The Great Immigration Debate

I came across a similar image to the one on the left yesterday in a Facebook wall post.

I saw a snarky comment that someone had left under it pointing out in protest to the message in the image that the immigration debate is focused on “illegal” immigration.

[side note: Actually, the one I saw on Facebook omitted the word illegal. I couldn’t find that version for this post.]

So I made the following (admittedly equally snarky) comment…

I think the point is that other than the general ethnicity of the dude in the image, we’re all historically illegal.

So, why the snark?

Well, I’ll tell you why…

But I’ll start with a question…

The U.S. has four borders, right? Well, technically, two aren’t “borders”, but oceans, and one is Canada.

But it is that fourth one that stirs up all the fuss…the southern one.

Why is that?

Perhaps because that one is the one where on the other side, people are way different.

They sing “America the Beautiful” in a foreign tongue for god’s sakes!

Their differences make them a perceived threat.

Does anyone ever talk about building a wall to keep out the Canadians?

Once upon a time one of those other “borders” got invaded by folks who were way different than the ones currently occupying the land now called North America.

What happened next is pretty much a matter of settled history.

We, being us predominantly white Anglo-Saxons Protestants, took what had been theirs for a very long time.

Now was it “legal” for us to do so?

I guess that technically there was no settled law of the land at the time…but from the perspective of the current inhabitants…

I believe not.

Now does the fact that our ancestors were all “illegal” (in the sense of taking what wasn’t theirs) make us, 100’s of years later, also illegal?

I guess not.

BUT…

Isn’t that the same argument that can be made for the descendants of those who came here illegally from that pesky border to the south who now ask for the right to be made legally…

legal?

Okay, arguments against tortured arguments aside…

Moral for the great immigration debate, at least from my perspective…