Thirty years ago in East Texas, my father befriended a man from Mexico who was in the country illegally. Or maybe, given how much love and care the man extended to our family, it was the other way around.
At first it was awkward having them as part of our family gatherings, from a single man to husband and wife to a family of five. Language barriers and cultural differences were pronounced and always present. But what became obvious was the deep friendship between him and my father, and the loyalty they shared to each other. I believe the common thread was the bond of two blue-collar men who wanted the best for their families.
In those three decades our friend obtained citizenship, saw his son and daughters graduate with honors from high school and college, and shared in the care of my parents as they grew old. He would ultimately stand next to me as a pall bearer at my father's funeral.
When I read the many articles and op-eds deploying statistics and crying for regulation of immigration, I cannot process the cacophony without looking through the lens of personal experience. What seems to always be omitted is the human drama, the compassion for individuals and families.
I am guilty of driving to the "corner" where men stand, hoping to find day labor. Yes, I have hired them and paid them generously. But I have also driven to that intersection to simply share food and a hot cup of coffee with them before they go to work in the mornings.
I listen to their stories and there are common themes that rend the heart: here to work, to make money and send it back home, anxiety over separation from family, doing the jobs no one else will do, unscrupulous employers, fear over deportation, and the unspoken evil of predation by their own.
It reminds me of the scenes in Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York," when Irish immigrants would be led from the docks to enlist into the US Army to fight in the Civil War, or crime lords would round them up to vote, holding the threat of housing and employment over their heads constantly.
Slumlords today who pose as responsible citizens bear a striking resemblance to those of the 19th century, holding their tenants' fate through fear and overcharging for substandard housing. The nightmares of eviction, withholding medical attention, and extortion for guiding them to employment are underbellies to this drama that never make the news. Immigrants are victims in the very nation that prides itself on offering civil liberties and justice. But not for them!
And yet they keep coming. By the millions they come to our nation for work, for opportunity, for independence, for the right to improve, live, and sustain themselves and those they love.
It is amusing when some unenlightened soul suggests that they must embrace our language and patriotism. Not only is that thought naïve and comical, for the proverbial cat is way out of that bag; but from all practicum, what have we as their co-inhabitants of our communities shown them that would warrant either a loyalty or desire to embrace?
In the underbelly of this huge Latino subculture are the same seeds of the future that has defined the American experience since the inception of our nation. What family heritage is void of an immigrant, legal or otherwise, that came here hoping for more, for better, for freedom? What family history is void of victimization, challenge, and sacrifice?
Those who got here first made the rules, broke the land, created the opportunity, and put up the fences. When someone comes along later to scratch out a space, we cry foul and believe our security is in jeopardy. We want to burden the government with tomes of rules and laws to protect us from the interlopers that are acting in the same spirit of our forefathers. We dehumanize and lean on the rhetoric of the privileged.
But when our roof needs repair or our foundation needs to be poured or our weeds must be pulled, we do not question the makeup of the workforce.
Look at a photograph of the Earth from outer space and something is missing. Boundaries -- lines and fences, walls and barriers -- are missing. What one sees is one system, one globe of cohabitation. I wonder from this view point if a clearer sense of a common humanity is the parable we need to embrace?
I am a Christian. I am a pastor. And with those two words come the ease of dismissal. But it is from that platform of grace that I view the passion of the plight of immigrants, be they documented or undocumented. And from the vantage point of friendship that was modeled in my home, I hope and pray for empathy to be the guiding principal while seeking solutions that guarantee the dignity of Hispanic families that come to the same country my family came to long ago.
Janet MurguÃa: Whatever Happened to Principles
The news that Sens. Graham and McCain are joining with Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl in support of repealing birthright citizenship, led me to conclude that the GOP has either taken leave either of its senses or of its principles.
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I do have empathy for all those around the world who live under unjust or dysfunctio
The illegals must all be sent home. The author also forgets that illegal immigrants come here from all over the world and are of all races, etc. This isn't about "Hispanics
The left, of course, always tries to make everything a racial issue. it's what they do-and it's despicable
ALL illegals must be sent home. The one million plus legal immigrants we take in each year-many of them Hispanic-a
If you want to help millions of people, you export the dream, you don't import all the people.
And if we are, how about the welfare of the other 2 billion people who would like to come here?
Is American citizenshi
What do we owe to the world? Do we really owe our dissolutio
Almost all of our manufactur
What do we owe the world that we should make millions of foriegn nationals who forced their way in our citizens?
5. RU Aware, Mexico has many people entering USA for jobs requiring a Bachelor's degree..
2009
TN visa (Mexico in 2nd place):
http://www
(Info about TN visa http://en.
Accountant
Agricultur
Apiculturi
Architect
Biochemist
Biologist
Chemist
Computer Systems Analyst
More
http://www
H1B
...3rd place Mexico (Possibly higher due to footnote #5, http://www
(About H1B http://en.
L1
...3rd place Mexico (Possibly higher, footnote #5, Ibid)
(About http://en.
O1
...5th place Mexico (Few hundred from 3rd place & possibly higher due to footnote #5, Ibid)
http://en.
O2
...2nd place Mexico(Pos
H3
...4th place Mexico(Pos
Q1(Mexico ranked with G7, Ibid)
H1C(Data withheld to limit disclosure
"Visa overstayer
Pg 21 http://pew
==========
Do you have empathy for these people?
"One million schoolchil
http://www
They have parents
http://mon
4. Because your 1st sentence mentions Mexico...A
(a) Mexico's people are the most people worldwide becoming USA citizens
3 years in a row, Mexico #1, no other country on earth has had more people become citizens of USA
122,258 - 2007
231,815 - 2008
111,630 - 2009
Page 2 (http://www
(b) Mexico's people are the most people worldwide getting Legal Permanent Resident status or Green Card
http://www
(c) Mexico's people are the most people worldwide getting USA nonimmigra
http://www
(d) Mexico's people are the most people worldwide present in the USA as illegal aliens
"Mexico is the source of by far the largest number of unauthoriz
Most of the above categories are NOT a new thing either...
Mexico takes that top spot year after year, decade after decade
Go look at some of those charts, Mexico has higher numbers than several continents
Actually, if you think these numbers only represent poor Mexicans on H2A or H2B visas, think again, my next post will illustrate that it includes top 3 rankings for visas that require at least a Bachelor's degree...Y
3. (d) Manufactur
December 12, 2002
"Fifty years ago, a third of U.S. employees worked in factories, making everything from clothing to lipstick to cars. Today, a little more than one-tenth of the nation's 131 million workers are employed by manufactur
http://www
Changed since 2002?
Progressiv
"In the poll of 1000 likely general election voters, “We have lost too many manufactur
"The responses in the poll echo a June 21, 2010 article in the Financial Times, which quotes a projection that in 2011 the United States will lose its status as top nation in factory production to China, “thus ending a 110 year run as the number one country."
http://www
Yet we had record levels of immigratio
(e) Most recent Great Recession, listed here as starting December 2007
http://en.
Yet we had record levels of immigratio
(f) Has the GreatReces
Yet we had record levels of immigratio
1. If the illegal aliens in the USA today were legal, the USA would be far and away smashing the all time USA record levels of immigratio
Legal immigratio
http://www
2. Really, there is more, because more people enter legally by other means as well.
Nonimmigra
Nonimmigra
3. Before continuing further...
The last 10 years included:
(a) a recession that President GWB claimed started before he took the oath in 2001, one that he and his administra
Yet we had record levels of immigratio
(b) The day after September 10th, 2001, occurred
Yet we had record levels of immigratio
(c) 2004, it was widely reported to be a jobless recovery
Yet we had record levels of immigratio
(Cont'd)
Any form of amnesty will only make the matter worse as it has for the last 7 times it was done. In 2007 when discussion
7 billion people on this planet. We have run out of good water, energy is imported from hostile nations, we are paving over farmland for housing/st
Then we have the criminals. Lots of them. far higher rates of crime then citizens http://www