Doing DACA Right

This week the President’s comments on immigrants torpedoed the American Dream.

Not only did our President insult people from Haiti and Africa; he later demeaned every immigrant who has come to this country and done menial labor so that their children could have a better life.

My ancestors are in that category and so are those of every person I know. Even Americans with ancestors who came over the Atlantic on the Mayflowers fall into that category. The Puritan’s settlement at Plymouth, Massachusetts has been re-created for those who wish to see how they lived. Visit there – you’ll see they were the first immigrant “Dreamers”.

What’s outrageous was the implication that the U.S. only wants the “brightest and the best”. Everyone else can stay home.

This country wasn’t built on wealth. This county was built on the backs of workers, many of them forced laborers. For those who have inherited wealth to sneer now at those who are without it is nothing but empty hubris.

We can’t know who will turn out to be the best and who will not. We have to give everyone a chance in order to get the best and the brightest. America isn’t going to become great by keeping poor people out—or by making our best and brightest choose to go elsewhere. If anyone should go anywhere it should be Americans to Norway!

That is why the ICE raid on 7-11 stores was atrocious. That’s why sending Hondurans and Haitians home is heinous. It is an act of bullies who can’t do anything but hurt less fortunate working people who haven’t done anything to hurt them or us.

So what should be happening?

This morning I caught the tail end of an interview on Fox News with Kirstjen Nielson of Homeland Security.

She said that we should not be incentivizing people to take the “dangerous” journey here. I agree with that.

But that isn’t what this fight is about. The Dreamers have already been here – many for years. The President is simply using them as blackmail to get Democrats to fund his wall and our military.

The Dreamers shouldn’t be cannon-fodder for a war over what Congress will or won’t spend money on. If Trump and the Republicans have to resort to such base tactics to get their way they are utter weaklings who aren’t fit to rule.

The Dreamers who are here should be allowed to seek citizenship within a period of time over which the federal bureaucracy can process them all.

Other immigrants who are here should be given a clear path to achieve citizenship by a set period of time—one long enough to determine if they are worthy of residence here or not.

This is the only way to entice all of the brightest and the best to come and shine in America.

What should not be happening?

The interview I glimpsed on Fox lamented that if the Dreamers and those immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries were allowed to stay, the U.S. military would not be getting needed funding.

Again, I need to say if Congress has to jettison a huge number of passengers on its ship in order to keep the ones it wants on board, it is a very weak captain of our ship. This kind of either/or thinking is a sign of stupidity and sheer laziness.

For the past year I’ve been studying the countries along the ancient Silk Roads that created huge commerce and wealth in many places from Asia through India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Southern Europe/Northern Africa. I’ve learned a whole different perspective on history that varies with our own Euro-North American-centric one.

Last night I watched a silent movie from the 1928 about a young Mongol nomad who was installed as a puppet leader by the British. The would-be leader woke up to the harm being done to other Mongols and led his people into forcing the British out of their country. It’s the same saga as the one we are now mired in over Afghanistan.

This is the longest war the U.S. has ever been in. It’s clear that we cannot win it. There is nothing for us to build victory on there. Even military experts such as Sean McFate, author of several books and educator about modern warfare, are saying it’s time to withdraw. We did not create Afghanistan’s civil war in the 20th century  and we cannot fix its tribal infighting.

More importantly, if we brought our military home from Afghanistan and asked them to patrol our Southern border—we wouldn’t need to waste billions of dollars on building a wall between us and our neighbors in Mexico.

For the United States to drop out of the global economy while pursuing wars all over the globe is nothing short of suicide. We will go from laughingstock of the world to pathetic losers on this planet.

We will wind up being the biggest ‘shithole’ country in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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