You can’t pick your natives…
You can’t pick your natives. Any nation on earth is pretty much stuck with what they have for native citizens, the ones who are descendants of the founding folks or others who came in later – the ones born within the borders of that nation. It’s much like family. You can’t pick who your parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, etc are. You’re born into your family and that’s that.
However, speaking individually, you CAN pick your friends. You can pick those you associate with and thus compensate for any perceived shortcomings in your relatives by providing yourself with “a better class of friend” – or not. And as a nation, although you can’t pick your citizens, you CAN pick your immigrants. You can choose who to allow to enter your borders and remain there under the benefit and rule of law.
Let’s look at the issue of illegal immigration from the other side of the border, but first a history lesson. The United States of America was founded by men with families who came to build. The first permanent settlers brought their wives, their sons, their daughters and settled in to build, to produce, to prosper. They came to provide a new life for themselves where they could breath and worship freely, unfettered by that which hindered them in their homeland. And succeeding generations of immigrants came for the same reason.
To the south of us in what today is called “Latin America” things were different. Bands of men, many of them freed from prison and obligated to participate, came to those southern shores to conquer. NOT to build and certainly not with their wives and children in tow. Their goal was to come, to conquer, to become rich and then return to their homeland a “Big Shot” – thus compensating for the danger and discomfort of their incursions into a foreign land.
Two different mindsets, two different results. And those results still are in effect today. All to often folks in the US look at the issue of illegal immigration from the receiving end and don’t look at the consequences brought about by the decision of a foreign national to break the laws and enter our land illegally. They may look at the opportunity to have a “cheap babysitter” or a “cheap lawn care guy” or a “cheap food harvester” – but very rarely do they look at what is behind their apparent bargain. You see, the decision to enter our land illegally has consequences in other parts of the world.
My wife and I live and work (legally) in the country of Colombia. On a daily basis either one or both of us have dealings of one sort or another with folks who have relatives living abroad – a huge percentage of which are there “informally” (Ok, OK! – ILLEGALLY). We see children of various siblings, all living with Grandma because their parents are in England, Spain, Japan and the US – illegally. The consequences on the lives of these children are clear. No solid paternal nor maternal influence, no discipline, no true love. These lead to an astounding level of teenage sexual experimentation, unplanned, unwed, young teen pregnancy, drug experimentation, depression and other such results of abandonment by those who, just like their forefathers, have gone into a far land, not to build but to plunder.
Now, not all who enter our borders illegally are folks who’ve abandoned their families to do so. That is clear. And sometimes they find ways to get their children up there and perhaps will manage to lead a “normal” life with them – or not. I’ve lost track of how many kids I’ve met here who “washed out” of life in the US in one way or another. The difference between cultures is vast and the difficulty of adjusting is compounded by the necessity of keeping a low profile due to the danger of being deported – however slight the actual danger may be.
So what? So, you can’t pick your natives, the folks born to you as citizens. BUT you CAN pick your immigrants. Do we REALLY want to encourage those who only seek to plunder us? Do we REALLY want to bring in people who will sacrifice their very offspring in order to “live the good life”? We’ve got enough of those as natives as it is! Should we not seek to encourage those who want to come and build? Should we not seek those who have the same motivations as our forefathers did? Should we not seek out those who only want the freedom and liberty to be able to build and improve their lives? Why encourage and retain those who only want to come and plunder our land so they can return home as “bigshots” to lord it over others there?
WE CAN CHOOSE – IF we use our collective power to DEMAND that our nations leaders do what is right. WE CAN CHOOSE the rule of law rather than to reward those who break our laws. We can encourage those who want to come to our shores to BECOME AMERICANS rather than those who come to be Mexican, Indian, Chinese, Guatemalan or whatever else. In other words, our immigration policy should be one that allows folks to come and integrate. Those who will learn our national language and will learn to assimilate rather than try to make us into a copy of their own third world nation.
The question is, “Will we?” Will we demand the rule of law? Will we demand that our leaders fulfill their duty to choose well those who are allowed to enter our borders?
Only time will tell.
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