"What Is This "Crime," Really?
By Orson Scott Card
"A fifteen-year-old boy -- let's call him David -- has been yearning for his driver's license for a long time.
But today all thoughts of waiting for his license are out the window, because his little sister cut herself and he can't stop the bleeding...So David puts his sister in the car and, holding a towel on the wound to apply pressure, he drives...heading for the nearest medical emergency center.
...a state trooper sees him driving too fast and pulls him over. David tries to explain that he's only driving illegally in order to save his sister's life, but the trooper doesn't listen.
He drags David out of the car and handcuffs him and yells at him that he has no business driving a car without a license...
I'm sick at heart about the number of Americans, including friends of mine who should know better, who are proud of being exactly like that state trooper, when it comes to the question of illegal immigrants.
"They have no right to be here in the first place. If we give these people amnesty and let them stay and apply for citizenship, we only encourage more illegal immigration in the future. Besides, they use up our welfare and add to our school costs without paying taxes!"
In vain do the immigrants try to explain that their families were desperately poor...
Why can't we look at what these people are actually doing? Why can't we see the bleeding child in the passenger seat, and realize that most of these illegal immigrants are doing precisely what you or I would do in the same circumstances?
...
So what is this vile crime of "illegal immigration"...It consists of crossing over an arbitrary line that somebody drew in the dirt a century and a half ago. On one side of the line, poverty, hopelessness...
On the other side of the line, plenty of jobs that...would save your family's lives, give you hope for your children...
Wouldn't you take any risk to get across that line?..."
By Orson Scott Card
Read the rest of this heartfelt article and another one on immigration at
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/
--
There are, of course, complications in this difficult issue. About twenty percent of illegal immigrants are criminals. They need to be arrested and deported.
And we need to have Congress and the President figure out a humane way for hard-working, law-abiding illegal immigrants to pay a fine for their breaking the law and then help them become citizens if they wish to do so. Also, our immigration policy needs to favor the poor and wretched of the earth as it once did!
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
On the Statue of Liberty
Emma Lazarus
And at the same time, we all need to remember that most of the American Southwest was stolen by American crooks about 170 years ago!
A biblical passage comes to mind on all of this: “He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens...
Hebrew Bible, Deuteronomy 10:18-19
2 comments:
It does say, "Send me your tired, your poor" - not "send me your Rich and Famous and Trouble-Free" - right??? I forget sometimes. :)
I think we all forget that, at some point, all the people who came to this country were immigrants - so we are descendants of immigrants. By that logic, we don't have much right to be here either. And when one is at the top of the game (like our "beloved" Rulers), it is even easier to forget realities of life - and the reasons why they are there in the first place...
I'd better stop now because I just learned that Michigan passed a law allowing EMT's to discriminate against gays. So what happened to "all men were created equal?" Like I said, I'd better stop there.
Yes, otherwise rightwingers will start saying, 'Isn't her name odd? She's not English is she? No, one of them Russians, a commie, probably drinks vodka';-0)
Seriously, the news of late has gotten really tragic, more so because with all the education and instant news available, so many humans yet seem to be stepping backward rather than forward.
Post a Comment