immigration

Is it just me, or do other people find this quote, attributed to former President Theodore Roosevelt, troubling?

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

The context I'm referring to it in is an e-mail that's been making the rounds recently, presumably in response to the recent debate over immigration and how the United States should respond to the large numbers of illegal immigrants in the country. Some people favor an amnesty that would give them all at least temporary amnesty, while others are favoring deportation and more stringent efforts to stop illegal immigration, such as erecting a twelve-foot fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

 

Back in the 1990s, when California was discussing Proposition 42 or whatever it was, about providing education and other things for the illegal immigrant population, I heard a lot about all the Mexicans coming into the country, ruining our culture, refusing to speak our language, and taking away jobs from Americans.

 

I think a lot of those same sentiments are driving the recent anti-immigration push; i.e., the idea that letting too many Hispanics in is going to dilute something essentially American about our nation and turn it into something else. Hence the call for a fence. (I can't help but wonder if that means they consider Mexicans to be vermin like the rabbits in Australia, or if they see themselves as safeguarding our way of life like the Soviets did when they erected the Berlin Wall.)

 

The truth is that immigrants � both legal and illegal � in America have done a lot to enrich our society. They bring a strong sense of industry, not only to succeed themselves but to build a better life for their children and to support their families back home; they enrich our culture with elements of their own, such as Cinco de Mayo, soccer and the Spanish language, in the case of Mexican immigrants; and they do a lot to keep some industries moving, such as agriculture and construction, since they're willing (or forced, through circumstance) to work for less than citizens and legal immigrants.

 

And as many have pointed out, it's not like it really is all that easy to enter the country through proper legal channels. When a situation is a desperate one, it's not surprising that many people have chosen desperate solutions like trying to cross the desert and find employment.

 

None of which means we should turn a blind eye toward illegal immigration, which can cause problems for our country as we assume responsibility for the health and well-being of people we don't even know are here, costs hundreds or thousands of lives annually in failed or misguided attempts to sneak across the border, and so on.

 

There has to be a middle ground we can find. Non-U.S. citizens receive automatic citizenship after they serve in the armed forces; surely we can recognize the contributions people have made to our nation and society after they have been in our country for several years, gainfully if illegally employed, and at least give them legal residency? Surely we can focus our enforcement efforts on employers who support the illegal immigration industry by paying workers under the table, rather than stripping away the hopes of people who risked their lives to come here in pursuit of a dream that our own ancestors chased hundreds of years ago?

 

And surely we can cut the crap about how they're harming America by coming here?