Illegal immigration sounds frightening, right? Does it conjure up images of tattered masses of desperately poor people going after your rewarding and high-paying janitorial careers? It's illegal after all.
In a time when everyone seems afraid and our occupation of Iraq grinds past its third anniversary, it's interesting to look at how our government sees foreign people living in this country.
The Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) is a sweeping attack on undocumented immigrants. The resolution makes undocumented immigrants aggravated felons (just like, say, murderers) and also makes it a crime to help them in any way. Hundreds of miles of walls will also go up, just like in Berlin!
Stamp those jackboots down, Sensenbrenner! Make them pay for crossing our border to work for less than minimum wage, only so they can bring the rest of their families across the border.
People should be afraid to come to America! We don't want to get soft and seem too friendly or compassionate, despite our incredible wealth - that's how feudalism ended!
"Protectionism," you might say. "Racism," you might query. "Unnecessarily harsh action against a vulnerable community," you might posit.
However, Sensenbrenner is only reacting naturally. None of these people crossing the border have his white skin and shaky jowls. He is probably put off by the strange color of these immigrants, poor guy.
The usual radical groups, not to mention, of course, the Catholic Church, have criticized this legislation, which passed the U.S. House in December and is going to come up in the Senate soon. Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles said that if this becomes law, he would instruct his priests and nuns to disobey it and help undocumented immigrants. What a bunch of crazy radical liberals those Catholics are!
What's the point in having a "free" society if we cannot keep out all those tired, poor and huddled masses? There's only so much freedom to go around and we cannot just hand it out willy-nilly.
Consider that for a second. What kind of country would we have if immigrants and their children ran everything? I mean, who's an immigrant or descended from immigrants here? Anyone? Anyone?
However, this is only a scary gloss people like Sensenbrenner coat over the real plan. They don't want to keep out hardworking illegal immigrants. They just want to make it impossible for them to become citizens, because aggravated felons cannot become U.S. citizens. This is all a clever ploy to get out the real undesirables: people who might think differently.
Torture, war, wiretapping, fear, extraordinary rendition, more torture, secrecy, more war, mysterious hunting trips and even more torture. This is all a plan to make the U.S. government more reprehensible than usual to people who care about human rights, justice, equality and quaint little notions like that.
All they want is a country where those strange looking people from south of the border can never become U.S. citizens but still work long hours for little pay at menial tasks (you know, like slavery). And they do not want to hear any criticism about it.
What's so wrong with a country like that?
Information from - alternet.org; washingtonpost.com; judiciary.house.gov; "The Gospel vs. H.R. 4437," The New York Times, March 3, 2006
