52 CHURCHES THE BOOK

Immigration Aid Service

U.S. Citizenship & Immigration

CHAPTER 44

            Success! I made it to another church this week even though I sort of cheated. I wanted to get back home in time to write this and watch the Daytona 500, so I had to find a church close by that I had not been to already—and one that had services that ended a little earlier. I also have some things I want to discuss about immigration so I decided to go to the “Mexican” church. I didn’t understand very much they were saying but they were real nice and helped me find the pages in La Biblia, songs, and other material. Mom and I are taking a Spanish class on Tuesday nights and if I went to this church every week, it would definitely help my Spanish. The kids stayed in church with the adults so it was a little noisy, but not as noisy as prison so it didn’t bother me at all.

            The weather is finally warming up and after church, the children seemed very happy. For some reason, the Mexican children seem happier than a lot of Caucasian children. I guess most white kids are just too spoiled to enjoy playing with sticks like these kids and like we played with when I was a kid. Before I start this next part, I want to say a special thank you to the many advocates across America andMexico who work to protect the children who are victims of deportation.

            Making money is important so that we can eat well and stay warm and dry. “E Pluribus Unum” is printed on the dollar bill and is Latin for “one out of many.” Many different types of people came here and made this country. I know that a lot of the hard labor inAmericais being performed by Mexicans. Some are here legally and some are not. There are over 12 million illegal immigrants living inAmerica, and they have three million American-born children. They are living here because it is easier and more fun for them than the life they would have inMexico. It wouldn’t be smart to send the parents back without their kids. And it wouldn’t be “human” to send the kids to an impoverished life. Determining a good way of stopping illegal immigration is a topic we all should provide input on since it affects everyone. The only thing that makes sense is drawing a line now, setting policy, and enforcing it! All workers could be documented and made to pay higher taxes for a few years since paying higher taxes would still be better than the alternative of being returned toMexicowithout a job. Shut down any business that pays an undocumented worker. After ten years of paying the higher income tax and no felony arrest, they could earn an American citizenship.

            Good old Emma Lazarus and the Statue of Liberty says, “Send the homeless to me and I’ll lift my lamp by my golden door.” Since then millions have done just that by legally seeking what can be wonderful and exciting for those who are willing to work for a better life. There is no record of how many people come and try to live inAmericaillegally, but a good guess is over a million a year. The U.S. Border Patrol’s arrest figure rose to a high of about a million people back in 2005. Well maybe it wasn’t really that many people because a lot of those arrests are the same people being arrested over and over. That takes a lot of manpower without providing worthwhile results. I don’t know about you but that doesn’t sound like a good use of taxpayer money to me, and my taxes are high enough already. The Justice Department said that some immigrants are rearrested as many as six times! Many of these are for violent felony crimes. It costs Americans almost one billion dollars to provide health care and incarceration for people “visiting” fromMexicoandSouth America. There are enough “illegals” locked up inAmericaright now to make a whole large city all by themselves. And what a wild city it would be!

            So I think as long as people are working, they should be put into our tax system whether they are allowed to be Americans or not. People coming here to work is much better than having criminals and terrorists crossing our borders with the workers. Some people say they take jobs from Americans, and that may be true—but I think there are still plenty of jobs left for Americans who are willing to work hard. Fifty million Mexicans live in poverty and if the rich business elite inMexicocan’t provide jobs for Mexicans, then their government should use their vast natural resources to provide incomes for their people so they aren’t forced to go elsewhere for work.

           Mexicohas started a health insurance program for infants which is a move in the right direction. Children born inAmericashould be born to Americans. Under the projected new law, the only way to become an American would be by being born to an American or a future American. Once again, if someone wants to be an American, there should be an easy process readily available that good people can use to earn an American citizenship. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service needs more money to make this happen so they don’t have to raise the application fee to a point that it is out of reach for most Mexicans. TheU.S.spends millions on border security gadgets and cameras to watch the Mexicans come across the border, and we don’t even know what to do with the pictures or the people in the pictures. Professional immigrant smugglers and their safe houses are the only ones benefiting from our so called increased border security.

           Americais very nice to foreigners. Voting laws provide foreign language to help them understand how to vote. Aliens seem to be able to get local driver’s licenses and utility services which makes you wonder who is in charge of this country. Sensibly increasing enforcement to keep companies from hiring people who don’t have approved American documentation would be the easiest way to get the illegal worker problem under control. Americans need to learn how to work together and come to agreements which solve problems quickly. Many new programs and categories for people who are already here have possibilities but lack long-term details like what happens when they are laid off or get too old to work. But if you make the system too difficult and complicated, it won’t work. We need to make a simple working agreement that really benefits Americans. If you’re an American then I’m sure you’ll agree that Americans are the ones who need to benefit first of all. Then if the “illegals” don’t want to comply with the immigration paperwork, and they are caught inAmericaillegally, without any other crimes, they need to be put in a special “tent type” low-budget prison. Since most Mexicans are good workers, you then punish these “criminals” by making them work off fines by doing jobs that we usually send out to low-wage countries. These fines could then pay for them to be sent toMexico Cityor other busy cities far away from our borders where they could try to find work. It will take decades for this situation to normalize but having everyone documented and paying taxes is the only way—and the faster we deal with it, the better!

            If you are not going to enforce a law, it should be removed from the books. Illegal is illegal, and eventually most criminals are caught up in “the system” where a good plan and laws can deal with them. And if a person isn’t causing trouble, then leave them alone. Our prisons are full enough. If kids are making good grades and their parents are staying out of trouble, then leave them alone.

            Slowing down the illegal flow of people across our borders will allow us to spend more money to totally secure both borders so that people who want to harm us can’t come over—but the people we need for hard work can come over. Maybe ifMexicohelped us with the border as much asCanadadoes, we wouldn’t have this problem.

            It’s hard to tell parents they shouldn’t try and get free schooling and health benefits for their kids if there is anything they can do to get it. But for Americans to pay for this, the parents need to be paying taxes and it would also helpAmericaif they weren’t sending most of their income to their families in foreign countries. One proposal is to tax all monies wired to other countries. But our government sends more than anybody so that wouldn’t work. Solving the immigration problem will take several different plans and several adjustments to these plans as problems and benefits are noticed. But immigration is not a problem without a solution. If the people we send toWashingtoncan’t solve our problems then why do we pay them so much money?

            We may face much worse problems one day—and if we can’t solve our immigration problem, then we will be in big trouble when real disaster hits.