\t\t\t\tThe new law in Arizona has brought the immigration issue back to the front burner.\u00a0 I greet this with mixed feelings.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, I find that I am bracing for a very ugly debate which will only serve to associate all of my Hispanic friends with the evils of drug trade from the south of our federal border. I can just imagine how racism will attempt to cloak itself in the “stars and stripes”, as it seeks some sort of national justification.<\/p>\n
My involvement with our Latino community has introduced me to the reality of a racism not unlike that of the 60’s.<\/p>\n
Yet, on the other hand, maybe it’s an opportunity for the alternative view be heard. I refer to the strongly held beliefs that I share with many others in my country, that the “Let’s just pack ’em up and ship all of ’em out of here” approach is not the answer.<\/p>\n
That this thinking is much too reminiscent of the “Let’s just send them back to Africa, and be done with them” sentiments that I used to hear when I was a boy.<\/p>\n
That what’s left of the proud Cherokee nation in North Carolina is a sad reminder of what it really looks like to force an entire community to relocate after they have established deep roots among us.<\/p>\n
That many thousands of young USAmerican citizens are going to be forced into a land in which they have never lived, or be forced to raise themselves here deprived of their parents.<\/p>\n
The instability in Mexico, and the threat to our borders is real.\u00a0 The drug gangs are creating serious threats to both Mexico and the United States. \u00a0 It’s only a matter of time until the US places troops on the borders of various “border states” with Mexico. Arizona’s answer to this very real threat is to redefine a federal status (undocumented immigrant) as a state crime, that is to say, a crime against the state of Arizona.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, undocumented Mexican parents are quickly establishing dual-citizenship for their young American citizens in case these parents don’t make it back home from work and end up as arrested criminals in a jail or deportation facility.<\/p>\n
There is something fundamentally wrong with a state’s decision to send young USAmerican citizens into the very country which has come under siege of the drug cartels now threatening the US. And the idea that these young people and their families are the source of the problem is preposterous.<\/p>\n
But then, we are the nation that forced over 100,000 Japanese residents into interment camps during World War II, simply because they looked like those who bombed Pearl Harber.\u00a0 Two thirds of these were USAmerican citizens, with many of the others awaiting a process to citizenship.<\/p>\n
Maybe the debate will encourage our nation to look deeply into its collective heart and ask if we really want another Trail of Tears!<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The new law in Arizona has brought the immigration issue back to the front burner.\u00a0 I greet this with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I find that I am bracing for a very ugly debate which will only serve …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}