apropos of anything

I told myself I was going to stay away from this subject because the last bout of flaming is still too fresh in my mind, but I’m surrounded by headline after headline, opinion after opinion, nine hours a day, and I’m just bursting to throw my hat into the ring. I know I shouldn’t, but here I go anyway.

The immigration debate is one I take very personally because my parents are immigrants. I am one of those who have directly benefitted from the “lamp beside the golden door.” The life, and the opportunities, I have as an American are vastly different than what I would have had as an Indian child. Much as I love India, much as India has grown in terms of economy and social issues, I’ve always been so glad and so grateful that I grew up here instead.

It would seem odd then, that as the child of immigrants, I am strongly in favor of tighter borders and more stringent immigration laws.

My parents did it the right way. They waited for the visas and the green cards. My father came over on a student visa, applied for a greencard, and once that was approved, he applied for my mother and my brother. Legally. The whole process took years, during which my parents were separated and my father barely got to see his son, but they didn’t cheat, they didn’t cut corners. They did it the way it’s supposed to be done. Why should somebody else get to circumvent the system?

I’ve heard of people who came in on a visa and then never left. I clearly remember all of the men who came to visit my mother when I was a child, hoping she could find them an American-born girl to marry so they could get green cards. It didn’t matter who they married — short, tall, ugly, pretty, smart, uneducated, tempermental, bitchy, whatever — so long as she had citizenship status. (This, by the way, is one reason I am so picky about who I marry; I am not going to be an American visa for a man who doesn’t care if I have two legs so long as I have one American birth certificate.)

And then there are the border-scramblers, the people who live close enough that they can pay a smuggler (of HUMANS!) to get them over the fence or through the tunnels. If you have to resort to sneaking, there’s a distinct possibly you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing.

Today is a “national day of action for immigration justice”, which means thus far thousands of people have taken to the streets in protest, or in solidarity, or in whatever, many of them carrying signs that say, “We just want our rights.” Except… you’re illegal. That means you have no rights. You cannot demand what was never yours to begin with. If you scale a wall or scurry through a tunnel, if you have come on a student/visitor visa and never leave, if you marry somebody you’ve never met because she’s an American citizen and you’re not… YOU ARE ILLEGAL. You do not get to self-righteously demand “a better life.” You do not get to demand anything, except perhaps transport back to your country of residence.

We have laws. We have them for a reason, and a simple desire for “a better life” is not enough to pretend they don’t exist. Everybody wants a better life. Why should it go to the people who push their way through instead of the people who wait patiently? Why should it go to the people who blatantly disregard the system instead of the people who are willingly to obey the rules?

The media, and the Republicans, have made much of the security side to the immigration debate. “It’s a security issue,” we hear over and over again. “We can’t just let anybody in.” The general assiness of that statement aside, if we’re going to spend more than 80 billion dollars on a war in Iraq (that we’re allegedly fighting to make our nation more secure), the very least we could do is make sure our borders aren’t so porous that smuggling in materials for a dirty bomb is easier than getting your license renewed at the DMV.

There’s also the argument that illegals do the kind of work the rest of us wouldn’t touch for wages the rest of us would mock. They keep our prices down by working under the table for less than minimum wage. For a moment let’s suspend the tax and healthcare issues and consider only what kind of a lifestyle is supported by less than minimum wage. Would I pay a little bit more to keep companies like Wal-Mart from skimming every available penny they can? I sure would.

I love how many different kinds of people you see on American streets. I love how even as a child of immigrants, I’ve always felt American, unlike my European counterparts who have spent generations feeling outcast and unwelcome. I know that has everything to do with America being a country built entirely of immigrants, and I’m not at all anti-immigration. I simply believe anyone who wants the privilege of living here should observe the laws we have in place. It’s the first step towards being a good citizen.

Post a comment

Name: (required)

Email Address: (will not be published) (required)

URL:

Comments: