Quotes that follow are from Mary's "Aunt Tildie"
As we sat and stirred our tea, she began again, more quietly. "You know, we have always taken great pride in our nation and our family's service to it, as patriotic as can be, and we revere our founders and the vision they had which was responsible for their creation of a free country, one of law and order, in which we could all work together for the common good. I lost a husband in World War I and a fiancée in the Spanish flu which followed after. Your own brothers and others of my nephews served in World War II, some perished, and others came home with terrible wounds and mental problems, but none of us, including them, ever questioned the rightness of their sacrifice.
"That's what it means to be a citizen of this great country, to love it enough to sacrifice everything for its continuation. We have seen many immigrants from many nations come to our shores. The Africans, of course, had no choice in the matter, being kidnapped and brought in as slaves. but they became as good citizens as any. So did the Irish in fleeing the potato famine, the Jews fleeing persecution in Europe, and all the rest who dreamed for years of a life of freedom and opportunity. They all suffered prejudice and poverty until they learned our language and adapted to the American way of life.
"They were all different, but they had one thing in common. They knocked on the door, so to speak, made application to immigrate and they waited their turn for admission. They filed their papers and were processed according to our laws and, once here, they worked hard at learning our language and our way of doing things until now, when they are part of our common culture and our destiny. This is also true of those of Mexican ancestry whose ancestors were either here at the time of the founding or legally migrated later.
"But these people have broken down our back door and come into our home, taken the food from our children, stolen our jobs, our schools, and our health care, and now they insist that we put their name on the title to the house! It just is not right!"
"We don't need to round them up and ship them back! We can enforce the law against hiring them. We can forbid the free medical care, the free education for their children so that they will know that they have to go home. We can set a date, three years, five years, while we secure the border, that they have to go home. Have offices ready in Mexico to issue secure identity cards like the ones some states use for food stamps, a swipe card with a secret PIN number. They will have to go back to get the card and then we can keep track of them and know where they are."
"Well, they don't seem to want to pay their dues for citizenship but think they only have to get here and then, perhaps pay for the privilege," I suggested.
"Pay their dues! I like that expression!" she chortled, "Previous immigrants paid their dues, for sure. Long before they came here, they applied for visas and then they waited, sometimes for years. During that time, they studied and they planned. They knew that they must know some English and so they studied; they read and talked to people who had been here; they considered which part of this great land would suit them better for climate and have work that they knew how to do. They didn't just throw a pack on their back and sneak across the border in the middle of the night to come here and just take whatever they want!
I suggest you read the whole article, Aunt Tildie's opinion.
As for me, well, I cannot quite decide on this issue.
I tend to agree with Aunt Tildie. Illegal immigrants are just that, illegal. They have in fact broken the law. On these grounds, should they be excused just because they been here for years and not been caught? No. They should not be awarded just because America has been lax in enforcement of immigration law.
On the other hand, I am well aware that the business community is very dependant on immigrant labor, legal or illegal. That is just the facts as they stand. They are filling jobs that companies (and individuals) cannot find American workers for the same low labor cost. If they had to hire American workers for the same jobs, they would have to pay more and pass that increase on to customers. But again, is this a reason to ignore immigration law?
Thorny issue. We each have to decide.
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