All the President's Men tell us that it's impossible to deport 12 Million criminals back to their homelands. We can't find them to round them all up and there's no way logistically to ship them out. Some of them have been here as productive members of society working at jobs we won't do ourselves, building our homes, picking our crops, cleaning our hotel rooms and caring for our children.
There was some other thing that happened maybe 150 years back where folks were more or less systematically impelled to leave their homeland and travel under wretched and dangerous conditions to this country to do jobs that white people supposedly wouldn't do for inadequate compensation. They didn't call those folks 'immigrants' at the time. Maybe it's best not to look back and draw this comparison. It's a slippery slope and the last time politicians and rich partisans got involved in the rhetoric, 170,000 men died in less than 4 years searching for the way to strike the proper balance.
We set a side a day every year to reflect on the lives of those 170,000 men who took up arms to, depending on who you listen to, stand up for the immigrants of their time or to defend the bigoted patriarchal anachronism that was southern agrarian society. I think the right side won in that struggle. The vast majority of Americans seem to agree. So we sit back on Memorial day and reflect, have a beer, watch a race, plant a flag and hopefully think about those 170,000 and the 1.3 million or so since who died fighting. And I think most of us are glad and proud that our country raised millions of men over the years to fight, bleed and die for our Way.
So, every 30 or 40 years, we seem to see two trends. A wave of immigrants heads this way from some corner of the world where the grass doesn't seem so green. The wave typically comes over with nothing but hope for a better opportunity for themselves and their children. They come. They go to Ellis Island or some other mass processing center to be registered, examined, processed and given access to the country. They go to work. They save. They send some of the money home to their parents and siblings who were not healthy enough or bright enough or bold enough to make the trip. They build communities and make spicy new dishes with inexpensive ingredients. They learn the language. They start families and then... usually... their children intersect with the other trend that seems to occur on a 30 or 40 year cycle. Their children, who have learned the language and grown up in the ethnic neighborhoods and seen their parents working hard all their lives step up. They lay down their hammers and shovels and they answer the call to fight for their country.
This is the generational progression of the immigrants. They come and labor and educate their children. Their children or grandchildren, raised with a decent work ethic and instilled with the unique pride of second and third generation Americans, enter the military where they demonstrate their commitment and learn politics, make a decent wage, send their children to better colleges. Those children and grandchildren, in turn, form the upper middle and upper class. The business leaders and politicians and movers and shakers.
That's the way it was with the asians, the italians, the poles, the germans, the irish, the palestinians and the jews that came to us in the 19th and 20th centuries. They came to sit at the table and, over generations, they found they could get a bigger slice of the pie and that there was still plenty to go around. That's how it was with my family.
This wave of immigrants is different in some respects. I believe they come for similar reasons, that they work hard, that they want good things for their children, that they send money home to those not adventurous enought to make the trip, that they like it here. But they skipped a step. In skipping the Ellis Island step, they've somehow botched the natural order. They haven't assimilated and been allowed to demonstrate their commitment. How can they? Their existence in this country is unlawful. They stay underground, to a certain extent. They don't melt in, they hide.
So the President's men say they've almost paid their dues, and we can't get rid of them anyway, so we should put them on the fast track. They talk about payment of back taxes and lengths of time in country. They make comparisons to speeding tickets and then they say that paying the back taxes amounts to these folks having paid their dues, their debt to society. Ellis Island and recognition by the government isn't how you become an American family. There's something to becoming part of the fabric of this nation that shouldn't be for sale and certainly shouldn't be determined solely on compliance with the tax code. That's obscene.
I don't want people to purchase a pass to the head of the line by paying $9700 to the IRS. It's not meaningful. But once again, we're in that cycle where politicians and wealthy men are extending the opportunity to the nation's less fortunate to take a risk, demonstrate their commitment and raise themselves up through the ranks. I've even heard anecdotes that one need not be a citizen to enlist and join the fight. I've seen at least one story where a young soldier died during the processing of his citizenship, which was awarded posthumously. That's the type of young hero I'm tempted to welcome into the fold. He was buried at Arlington at his mother's request. I hope there are others like him in our military and that they make it home, safe and sound. They'll bring with them skills and discipline and the ability and desire to make something of themselves. Their children will know where daddy (or mommy) stood and will proceed to follow the pattern.
Maybe this wave of immigrants should have access to a fast track solution. Payment of back taxes doesn't work for me. It doesn't assimilate. It doesn't separate the wheat from the chaffe. It doesn't develop leadership and integrity and commitment to the new home. Legal immigrants pay taxes on time and many still return to their countries of origin when their visas expire. That's not commitment. That's commerce. But, I submit that, if an immigrant wishes to take up arms in defense of this country and this culture, then we can roll into the enlistment process a procedure to make up for ducking the turnstiles at Ellis island. If they finish their hitch having served honorably then legal residency and the opportunity for citizenship should be granted, without question. They'll have completed the process, demonstrated their commitment to our country, and assimilated fully and we can ask no more of any American.
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