One of the things that has changed in this country is the notion of who has a right to come here. In the past, it wasn’t important. At least while we were expanding to the Pacific, we needed as many immigrants as we could get. To build the railroads; to work the mines; to farm the prairie; to man our police and fire departments.
During our history, there have been times marked by sometimes extreme xenophobia. Anti-Irish; anti-Italian; anti-Jewish; anti-Chinese. Then, fast-forward to 1952, and the anti-Red McCarran-Walter Act came into being. For the record, both McCarran and Walter were Democrats; as were a goodly number of anti-foreign bigots throughout our history.
Again, fast-forward to today, and it’s Democrats who want to flood our shores with as many millions as they can squeeze in. The notion being that the bulk of them, especially Hispanics, will vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Some flavor of this pro-immigration stance may be found in this Thanksgiving Day WaPo story.
The short version? Those poor, wretched refuse, yearning to be free, yadda yadda yadda, are being held up by Bush administration incompetence. Boo hoo. Seems that a lot of immigrants discovered a fee increase about to go into effect. From the WaPo, the essence:
Bush administration officials said yesterday that they had anticipated applicants would rush to file their paperwork to beat a widely publicized fee increase that took effect July 30, but did not expect the scale of the response. The backlog comes just months after U.S. officials failed to prepare for tougher border security requirements that triggered months-long delays for millions of Americans seeking passports.
The story’s sub-headline? “Delays May Deny Vote to Hundreds Of Thousands.” Those pesky and ever-vigilant neocon-blood for oil-Halliburton!!!-Blackwater Bushies are out to deprive those poor, deserving immigrants of the vote.
It is a good thing that immigrants want to become citizens. But only two citations from the WaPo story should give us some pause. Here they are:
Sandra Flores, 26, of Houston said she applied for citizenship July 30 but has not heard back from USCIS. “I’m worried. I feel frustrated,” said Flores, a part-time student at San Jacinto College who immigrated with her family from Monterrey, Mexico, in 1995 , and who said citizenship would give her a vote, a greater sense of security and a better chance to attend a university.Mildred Molina de Andujar, 42, of Dorchester, Mass., a janitor at Boston’s John Hancock building, said she applied July 26. USCIS told her only last week that it had received her application.
“The most important thing for me is the right to vote,” said Andujar, who immigrated from the Dominican Republic in 1993 and has a 17-year-old daughter with a green card and a 10-year-old son who is a U.S. citizen by birth. (emphasis added)
1995; 1993. These people waited 12 and 14 years, respectively to apply. Now we know that they were able to apply for citizenship, within five years, I believe, of their being granted legal immigrant status. But now, of course, it’s the Bush administration’s fault that these two waited so long.
We must all have sympathy and show support for those who would come here, willing to work, better themselves, and join in our civic discourse. After all, we all are immigrants here. Some have just been here longer. But we should have no sympathy for those who wish to use immigrants as political pawns, and no sympathy for immigrants who wait so long, only to whine about a few extra months.
