It's hard to hold it against somebody who, during a discussion about illegal aliens in this country, leans on the old, tried and true: "What part of illegal don't you understand?" It is the strongest part of their argument. Who can blame somebody for making their case? When compassion and humanity aren't on your side, pound the table.
And the point should be made: Government isn't doing its job. Not when the country's official policy toward illegal immigration is . . . what is it anyway? Build that wall? Round 'em up? Tip-toe quietly by?
Some say there could be 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States--if not more. Who's to know? They don't fill out a form. The real but unofficial policy of one political party in this country seems to be to ignore the problem altogether. The other party's policy on illegal immigration is to arrest illegal immigrants. But 12 million people? Where put them all? Besides, once here, illegal immigrants may have very legal American children. What to do then? Send Ma and Pa back across the border and keep the kids here? As somebody said when just such a situation presented itself in San Francisco a generation back: Don't be a damfool.
Some of us can't abide ignoring laws, lest it become a habit. The concept of law is important in this country, and not just this country. Break one law, and which is next? Laws, all laws, deserve respect in a nation of them.
But there has got to be a better way.
In the matter of illegal aliens vs. the Estados Unidos, one story has been in the papers in Arkansas more than others lately. And not just lately. For this matter has been going on for months.
A 22-year-old woman, Roxana Menjivar, was picked up in July in Springdale, Ark., and held as an illegal alien. (And yes, they are illegal. Don't come 'round here with that PC stuff about how humans can't be illegal. They sure as heck can be.)
According to police, she called the law in July to report domestic violence after a fight with her husband. The officer decided that the lady was the aggressor and arrested her. She spent nearly 130 days in local and federal custody until she made bail Wednesday last week.
Months behind bars. For calling the cops.
This is the sort of thing that will resonate throughout the illegal community, and not just in Arkansas. And it will likely drive these people even further into the background, and into the clutches of those who profit from their fear. It's a world, or an underworld, full of shadows, and shadowy characters. Speaking of laws being broken, in that underworld it's just a fact of life. All kinds of laws are ignored in that realm, from health-and-safety standards to minimum wage laws to payroll taxes and who knows what else and a lot worse. After all, how can these people complain? If they do call the cops, they may end up in jail themselves. See Menjivar, Roxana. The world of the illegal alien may be as close to peonage as this country has come since the old sharecropper system imploded.
What to do?
Maybe we should start by admitting that we can't round them all up and send them back. They'll just make the round-trip walkabout again. Can we stem the flow of immigrants towards jobs any more than we can prevent water from flowing downhill? It reminds us of King Canute commanding the waves to stop.
There must be a better way. There must be another sort of system that gets these people on the books officially but doesn't grant anybody automatic citizenship. In this Age of Trump, amnesty is a non-starter. But without these workers, many a farm is going to stop and vegetables will wilt in the wind. And construction work would, if not grind to a halt, slow down considerably. And what about the service industry?
Maybe it's time to rethink the old bracero program from the war era. Make these folks legal, guarantee them adequate shelter and wages, not to mention police protection, and allow them to come out from the shadows. Allow them to work where needed--they will anyway--but take away the "illegal" part.
Then folks like Roxana Menjivar could call the police in a time of need without fear of being thrown in jail.
This nation of immigrants keeps attracting more. Why not try to put together a reasonable policy regarding them?
Or would that be too sensible an undertaking for government? Say it isn't so.
Editorial on 11/26/2017