to make it possible for poor people to enter the United States. Is anyone out there, that's an American citizen, really aware of what it takes for a foreign national to enter the US legally, and to work here legally? Immigration law doesn't concern us 'red-blooded 'Mericans', because we're already citizens on the basis of having been born here, and generally to parents who were themselves US citizens. So people don't pay attention to the niceties of US immigration law.
Well, it's worth a look if you actually want to be knowledgeable about the whole illegal immigration issue. We've set up a system where you almost always are going to need to hire an immigration attorney in order to get that oh-so-sought-after green card. Which means it's expensive. And it also means it takes a long time. Both of which make it difficult for the poor outside of the US to enter our nation legally.
So streamlining, simplifying, and making the process of obtaining legal resident alien status more affordable would go a long ways to reducing illegal immigration.
But beyond that, you'd need to attack the real reason 'all them foreigners' want to come here in the first place.
Conditions in their home countries are bad. Very bad. And while to us things here in the good ol' US of A may not be all happiness and light, in comparison we live in a paradise. Our children have a chance to grow up, and not be shot, abducted, sold as child slaves, or otherwise abused and mistreated in a systematic way. One of the constants among all humans is a love for their children, and the desire to make a better life for ones children is and has been one of the biggest drivers of progress since the Stone Age. Guatemalans, Hondurans, El Salvadorans, Mexicans, you name it--they all are exactly like us in this regard.
And as long as those conditions remain as they are in those countries, and as long as things are immeasurably better here in the United States, we will continue to have illegal immigrants crossing our borders. After all, even the slightest chance for a better life is better than near-certain death there in their home countries.
So, with this, there are two options--for things to improve in their home countries, or for things here in the US to decline to the state that exists in those home countries. Of the two, I'd choose for things to get better there than worse here.
I'm not saying that we, the United States, should fund relief efforts in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, or anywhere else, for that matter. There are certain things that we, both as a nation and as individuals, to help make things better in those countries.
First off, civil society in large parts of these countries has just about collapsed. Drug cartels have taken over, subjugating and corrupting law enforcement and the courts, even taking over schools. First and foremost, justice--true justice--must prevail; all people must be subject to the same laws, and those who break those laws must be punished, as provided in those laws. No civil society can stand, without resorting to dictatorship, without justice.
Second, there must be hope for the future. A lot of that depends on education, and so that makes a perfectly good second step--establish free public schools, which will prepare their students for a better life than their parents knew.
Third, a fair and balanced (a tired, overworked, and in the case of Fox News, co-opted into something with an entirely different meaning) free market economy should be established. NOT one that allows foreign (US or not) companies to come in and dominate these countries, but one that both protects the business owners at all levels, and the employees, and the consumers.
The United States has not been the best neighbor (Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC (ret'd), who was twice awarded the Medal of Honor, had a few choice comments to make in this regard) to our southern neighbors. There's nothing we can do to change the past, but there's a lot we can do to improve the present and make a better future for us all.
Let me start off with some personal background here. I grew up believing in America, as the 'land of the free and the home of the brave', the nation that has sent its military out time and time again to make and keep other people free. We earned our own liberty from Great Britain, against tremendous odds, and with a considerable amount of assistance from the French; we fought our bloodiest war, against ourselves, in order to make those held as slaves free; we kept Europe free of German domination twice, and Asia free of Japanese domination once. We kept half of Korea free, and subsequently there is no clearer delineation between free and oppressed societies on the face of the earth than North and South Korea. We fought the long, difficult, twilight struggle against oppression once again, during the Cold War, starting with the Berlin Airlift, and I was there for the beginning of that particular end, on November 9, 1989.
It is to America that those seeking freedom from oppression have come over the past two centuries, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the opportunity to better oneself and to excel, and to make a better life for ones family, ones children, grandchildren, and for generations to come.
You may recall the Statue of Liberty; the statue's formal name is Liberty Enlightening the World, and the poem, by Emma Lazarus, mounted inside the pedestal, is "The New Collossus", which reads, in part:
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I learned all these things, absorbed all these things, and believe in all these things. To me, these represent America at it's best.
So, as one might imagine, I've been rather disappointed in our treatment of these minors who've arrived at our nation's southern doorstep, looking for safety and freedom. As for me, I have volunteered to work with Catholic Charities here in Oklahoma; I've completed all their application process (which is rather lengthy) and they've contacted my references, and so I'm just waiting for a phone call.
[As an aside, over 600 of my fellow Oklahomans have also volunteered to help with Catholic Charities' relief work in support of these unaccompanied children. It sort of reminds me of the story of the prophet Elijah, in 1 Kings 19, where after the showdown on Mt. Carmel, he flees into the desert, depressed and despondent that he has so little support. But God appears to him, and among other things, assures Elijah that he is not alone; that there were 7,000 others in Israel who had not worshipped Baal. Then, as now, there are far more people willing to do the right thing than what we might realize.]
But putting all that aside, and [finally] getting to what I was wanting to write about, the fact remains that no matter what punitive measures we might choose to put into place, how draconian and unfeeling, uncaring, spiteful, and even hateful measures we choose to adopt, none of them are going to work. Unless we line them all up and shoot them, or herd them Nazi-style into death camps--something I cannot imagine even the hardest-line conservatives would even contemplate--no punitive measures are going to work.
We will only end illegal immigration when we remove the reasons why people choose to immigrate illegally.
Does the United States have legitimate security concerns with these people crossing our borders without authorization? Of course. This would probably be the easiest way for al Qaeda or other terrorist operatives to enter the United States in the post-9/11 environment. So, yes, we need to secure our borders.
But we also need to make it possible for poor people to enter the United States. Is anyone out there, that's an American citizen, really aware of what it takes for a foreign national to enter the US legally, and to work here legally? Immigration law doesn't concern us 'red-blooded 'Mericans', because we're already citizens on the basis of having been born here, and generally to parents who were themselves US citizens. So people don't pay attention to the niceties of US immigration law.
Well, it's worth a look if you actually want to be knowledgeable about the whole illegal immigration issue. We've set up a system where you almost always are going to need to hire an immigration attorney in order to get that oh-so-sought-after green card. Which means it's expensive. And it also means it takes a long time. Both of which make it difficult for the poor outside of the US to enter our nation legally.
So streamlining, simplifying, and making the process of obtaining legal resident alien status more affordable would go a long ways to reducing illegal immigration.
But beyond that, you'd need to attack the real reason 'all them foreigners' want to come here in the first place.
Conditions in their home countries are bad. Very bad. And while to us things here in the good ol' US of A may not be all happiness and light, in comparison we live in a paradise. Our children have a chance to grow up, and not be shot, abducted, sold as child slaves, or otherwise abused and mistreated in a systematic way. One of the constants among all humans is a love for their children, and the desire to make a better life for ones children is and has been one of the biggest drivers of progress since the Stone Age. Guatemalans, Hondurans, El Salvadorans, Mexicans, you name it--they all are exactly like us in this regard.
And as long as those conditions remain as they are in those countries, and as long as things are immeasurably better here in the United States, we will continue to have illegal immigrants crossing our borders. After all, even the slightest chance for a better life is better than near-certain death there in their home countries.
So, with this, there are two options--for things to improve in their home countries, or for things here in the US to decline to the state that exists in those home countries. Of the two, I'd choose for things to get better there than worse here.
I'm not saying that we, the United States, should fund relief efforts in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, or anywhere else, for that matter. There are certain things that we, both as a nation and as individuals, to help make things better in those countries.
First off, civil society in large parts of these countries has just about collapsed. Drug cartels have taken over, subjugating and corrupting law enforcement and the courts, even taking over schools. First and foremost, justice--true justice--must prevail; all people must be subject to the same laws, and those who break those laws must be punished, as provided in those laws. No civil society can stand, without resorting to dictatorship, without justice.
Second, there must be hope for the future. A lot of that depends on education, and so that makes a perfectly good second step--establish free public schools, which will prepare their students for a better life than their parents knew.
Third, a fair and balanced (a tired, overworked, and in the case of Fox News, co-opted into something with an entirely different meaning) free market economy should be established. NOT one that allows foreign (US or not) companies to come in and dominate these countries, but one that both protects the business owners at all levels, and the employees, and the consumers.
The United States has not been the best neighbor (Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC (ret'd), who was twice awarded the Medal of Honor, had a few choice comments to make in this regard) to our southern neighbors. There's nothing we can do to change the past, but there's a lot we can do to improve the present and make a better future for us all.
