IMMIGRATION

Most of our ancestors came to the United States because they were poor and starving or because they were being killed for their beliefs.

Usually, first generation immigrants are sympathetic to other immigrants. By the second or third generation, the children and grandchildren of immigrants are US citizens through and through. This is a good thing except when the US citizen decides that now that (s)he is here, the country is too full for anyone else.

This country has a history of appalling prejudice against large groups of immigrants. We did not allow the Chinese to buy property, we made insulting jokes against the Irish and the Poles, we interred Japanese Americans during World Was II. Waves after wave of immigrants were met with poverty and prejudice when they came to the US.

Now we are again being hostile to immigrants from Mexico and South America. We call them names, and want them rounded up and sent home.

Whenever illegal immigration happens overseas, we are all sympathy. We call the people refuges, and demand that they be treated with dignity.

Illegal immigration is less likely to happen if the illegal immigrants are not better off the moment they step foot in the US. Unfortunately, our corporations are addicted to cheap labor. They hire the illegals through subcontractors to avoid legal penalties.

Illegal immigration is a crime. It is also a crime to steal food even if you are starving.

Honestly, if we want people to stay in Mexico, we need to help Mexico become a country where people have an opportunity to make a living wage. There is NO WAY we can protect our border from being crossed by people so desperate that they will risk death in order to come here.

We CANNOT come to a sensible solution until we stop calling people names and until we stop looking for the easy one sentence answer.

This is a very complex question. We need to THINK about the solution.

Unless you are 100% Native American, your ancestors immigrated to the US, so have a little sympathy for the newest strangers among us.

DECISIONS MADE OUT OF FEAR AND ANGER are ALWAYS bad decisions. Please stop spreading fear and anger so that we can come to a solution that makes us proud to be Americans.