The Linear Canvas
This journal is about the wrongs and rights of the world, as I see them.

The Linear Canvas

Illegal Immigration in the USA

March 31st, 2006 . by Alexander Fisher

I understand what Hillary Clinton was saying recently about illegal immigration reform legislation ("This bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself."). Some Republicans are so heartless they would approve of almost anything. They are the Romans that would martyr Jesus if he were alive today. Maybe they already have. That would also include killing and torturing people in Afghanistan, Cuba and Iraq.

The real question is whether illegal immigrants that seemingly have no love for America except our money, deserve a free ride to citizenship and does big business have the right to exploit them because of their citizenship status? We have laws that require several steps to gain US citizenship. Other countries have some sort of immigration guidelines, including Mexico and Canada. If I tried to enter those countries, I would be breaking the law unless I followed their rules. Citizens of those countries entering my country are doing the same.

I want immigration in the US. We gain some of our best citizens that way. What I do not want is immigrants entering the US illegally. Illegal means criminal. Criminal describes a business of any kind, that hires an illegal immigrant. The US government is conspiring with businesses to cut labor costs and to eliminate labor unions by allowing immigration to go unchecked. Even if you don’t like unions for some reason, they are why you don’t work twelve hour shifts six days a week, and why you make more that a dime an hour. That is your future if illegal immigration continues. Big business wants you to build their luxury yachts, live in poverty, and just shut up. American citizens fought the battle against big business in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and mostly succeeded. Some Americans are willing to give back those victories because they are afraid they might have to mow their own grass or change their own sheets.

The other losers in this equation are the immigrants themselves. As they drive the wages lower for everyone, the reward for living in the US becomes more and more diminished. America already seems like a third world country in some places, even without immigrants. Employers are effectively baiting foreigners to come here expressly to pay them less money than they would the legal residents.

I think the recent rallies were a lost opportunity for illegal immigrants. They could have shown us how much they appreciate the opportunities they have here. I believe they failed. The image of the immigrants waving flags of their birth nations was the wrong one to project. Had the immigrants waved American flags, some people might have less ammunition in this war of words. If any of these gatherings becomes violent, then that could seal their fate in the eyes of the nation.

Any business that hires illegal immigrants should be punished severely. But Immigrants should not be rounded up and sent back home en masse. That would send another awful message about America. It is difficult to distinguish that from racial cleansing in my mind. Just enforce the current laws. If there are no jobs, some will go home and the rest will try to become citizens, so they can get a job. That is the way it should be.

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