This might be just a wee bit too hot for a Saturday morning, as the NY Times’ Michelle Alexander thinks she’s on to something
None of Us Deserve Citizenship
(couple paragraphs about a woman who illegally climbed over wall then immediately gave birth)
Answering these questions may be easy legally, but they’re more difficult morally. After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship. On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?
Jose Antonio Vargas’s powerful book “Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen†wrestles with the moral, emotional and psychological dimensions of America’s perennial question: Who deserves citizenship? With remarkable sensitivity to the extraordinarily wide range of people whose lives are affected by our nation’s immigration policies, he writes from the perspective of someone who was brought to this country illegally at the age of 12 to live with his grandparents, leaving his mother in the Philippines. Ever since his grandfather confessed to him, at age 16, that “you are not supposed to be here,†he has battled deep feelings of unworthiness and has striven to earn the right to belong. Yet no matter how much he achieved or contributed — indeed, even after winning a Pulitzer Prize for journalism — he still had the nagging feeling that he didn’t deserve to be here. Only after being arrested near the border and held in a cell with a group of terrified undocumented boys who had been separated from their families did he have an awakening: It was suddenly obvious to him that the boys huddled near him deserved safety, security and a place they could call home — a place where they could not only survive but also thrive. If they deserved such a thing, he did too. “Home is not something I should have to earn,†he wrote. It’s something we all have a right to.
Really? So we can all just deserve to start living in some sort of McMansion at the beach (or wherever floats your boat)? For illegals, their home is somewhere else. What this does do is make it so America has to kowtow to illegals rather than them attempting to assimilate.
Many people will sympathize with Mr. Vargas’s story but recoil at his bold conclusion, as it seems to imply support for open borders — a position that no Republican or Democratic member of Congress supports or even takes seriously. This reaction seems misplaced. The deeper question raised isn’t whether our borders should be open or closed (generally a false dichotomy) but rather how we ought to manage immigration in a manner that honors the dignity, humanity and legitimate interests of all concerned.
What she means is accommodating illegals, rather than the interests of U.S. citizens.
Reaching for a radically more humane immigration system is not pie-in-the-sky, utopian dreaming. But it does require a certain measure of humility on the part of those of us who have benefited from birthright citizenship. Rather than viewing immigrants as seeking something that we, Americans, have a moral right to withhold from them, we ought to begin by acknowledging that none of us who were born here did anything to deserve our citizenship, and yet all of us — no matter where we were born — deserve compassion and basic human rights.
That is not the end, she keeps going. When will she give up her own unearned citizenship?
Perhaps she believes in the Federation, as in Starship Troopers, in which citizenship must be earned, primarily through serving in the military.
Were we to pay serious attention to her article, anyone who is here, even if he just arrived on election day, should have the right to vote. Given how the Democrats kept telling us that foreign leaders all wanted the lovely Mrs Clinton to win the election, I think that we can infer that some on the left believe that non-Americans ought to have some say in our politics.
Unless, of course, it’s that evil Vladimir Putin, whose intelligence apparatchiks may have influenced enough Americans to vote for Mr Trump as opposed to Mrs Clinton to tip the election toward him. If so, then America owes Mr Putin a debt of gratitude which can never be fully repaid!
She uses that leftist term again: “Basic human rights”. What are these basic human rights leftists speak of and shouldn’t they be enumerated somewhere for all to see?
BTW, all of us who were born here legally deserve our citizenship rights as they are the very definition of “Birthright”. Those born here who are the spawn of spies, infiltrators, foreign nationals, fifth columnists, illegal aliens and immigrants not yet citizens have no such Birthright.
Go to the New Guinea jungle with just a canteen cup and a knife and you’ll find out what your human rights are in about 10 minutes.
“Home is not something I should have to earn,†he wrote. It’s something we all have a right to.
Tell it to the guys who carved a civilization out of a howling wilderness.
It was pure luck that any one of us was born in the US, and we should all be most grateful. Few kids get to pick their parents. None get to pick where they’re born.
Almost all of our forebears reached these shores as immigrants or plunderers. I’m ignorant of the formal immigration policies of the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s, so it’s possible some of us are here based on the actions of illegal aliens centuries ago. Perhaps we should all be more grateful for our good fortune rather than arrogant about our luck.
Our Constitution has served us pretty well and is reasonably clear on what constitutes citizenship in this still great nation.
It’s dangerous to rank citizenship quality on the length of time one’s ancestors trod US soil, in which case, native Americans’ votes should count double!
Fewer still, thanks to the Lefties, know who their parents are.
Almost all of our forebears reached these shores as immigrants or plunderers.
Yours maybe, mine came seeking a better life. and even the Indians came from someplace else.
I’m ignorant of the formal immigration policies of the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s, so it’s possible some of us are here based on the actions of illegal aliens centuries ago
Try again. All those white people, the ones you hate for building a free and prosperous nation, got on the boat and went. Most had to pay, usually 7 years’ indentured service and themn killed themselves building a better place for their kids.
Yours, if you really are black, got a free ride. They got free food, free clothing, free housing, and free medical care. You want all that back.
Our Constitution has served us pretty well and is reasonably clear on what constitutes citizenship in this still great nation.
You ought to sit down and read it some time.
By native American’s do you mean those of us born here, because that’s what a native American is. I was born here so I’m a native American. In fact I’m a twelfth generation American and all but the first who was an immigrant and a plunderer were natives. Just because it’s “luck” as you say to be born here makes it no less a birthright of those of us who are. Does winning the lottery mean you have no right to the winnings?
There is an irony to it when you realize my ancestors came here as you called them “immigrants and plunderers” and wrestled the land from the Indians, killed the French and Spanish and finally threw out the British and now we are being invaded by immigrants and plundered ourselves. And we know it and are allowing it to happen. North America will achieve perfect justice when the last white man here dies.
Trump’s stopping that.
And even the American Indians call themselves American Indians.