A Lone Star in the firmament
Writing by treason on Monday, 25 of June , 2007 at 1:08 pm
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
– Amendment XIV, Section 1
When I met with my “personal immigrant,” I’d been led to believe that his English skills were so minimal that I should start with the very basics: namely, our alphabet. I’d gone shopping for items that might be helpful and I found some flashcards for letters, numbers, and an introduction to phonics.
To get a sense of where my P.I. was at, I pulled out the cards that had some basic images for each letter of the alphabet and held them up. For instance, A/apple or B/bear. He knew apple, but did not know bear. I continued. When we got to F, the picture was of a white picket thing. He looked at the card and said nothing. And suddenly I felt uncomfortable saying the word.
“Fence. F. It’s a fence.”
I understand those who hate the idea of a fence separating our nation from others, but the argument against border security has become less convincing on so many levels. I’ll pick out just two here. One: the argument that cultures and countries change and that it’s a natural and healthy process. You can’t stop it. America, which prides itself on the melting pot, has been changing forever and is a work in progress mainly because of the influence of the “new” Americans who come here and contribute. Don’t, say the critics, try to keep America stuck in the 1950s. That America is dead. There is a new America and we just have to deal with it. Embrace it.
That argument makes sense to a point. Times change. Politics change. Cultures change. Demographics change. Depending where you are, wait five minutes and the weather will change. If the world is changing so rapidly, why is it that the one thing that cannot change is the status of our borders? Yes, there was a time that our borders could be unsupervised, but there was also a time when people were more inclined to obey the rule of law. And there was a time when we were more inclined to uphold the rule of law. We used to be at war with the Italians, the Germans, and the Japanese. Now we’re at war with others. That much has changed. Aren’t we told on a daily basis to change our attitudes towards oh-so-many things? If there has been so much change, so much evolution, then don’t we have sufficient justification to change our attitude about securing our borders and build some fences?
“Born in the U.S.A. Don’t take my Mommy or my Daddy away.”
There is that argument, too. It’s un-American to break up families by deporting parents of children who were born here and are, technically, U.S. citizens. Parents are sent to prison, and parents are deployed overseas. Families are broken up all the time. Why don’t deported mothers and fathers, who have demonstrated that they cannot obey the laws of this country, take their children back home with them? Look! No more broken families! Incidentally, what does it take for a toddler who is a U.S. citizen to get dual citizenship? Is it automatic? Or is it illegal for one of these children to relocate across our borders to a different country? If so, why? Aren’t borders just arbitrary lines on a map?
I keep hearing that. Borders mean nothing. Borders are made up. There are no such things. If that is the case, then why is it so important to cross an imaginary border to deliver a child in order for him to gain rights that aren’t imaginary?
Oh. So suddenly a border is important. Important only when it benefits someone else. Selective importance doesn’t work. If we don’t have a border, then maybe citizenship is imaginary, too. And maybe I live in Texas. Lines on a map, that’s all. Who says this is New Mexico? I say there is no border. This is Texas and because it is Texas, I shouldn’t have to pay income tax.
Wishful thinking. Some laws, you see, can be enforced.
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