I saw a video while
following another news story. The headline got my attention. Why wouldn't a
smart young woman with a 4.0 grade average be able to get into college?
The headline was
manipulative and so was the plea by the teacher, Clint Smith. That is what the
whole video was designed to do. I was manipulated by my emotions. It's easy to
do when you have a caring heart and want to help out someone who is less
fortunate. But, like so many other issues, some of the facts are missing or
slanted far from true.
As sad as this is for
Maria, what Clint Smith forgets is that this country was built on legal
immigrants, people who waited at Ellis Island to be allowed to enter the
country and become American citizens, not on people who defy the laws and sneak
into the country. Maria suffers because her parents did not get in legally. It
would not matter if Maria were yellow or red or white or black. Her parents
broke the law. It doesn't matter the reason they broke the law. It does matter
that they broke the law and must pay for that crime.
This is no longer the
New World, a wide land of meadows, trees, plains, and forests waiting to be
expanded and built upon. We are not an undiscovered country; we have been here
for over 200 years, and we have laws. What would happen in any other country in
the world where millions cross their borders and bear and raise their children
and expect to be given the rights of full citizenship when their presence is
based on a lie, on breaking the country's laws? Yes, the young who know nothing
else will suffer, but it is their parents to whom they must look for answers,
not the country that is following its own laws. Laws their parents broke.
These people cannot
be allowed to break the laws of the country they sneaked into and expect to be
given full citizenship as a result. That makes the laws of this country worth
nothing and our borders no more lasting than a soap bubble in a wind storm. As
much as my heart aches for the children, it is not the fault of the country or
the law that puts them in the untenable position of not belonging; it is their
parents' disregard for the laws of this land they illegally entered that is the
problem and from that must come the solution.
America is the land
of the free and the home of the brave, but it is also a land of laws. You
cannot be free no matter how brave you were escaping poverty in your own
country if you are not willing to obey the laws. That is what we must keep
uppermost in mind. We have not denied Maria a college education; her family
has. We have not ignored her hard work and her good grades; her family has. We
have not denied her access to a better life; her family has. That is the cost
of such a lie. The cost is in the damage her parents did to her by allowing her
to believe she was an American and entitled to what her school fellows are
legally entitled to because they are citizens?
Did her parents at
any time seek to redress the wrong they did Maria by appealing to Immigration
to become an American citizen? Until the 7 million illegal immigrants are
willing to own up to their lies and the ways in which they broke the laws of
this land and go through the naturalization process, waiting in line like all
those refugees who landed at Ellis Island waited and hoped, then they cannot
and should not be allowed to stay in this country and be given amnesty. It's a
hard truth, but it is the truth.
I understand how
Clint Smith feels about Maria. I felt the same way about a young man I once
knew in Arvada, Colorado. He was a young man of Mexican heritage and he had
just been rewarded for his hard work by a raise and a promotion to assistant
manager of a local fast food restaurant. I was happy for him. His world came
crumbling down when corporate headquarters fired him. He had done nothing
wrong, at least as far as I could see, but then the story came out. He was an
illegal immigrant who had lived and worked in Arvada for over 10 years. He
showed me the letter he received from the social security department stating
that the SS number he used was invalid and that he would be required to use the
new card they had enclosed. Social Security knew he was illegal, but they gave
him a valid card and number. The like to get their payments on time and in
full, and he had used the correct number on all subsequent tax filings and at
work. The social security system still marked him as an illegal immigrant.
The restaurant where
he worked knew he was illegal from the beginning, but they continued to employ
and pay him and take taxes, social security, etc. from his wages and report
them to the right governmental offices. They had no problem with him working
for them as long as he maintained a low profile, a profile that could no longer
be maintained when he was promoted to assistant manager, a position he earned.
He had risen in the ranks and he had become with that rise more visible in the
system and the corporation more accountable for hiring and paying an illegal
immigrant.
From what I soon
found out, this is a common practice all over America. Forget about sweat shops
and businesses that operate at a profit below the radar only to be raided by
the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS). Those raids you see in
movies and on TV are the tips of a very large field of icebergs. The truth is
more subtle with far more tendrils and roots throughout the governmental
system. Illegal immigrants are not difficult to find. The government has always
known where they are and how to find them, but chooses not to do so.
I felt sorry for
Rafael and went with him to a lawyer specializing in making illegal immigrants
into legal American citizens. I was so moved by his story that I was willing to
marry him to help him get a green card and become an American citizen. His
girlfriend of several years, a natural born American, though she loved him
deeply and wanted to marry him, could not because her father forbade it. He
knew Rafael was illegal and he would not allow his daughter to compound
Rafael's crime by marrying him and allowing him to get a green card. Their
marriage would not have been a sham as my marriage to him would be. The girl's
father had been born in America after his parents legally entered this country
and became American citizens and demanded his children uphold the laws of this
land, their land. She followed her father's wishes and broke off her
relationship with Rafael. It was a heart breaking moment for him and I was sad
to see it happen.
Full of righteous
indignation and caring for my friend, I was willing to flout the law -- for
him. That is the problem. Like Clint Smith, I wanted to right what I saw as a
wrong done to my friend. I was wrong. The law has to be upheld no matter the
cost to the heart in this case. Rafael knew he did wrong. He wanted to escape
the few choices he had in his own land and was willing to break the laws of
this land, America, to get what he wanted. He told me if he was deported he
would have to wait for 2 years before he could apply again.
Rafael's family was
not poor; they were middle class. His younger brother was employed by the
government of Mexico and held a responsible position in the local government
and was rising quickly. His family owned property and lived a good life, but
Rafael wanted more, and he was willing to break into this country to get it. To
cross the border illegally to get away from what he saw as few choices and
fewer chances to rise.
He told me about how
much he paid to get here, how he was given a social security card, and taught
how to evade discovery. Rafael was also told that the longer he lived in
America the harder it would be for him to be caught and deported. He would play
the waiting game that millions had played and continue to play now. Having
children on American soil would make his children Americans and it was a tool
Rafael could use to his advantage in remaining in America and forcing the
government to make him a legal citizen.
As he opened the
doors to this dark underworld of corruption, lies, and crime, I was saddened --
and appalled. Rafael was no Cuban fleeing repression and risking death to cross
the water in a leaky boat overloaded with people nor was he a Vietnamese family
crowded into boats too small to hold the fleeing hordes and crossing the
Pacific fighting the odds in the hope they could make it to America. Rafael is
a middle class Mexican man who deliberately gamed the system, playing the odds
so he could become an American.
Maria and her family
are different, but not all that different. They were poor and they risked
capture and being turned back when they raced across the desert to sneak past
the border guards to come into America illegally. The story Clint Smith tells
about running through the darkness and hiding in fertilized fields beneath
trucks to avoid detection by dogs has nothing to do with fleeing their own
forces. They were fleeing detection by American border guards, sneaking in
under cover of darkness to exploit weaknesses in our border patrols. As
dramatic and shocking as it is, what Maria and her family did was commit a
crime. Maria was a small child and did what she was told, but her parents knew
what they were doing and were willing to risk it. To risk their child's safety
and life to break the laws of this country. That is a fact.
No amount of
emotional manipulation can change the facts. Maria is not culpable, and I
understand her parents' reasons for getting out of their own country, seeing
America as the Promised Land, but they broke the law. Millions of people like
Maria's family have broken the law. Do we bow to sentiment and allow our
emotional buttons to be pushed or do we stand by our laws and the laws of this
country. Do we keep out people who have entered the country legally and maybe
doom someone whose life is in immediate danger from their own government to
uphold the Marias and their families who broke the law? Forget sentiment.
Either uphold the law or bow to emotional manipulation and doom someone who did
obey the law. That is the choice.
Either
uphold the law or bow to emotional manipulation and doom someone who did obey
the law to possibly death. That is the choice.
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