Immigration - Continued Thoughts

Effective questions are ones that take a long time to answer. Even if we don't find a solution, they help us to pay closer attention, to dig a little deeper.

Yet in the end, if we don't become the answer to the questions that we're asking, then it doesn't matter how good those questions are, because nothing will change.

“The US should send those immigrants packing back across the southern border.”

This recent statement from someone impassioned me to write my last blog. I wrote with the hope to bring some humanity to the issue, rather than firstly jumping into the legalities and statistics of immigration.

So let us firstly be aware of the importance of human dignity in approaching this issue. And with this compassion present, now I’m wondering what the realistic and effective solutions are for this phenomenon.

The U.S. cannot harbor all of the world’s impoverished and marginalized peoples.

And that’s not to say that immigration should be illegal.

Nor is it to say that the immigrants that come here to escape the poverty at home are even the most destitute. No. The poorest people have no way out. So, in some sense, the immigrants that are journeying here are “the better off ones.”

If that’s the case, then are we really making an effective impact by allowing a certain quota of immigrants to enter the U.S. each year? What about all the people that were turned away from our borders? And what about all the people that will never gain the resources and ability to even try to leave, or to change the deprived and distressed situations of their lives and country?

And nor am I intending to judge, accusing the U.S. of not making efforts to reach out and to help those that reach to us with their hands open, asking and waiting.

I’m simply writing, because I don’t have all the questions or answers, but as a combined force, I think we could. And I’m hoping to encourage further debate and awareness on the subject.

How can we fulfill our responsibility in this world issue? How can we foster a positive impact of change and humanity (and not one of paternalism) within these impoverished countries, striving to make a better life for those who have been cast aside?

What power of change is the U.S. capable of in this situation?

“Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for—because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.” ~Peter Marshall

Immigrant

Today I heard an individual claim that “the US should send those immigrants packing back across the southern border.”

Wow.

I’m not going to ramble on about the politics and legality of immigration; rather I’m going to try to bring some humanity to the issue.


If you were the marginalized, that came from a broken country, in the hemisphere with the highest murder rates; from a place where poverty is institutionalized, where the environment is irrevocably degraded; from a corrupt government with polarized politics, and where the economy is an avaricious predator…

Wouldn’t you try to get out?

Wouldn’t you try to make the world your f–ing oyster too?

Yeah. Your oyster. That’s how we U.S. citizens view life, right? “The world is your oyster”, a.k.a., you can do anything, achieve anything, you can be all that you can be, you can believe in change yes you can, you can change yourself—you can change the world! (And here the heavens burst into a celestial sky, and the angels sing, “God bless America”, as we look out on the great frontier of our Western World.)

But are we a great nation? To these people that journey here with different hopes and ideas, their open asking hands held out and waiting, do we meet them with our single clenched fist lifted and ready? Is this the great US of A?

An immigrant is not a “they” or “them”; they are a “you” and “me”, for we all live a life filled with such commonalities as our families, friends, goodness, cruelty, hopes, fears, dreams, and thoughts. If we further marginalize these immigrants, we turn our back on responsibility. We only dig a deeper pit of poverty and deprivation for part of humanity to return to and to be engulfed by.

But I believe that we can do better. “We do big things. The idea of America endures.” We are a great nation; we have done great things; we will do great things.

Unfortunately though, we have done terrible things as well. And for these actions, we are accountable to both hemispheres. Some of the countries south of the US border, many of their sufferings from poverty and corruption, the US has been a lead perpetrator. Our country—the USA—has had a greedy hand, and thus, has been an instigator of the impoverished and grim conditions of the lives that have been marginalized and cast aside.

History and Politics are difficult subjects to study. It’s a challenge to know and to understand all the facts and consequences. But I think there’s enough information out there, and that most of us have the ability to determine some crucial facts, and to find some truth in these matters.

Ask yourself, “Do we know the role that the US has played in the history of these countries—how our country has affected the economies, governments, cultures, and lives of other countries?”

My 24 years hardly make me an expert on these issues; so I won’t attempt to ramble on about the facts and dates. But do your research; try to understand what it might be like to leave the familiarity of your own country; try to comprehend some of the truer causes of immigration. Briefly skim some of the links below, and further investigate the United State’s involvement in this hemisphere.

And let us always think of this:

How will we treat those in the shadows of life? That is our moral test in life. That will determine the content of our character. May we challenge our self to add new life and opportunity to the lives—the years that remain—of those immigrants who cross borders, who risk and lose more than we may know, in order to arrive in our nation.


“There is a destiny that makes us brothers:

None goes his way alone:

All that we send into the lives of others

Comes back onto our own.”

~Edwin Markham


School of Americas
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=School_of_the_Americas
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Terrorism/SOA.html

El Salvador
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Heroes/Oscar%20_Romero.html
http://www.credenda.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=396:lessons-of-el-mozote&catid=97&Itemid=122

Guatemala
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_Guat.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'état
http://www.content4reprint.com/recreation-and-leisure/travel/united-fruit-company-in-guatemala-us-invasion-for-a-bunch-of-bananas.htm

Nicaragua
http://www.soaw.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=325

Argentina
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124125440