A VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS
By Rich Trzupek
Immigration Nation
For some, the immigration debate has degenerated into this: if you don�t support citizenship for anyone entering the U.S., by any means fair or foul, then must be a racist.
Now it�s impossible to deny that immigration issues in general have a certain racist appeal. In the 19th century, Americans were appalled by the �hordes� of Irish crossing the Atlantic. In the next century, Italians and, my ancestors, the Poles, were among the ethnic groups to earn the sneers of the entrenched population.
So, by definition, immigration� whether legal or illegal�is a volatile issue. �Those people� (whomever �those people� happen to be at the time) are a threat to some. It�s exactly the same logic that makes people oppose a neighboring subdivision once they have built their own home. Once you�ve got yours, the rest of the world can pound sand.
Fair enough, but there are rules, are there not? What makes this particular immigration debate different from all of the immigration debates we have had for 230 years is simply this: should immigration be an orderly, controlled process? Or, alternately, should we ignore the rules we have created to regulate immigration?
That difference is profound. Since the vast majority of illegal immigrants are Hispanic, the debate�in certain quarters�has been reduced to a question of whether one is a stupid cracker who hates Hispanics, or whether one is an open-minded soul who respects all cultures. Opponents of immigration reform, in other words, would like us to believe that anyone opposed to amnesty belongs in the former category.
Talk about �the easy way out.� Since when does enforcing the law involve prejudice?
I�ll grant you this: a certain almost among the people who advocate immigration reform are indeed racists. Yet, clearly, these people represent a minority.
The majority of people concerned about immigration are pretty ordinary folk, not closest members of the KKK. For them, it�s not a matter of who is coming into the country, it�s rather a matter of how they�re doing it.
The people upset by illegal immigration, not surprisingly, includes many immigrants who entered the country legally. And who can blame them? The immigration process, like just about every other bureaucratic process, is a royal pain in the rear.
It typically takes years for a prospective immigrant to work through all of the paperwork and processes involved. There are dozens of legal routes to chose from, not one clear cut system. If there�s any doubt that immigration procedures are a nightmare, one need only that it has spawned a horde of lawyers specializing in immigration laws. Wherever confusion lead, attorneys are sure to follow.
Many legal immigrants, who waited for years, who filled out all of the paperwork, who dealt with the attorneys or questions and bureaucrats, are very much annoyed by illegals. Nobody likes somebody cutting in front of them at the grocery store.
Living in America is not a right. It�s a privilege. That�s the simple truth.
Some people are offended when that statement is made. For them, it�s a terribly arrogant thing to say. �Americans have no right to think they�re better than anyone else,� they say. �We�re no different than anyone else.�
Of course we�re not. That�st the point. As individuals, we are the same as individuals the world over, an exasperating and uplifting mix of selfishness and selflessness, of brilliance and stupidity, of humility and pride. But the people who make such an argument stop short of the real point.
America is not a special place because we have better people, it�s because we have a better system, one that lets the goodness and talent of people shine through. Imperfect though that system may be, it still offers more freedom, more opportunity and more happiness than most any place on earth. That�s why people are so anxious to move here.
And the foundation of that system is the rule of law. American life is based on laws, not on the whims of a dictator, nor on some religious leader�s interpretation of God�s will. We�re a nation of laws, that exasperating, imperfect expression of the will of the masses.
When we say to hell with the law, the nation goes to hell as well. We�re not America any more.
The reason people are upset about illegal immigration is not the nature of the immigrants. It�s about the free pass. It�s about getting driver�s licenses and jobs and cheap mortgages, without having to deal with the legal processes the rest of us do�the legal processes that defines us as a nation.
If the people who support illegal immigration hope to have a voice in this debate, they need to stop throwing the words �prejudice� and �bigot� around like water. They need to start thinking about the law, what it means to the rest of us, and whether they would prefer to live in a democracy, or in anarchy. For immigration policy, as it stands for today, is nothing but anarchy�plain and simple.