The debate over immigration

Yesterday (Friday, April 7, 2006) the U.S. Senate sidetracked immigration legislation, giving only 38 votes on an important procedural test which was far short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill. Both sides, of course, were pointing their fingers at each other and attempting to assess blame. The bill would have at least given the hope of citizenship to millions of people living in the United States illegally.

And therein lies the rub…. That "illegal" word… Illegal aliens. Because we live in a country of laws, many of us automatically attach a negative value judgment to anything that is illegal because, due to its very definition, it violates a law. But we've also talked many times in this column about the fact that most people violate laws everyday without half the country getting up in arms over it. What is it about an "illegal immigrant" that provokes the wrath of so many people?

It begins with a fairly simple but convoluted concept that has been a thorn in the side of this country for many, many years. That is the perspective that America is for Americans and no one else should come here unless they arrive legally. But most of us know that, when it comes to immigration, "legal" simply means their immigration is sanctioned by the state. We hear from the higher ups that only "good" people with clean criminal histories are allowed to immigrate legally and that, consequently, legal immigration keeps out the riff-raff, the criminals and the undesirables from other countries.

Except we also know that this isn't necessarily true. Riff-Raff, criminals and undesirables still get into this country even with legal immigration. There is also a presumption about illegal aliens that is unsupported as well and that is that all illegal aliens are a part of the riff-raff, criminals and undesirables that we are trying to keep out in the first place. That's simply not true.

Most illegal aliens in this country are hard-working people trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. In fact, many of them send most of the money they earn here back home to support the families they left behind. Drive past a construction site in the near future and see who's doing the work as opposed to who's leaning on the beds of the pickup trucks talking to each other.

So, on the one hand we have a significant part of the population who wants to make it tougher for illegals to find their way into the U.S. by making it a felony crime to cross our borders illegally. Some people, including the U.S. Senator from Nebraska, Ben Nelson, have proposed building high walls the length of our southern border to keep these illegals out.

The answers aren't easy. I don't think too many jobs are taken away from American workers by illegal immigrants because they typically are hired to do the jobs the American workers didn't want to do to begin with. When it comes to welfare rolls, educational benefits, paying taxes, etc. some people say the story is much different. They contend that illegal immigrants shouldn't get any benefits American citizens are supposed to be receiving.

There are no easy answers to the problem. My biggest issue with those people who vehemently oppose any illegal immigration and desire to brand these people as felons is that it is not through their behavior necessarily that their status is illegal.

It is a governmental decision, an administrative decision, a bureaucratic decision and we all know how many times those decisions turn out to be just plain wrong.

It's too bad we don't know for sure that every legal immigrant will be a law-abiding, norm abiding, melting-pot American and that every illegal immigrant is riff-raff, criminal, and undesirable. But that's just not the case. And it will never be the case. There is a mix of both in both categories. There always has been and there always will be, not to even mention the riff-raff, the criminals, and the undesirables that are native born Americans that we're just stuck with because they're American citizens. Too bad we can't deport some of them too.

Finally, as this debate continues right up until the November elections and probably beyond, remember that the United States is a land of immigrants. The only native Americans are the American Indians and we all know what happened to them. All the rest of us are from somewhere else, at least our ancestors were. And many of them most likely arrived in this country "illegally" as well.

I don't think we should open up our borders and let everyone in but the answer to the illegal immigration "problem" is not as obvious as some would have you believe.