Immigration: Where do I really come down?

For a while I have been talking about immigration and in support of many illegal immigrants, but do I believe that anything goes? What are my non-negotiables? What do I concede to the right? Do I have anything in common with Lou Dobbs? Well, I do receive his updates!

Let's start at the beginning. I have been working directly with immigrant students in one way or another off and on since I was in high school and I have counted some of them as my best friends. I have been to their homes, met their families, know their struggles. Many have been here legally. Many have not. Some have come legally as students and then searched for ways to stay. Of course, even before I worked with and befriended immigrants, I was and still am a patriotic American who stands when the flag passes during the 4th of July parades, and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am one of those goodie two shoes who does what's right and tries to follow the rules. I tell the cashier when she has given me too much change. I believe in rules. I also believe in hard work, efficiency, justice and goodwill.

I have known many law-abiding, hard-working honest people who have been treated rudely and capriciously in U.S. embassies and consulates in Brazil when applying for visas. I know of people who would just like to come back and forth to the U.S., but are afraid they'll be denied a visa the next time on the whim of some consular clerk, so they decide they are better off staying. I know of hard-working honest people who have been jumping through hoops, taking off days from work and wading through mazes of paper work for years only to have something lost by our government and then told they were out of compliance. I have known wealthy, lazy, well-connected foreigners whose parents can pay for expensive undergraduate degrees in our nation's top universities who partied through college sniffing coke in the VIP rooms of the best dance clubs whose dads got them set up with some internship or job after graduation and can come and go at will from our country.

This country's whole immigration policy is a disgrace. The bureaucracy approaches and often surpasses the inefficiency of the third world government institutions with which I have had contact. Many people talk about coming here legally--in this day and age, for most perspective immigrants that is far more easily said than done.

Our borders? Porous at best. Our messages--mixed. Don't sneak in, but once you do, there is plenty of work and realistically, the government is going to turn a blind eye on those who employ you. Don't ask. Don't tell. What we don't know won't hurt us. We don't really want to make new homes more expensive or price lettuce out of the grocery budgets of the middle class, so we'll use the illegals as a tool against inflation.

In the last few weeks we have seen some crack-downs on major employers of illegals, in what we are assured is coincidental timing. How many years did it take for these companies to accumulate so many illegal workers?

In the meantime, who the hell is here with the honest, hard-working families, a few terrorists? Who knows? What a mess.

• We need to enforce the borders--really.
• We need to know who is here.
• We need to stream-line the legal path to immigration.
• We need the legal process for both short and long-term visas to be transparent and fair.
• We need to wake-up to the fact that there are too many people here already to round up and deport en masse.
• We need to acknowledge the contribution that many of the illegals have made.
• We need to accept those who have been peaceably working or studying for a long period of time in this country and give them a chance to truly assimilate and be a full part of the nation.
• Once we have take these steps, we need to clamp down hard on those who employ illegals and who act as a magnet for their continuing arrivals.

The Hagel-Martinez compromise bill that was presented in the U.S. Senate is a good starting point. They would allow those illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for at least five years to pay a fine and back-taxes, show they have been working and agree to learn English to earn a spot at the back of the line towards becoming citizens. This gives them the incentive to really start to assimilate that leaving in limbo does not promote. Those who have been here for two to five years, must return to their countries and register to return. Those here fewer than two years will be sent back. We need some of these people and we need to know who they are. Otherwise we are in danger of having truly bad seeds among us. But no one has the time to weed through 12 million people to find them.

Of course, if you have been reading my blog for awhile you know I am most worried about those kids or young adults who were brought here as kids who have most of their ties and have had most of their education here in the United States. What would we be sending them back to when they didn't come here on their own to begin with? If we turned a blind-eye and created the environment in which their parents stayed here for years to labor cheaply for us, don't we have some sort of responsibility to them? They're kids. If they have been here fewer than two years, though it is difficult to be shuffled back and forth, it is not as traumatic or insurmountable a process of reacclimation.

I hope this is clear for you. I would like to thank one of my fellow teachers at Austin High School John Mast, for asking me some good questions. It led me to solidify my viewpoint here.