Another slap in the face.

Not to sound rude; but there is something to be said for the one bad apple concept here. I do have sympathy for the individuals that go through the process legally. I live in Michigan and we have many migrant workers who come here for various harvest times and without them the Michigan growers would not be able to bring their crops to market at a competitive price.

That said, I have a hard time feeling sympathetic for the ones that want to circumvent the rules. Note that the text states "sudden backlog reduction efforts" which to me would say that instead of accepting more applications that they won't be able to even take a look at (which is pretty stupid to begin with), they are attempting to get through the existing applications that they already have and after that they will begin accepting new applications (which seems to be the smarter approach). My only question is that why is the government taking the seemingly smarter approach.

 

It's smarter because it makes them more money. Think about it... we won't accept any applications now because of this "backlog", but feel free to apply later after we've trippled the fee associated with your application.

 

We Americans are in a sad state of self-denial. We have this image of ourselves as a country who is bias free, who welcome all immigrants into our society. This is, perhaps, because of the fatally flawed history curriculum taught in our schools. Few of us have ever heard of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. I find the tale of Yung Wing, who's naturalized citizenship was revoked more than forty years after it was granted by the authority of that act to be fascinating. It was not until the Immigration act of 1965, 83 years later, that it's provisions were fully repealed. This act was a symptom of a much greater sentiment of discrimination against the Chinese prevalent at the time - while they were welcomed as cheap, no, nearly slave labor in the mines, railroads, and fields of the day, they were not welcomed as citizens. According to some accounts, part of the reason that the great earthquake and fire of 1906 in San Francisco were so bad was the Mayor's desire to let the flames consume Chinatown. On the opposite coast, the fate of the Irish immigrants during the Potato Famine (approximately 1845-1849) was exploitation and discrimination. As Europeans, the Irish were able to integrate more rapidly, but they faced no less discrimination upon their arrival. Italian immigrants, notably in the period between 1890 and 1920, were stereotyped as violent criminals. In 1891 11 Italian immigrants were lynched in New Orleans for the crime of their ethnicity, and suspicion that they must be involved with the mafia. This stereotype remains with us today.

There is no need to detail the horrors inflicted upon the Africans forced into this country by slavery, and I CERTAINLY don't have enough room here.

All that you have to do is look at the language of American discrimination to see the pattern. At one time or another, people have been called kooks, kikes, chinks, wops, degos, japs, spics, and countless other derogatory terms. Remember that at the time, all of these terms were acceptable.

In my own humble opinion, it is the minority, in overcoming the blind prejudice of the majority, who re-invigorates our society and renews it's social conscience. Today, we are involved in a debate no different than countless others which have already occurred in our past. I say, welcome amnesty. As the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mung, Irish, German, Dutch, Italian, and all of the others did before them, I feel that the current wave of immigrants, legal and illegal, will only help us.

 

Don't forget the terms "honkey", "hillbilly" or "queer". Racism, bigotry, prejudice and hatred is a two way street. I think the biggest hurdle any society has to overcome is assimilation. Today, most Americans (people, not politicians) on the whole do try to welcome people from other cultures. Even our so-called more civilized brethren across the pond have struggled with these same issues. Case in point, the riots in France. An excerpt from the NY Times during this time.

"According to statements by Mr. Altun, who remains hospitalized with injuries, a group of ten or so friends had been playing football on a nearby field and were returning home when they saw the police patrol. They all fled in different directions to avoid the lengthy questioning that youths in the housing projects say they often face from the police. They say they are required to present identity papers and can be held as long as four hours at the police station, and sometimes their parents must come before the police will release them." - NY Times

If you were to read this excerpt in any newspaper across this country, you would assume it happened here. Every country struggles with this but I do not remember anything along the scale of what happened in France (10 different cities) happening in America during the last 30 years. I am not saying that America is better but I think that on the whole, America is a little further down the road toward a fully open society than most other countries.