Posted by
Logical Party on Friday, February 08, 2008 10:34:34 AM
“Better Life Not A Crime”
by David DiBello (Reprinted from May, 2007)
Immigration is on deck this week on Capitol Hill as the government tries yet again to form a cohesive policy for a problem being addressed 11 million people too late. In 1992 we had about one million uninvited guests, but this gate crashing wasn’t perceived a problem until day laborers showed up on front lawns and shopping centers of suburbia. Previously the inner cities were where they belonged so we could ignore, like we do with the homeless.
Liberals proclaim “it’s a small world after all,” and believe we should be neighborly, making America everyone’s Mister Rogers. A world without borders is wonderful if this was heaven, but in a pragmatic world fearing terrorism, it reeks of irresponsibility. The Statue of Liberty greets all who dream of freedom and prosperity, but a realistic appraisal would be our cup doth run over, and money doesn’t grow on trees.
Pure Republicans don’t want to get too hasty in chasing out the undocumented because they supply a source of work whose wages are illegally substandard. Their concern is in keeping costs down for day laborers, live in nannies, day care and migrant workers. Who wants to pay more for home improvement, strawberries and gardening when they can pay $3 an hour off the books? Our health care and education systems are being weighed down by non paying illegals, yet we save on other services which seem like an offset. What happens in the year 2020, when these undocumented people retire, having no FICA credit let alone SS #?
Propaganda states the jobs offered are those Americans refuse to do, yet this past holiday season Disney offered jobs to dress as cartoon characters for $10 an hour and health care coverage and got an overwhelming patriotic response. It seems “good pay rules.”
Conservative legislators argue rounding up and shipping out illegals, unrealistic since we do not have the manpower, our National Guard being split between problems at home and a war overseas. To increase their size would mean additional funds. i.e. taxes, and well, they are conservatives.
Their one argument that gives a self righteous pause is “entering this country undocumented is a felony.” In addition to homegrown murderers, thieves and rapists we are adding people who never R.S.V.P.’ed us to the list of most heinous. Actually they received no invitation since coming to this country is limited mostly to those who have relatives here, or a legal job waiting, no matter what the Lady in the Harbor says.
If we could contact our great grandparents they would tell us how pretentious we are, and what extremes they would have tried to enter this country as safe haven away from famines, plaques and tyranny of their homelands. Just this week we had a boat capsize with refugees from Cuba , which shows people will risk their lives to seek financial and personal freedom. Their desires are no different from our forefathers, and their intentions should not be seen as criminal, but it is, which is par for the course from a country that once thought criminal people of color using the same sanitary facilities, restaurants or transportation.
If access to our country were made easier (decriminalizing people who yearn to be free), we wouldn’t have people risking their lives to enter, except for those who still wouldn’t qualify due to criminal conviction. A fence or moat would solve that problem, or we could simply round them up and jail or deport them, since they would then be the only ones trying to enter illegally.
The correct measure is to process and document illegals so we know who is here, and pay them the right salary so they become productive tax paying members of society, and in turn pay for the services they use. We seem to point the finger at immigrant cost, than the wages being denied, and call them criminal while we take advantage of them. It’s seems easer to blame the victim than solve the problem.