Citizens of a Diverse Country
Last week, twenty thousand people--all with strong opinions about illegal immigration--gathered downtown in Indy to voice those opinions. The result--the city's largest march and rally in a decade, jamming downtown streets.
What should happen to "illegal" immigrants? Should those born in Mexico or another country be allowed to just walk right into America and be allowed the same rights that those of us that were born here are provided? I guess I don't exactly think so. But I don't think we should tighten our borders or just "ship 'em out" either.
I'm not afraid of immigrants taking over our jobs. I'm not afraid of Spanish (or any other language for that matter) becoming a dominant language in the U.S. And I'm not afraid of whites becoming just another minority. But I do believe that it's fair to ask those from another country that want to reside in the U.S. and make a life here to follow a certain process.
What I don't think I agree with is that that process should be as hard as it is. From what I've heard, the process to become an American citizen is not all that much fun or easy. The only thing most of us did to become an American citizen was to be born. Why should we make it so hard for those that weren't quite as fortunate?
Here are my thoughts. Immigrants that come into the U.S. should be allowed to do just that - come in. No need for border strengthening - the U.S. is already a melting pot of diversity, and I think that's great. Every culture, every person, is valuable - why keep people out? But - if they really want to be a part of our country - live here, work here, etc - I think it's fair to ask that they go through the proper procedures. Or they don't get the same rights that we do, at least not by just walking in.
It's just to ask people to comply with the laws of our nation if they want to obtain the rights that the nation's citizens have. But there's no reason to be unfair and mean about it. What kind of nation would that really make us? Not one I'm so sure that I would be proud to be a citizen of, I'm afraid.
1 Comments:
Getting rid of social security, welfare, and all the other handouts would help solve the problem as they're a big draw for people to come to America and leech off the system.
I have no problem with them coming here. They can work here on visas which are not too hard to obtain. If they actually want to become citizens I have no problem with a "hard" test, which basically requires them to learn about our history and how our government works. We're talking about the difference between just working here, and being an active part of our government and how it's run.
Hey, if they learn that, they'll be doing a lot better than most Americans - 1/4 of whom think that the First Amendment guarantees the right to have and raise pets (yes, a recent poll showed that).
And at the risk of being technical, rights are inherent for every human being, not granted by governments. So you're referring to government-granted privileges, not rights (i.e. Social Security, welfare, citizenship, etc.)
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