Mac-Coleman

18 February 2013 –

President’s Day.  It was a normal day in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, however.  It started raining before sunrise and continued all through the day.  Thunder and lightning preceded the deluge.  Nobody here was thinking about our great presidents today, I am sure, as they tried to stay dry.  Nonetheless, judging from the constant crowds outside the consulate section of the US Embassy in Kinshasa, many Congolese would like to be in America and learn about our presidents.  Why aren’t there more Congolese in the United States?  One simple answer:  The Atlantic Ocean is much wider and deeper than the Rio Grande River.    

I am reading a lot about the history of immigration, deportation, and the societal issues surrounding the movements across our borders since the start of the country.  It is not now nor ever has been a simple issue.  It is and always has been a volatile and visceral issue to all who discuss it.  Virtually all of today’s arguments about immigration are not new.  They have been pitched before.  Different proponents in the contest have gained temporary advantage based on the compelling domestic, international, racial, ethnic, economic, religious, and economic issues of the moment.  In fact, even the specific definition of who is and is not a citizen of the U.S. has changed over the generations.  For example, based on our changing views on women’s rights in society, women’s citizenship is no longer inexorably tied to a husband’s status.  Other questions, such as what rights under the Constitution do illegal immigrants have, have been debated for over a hundred thirty years in courts, in the newspapers and journals, in churches, and in the streets and public houses of America.  It should surprise no one that there is still no clear, accepted answer to many of these questions.  I suppose that our generation will add its nowhere-near-perfect mitigation/reform to history’s list of attempts. 

Two interrelated points have glared at me from all the pages (or electronic screens) I have read on the issue:  1) The players in the U.S. immigration game are worldwide, both international and domestic; 2) Most all international players, the immigrants and the countries whence they flee, have primary interests that may indeed have little in common with the best interests of the U.S.  That is a fact of life in the international community.   Therefore, my questions for serious contemplation are these: 1) Is our immigration policy—rather, our non-policy—being dictated by illegal immigrants and the countries from which they come?  2) How do our law and policy makers convince the American people—American citizens—that they have America’s vital interests at the core of their immigration reform processes?  If these decision-makers’ arguments  cannot convince you that your interests as a citizen are more important than those of the illegal immigrants, then I suggest that their arguments are short-sighted and dangerous.  This issue of who decides the make-up of the United States for the generations that follow is of strategic importance to all citizens.  We need to make it.