A Note On Immigration

Immigration is already becoming an issue for next year’s elections.. I suppose you could say that I am pro-immigrant. It somehow just seems what this country is about: people coming here for a variety of reasons trying to better themselves. Some people are concerned because the new arrivals, legal or otherwise, speak different languages or worship other gods.

Some say that they are not opposed to illegal immigration, just illegal immigration. Some may come from a legitimate fear about terrorism, but there really is not much correlation between terrorism and illegal immigration. Timothy McVeigh was native grown. Almost all of the September 11^th hijackers got in here legally. I suspect that most people who say they are only opposed to illegal immigration are really more concerned about immigrants whose skin is darker than theirs.

Although Spanish was being spoken in this country a century before Jamestown we panic when people use the language and start wondering who is up to what. We put far more border control personnel on the border with Mexico than we do the much-longer border with British North America [aka Canada]. The northern border, much longer and more porous, is an open invitation for people with less than good intentions to come in. And there is history for being concerned about the northern border. Remember the Millennium Plot? For that matter, remember whose shelling of Fort McHenry our national anthem was written about? Despite the history and the opportunity, we concentrate on the south.

If national security is the reason for Border Control and ICE [which are parts of the Department of Homeland Security], Border Control and ICE are looking the wrong way.

And so are so many of the rest of us.

Vaya con dios.