On Immigration

I've been meaning to write about a fascinating series of articles I read last week in the Times last week. The paper spent a week with three sisters, all born in Mexico, who decided to come to the U.S., like countless other immigrants, to try their luck at the American dream. One sister achieved legal residency, the other still lives as an undocumented immigrant (both in Texas) and the other gave up and went back home to Mexico, a decision she now regrets.

I wasn't sure what to say about these articles, other than that they reminded me so much of my own family's experience as immigrants. I thought about my mom coming to this country when she was 18 to work and support her family back in Colombia, a decision she's firecely proud of in spite of the toll it took on her health. I thought about my earliest memories from childhood and how they play out in Spanish in my mind. I thought about spending a day with my dad at his job at a factory, watching him press skirts all day and thinking it was the coolest job ever.

But then I read this article today via Reuters and I know exactly what to say about the debate that consumed so much of our time earlier this year.

Reuters followed two people in Phoenix who went to the Mexican consulate in Phoenix to burn the Mexican flag in public. The man and woman were expecting a larger turnout to their spectacle, and has reached out to Neo-Nazi groups to support their cause.

"We need to get rid of all those who are destroying our country," Pauly said as the national colors of United States' southern neighbor flamed out on the sidewalk in central Phoenix earlier this month. "We are being invaded."

[...]

Laine Lawless, the founder of the Arizona-based Border Guardians group, also reaches out to white supremacists online. In one recent e-mail to a Neo-Nazi group, she urged "warriors for the race" to intimidate Spanish-speaking school children, and rob aliens depositing funds in U.S. banks.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center: "We are seeing the radicalization of the existing vigilante groups, we're seeing more and more interaction between existing anti-immigration groups and genuinely white supremacist groups, Neo-Nazis and so on, and a rise in hate crimes against Hispanics."

***

This all comes down to selective politics.

The Republican Party, the same party that promotes faith and family values is out to purge this country of the one group who is probably most apt to embrace those same values. Meanwhile, the Democrats are fighting to let this group, who could very well turn their nose up at many of the party's values, entry to our country and its opportunities.

Here's where I stand on the issue of illegal immigration: People who are up in arms about it are racists. Those Latinos who say that the new wave of immigrants are threatening their own livelihood have forgotten what it was like for them to arrive here, with, as the saying goes, "a suitcase full of dreams."

As the line in the immigration debate now teters between racism and inclusion, I hope that our newly elected officials will focus on the problems that really drain our nation's resources (ahem, thewariniraq) and end the government-sanctioned bullying of a group that could very well advance the values our nation once had. You know, hard work, family, fear-of-God, love of country.