I was reading about immigration law. Contrary to what I normally say about now in these screeds, I do recommend we all do that. Just type in "US Immigration Law" and prepare to be ashamed. It's OK. We're Americans and in fact, we have a lot less to be ashamed of than most. Now that you figure I'm a Commie Bastard, can we talk? It's not like I watch soccer.
Let's get that Commie thing out of the way. There is absolutely nothing in the truly transcendent history of the United States that justifies any type of immigration exclusion. The type of human aggression that fuels immigration fuels capitalism and if there's a better idea than capitalism I haven't seen it. If our imperfect employment of capitalism doesn't prove that, well, I'm at a loss. So, screw the Commies. No offense.
As for my native American friends in relation to that "aggression" thing. Sorry. Unlike a lot of humanity in its expansion, you guys didn't run into opposition until the Europeans came along. You did manage to generate some inter-tribal warfare. To be honest, you just weren't very good at it. That may be to your credit and I truly believe it is but it kinda sucks to be you in an incredibly aggressive environment. I digress.
We seem to have a "problem" that people can't find a good answer to. It doesn't occur to these geniuses there is no answer because it's not a problem but there you have it.
This can't be intelligently discussed without acknowledging the number one consideration is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the "other". There's a fancy word for that we have obviously, not spent enough time teaching: Xenophobia.
This is the primary expression of this fear. People are afraid the minority, interlopers will become the majority and having done that will behave as badly in the majority as the current majority has. They are afraid people will do to them what they do every day to others. The fear is so entrenched, if you point it out you're somehow naive or unmanly or subject to a range of other, belittling insults; unpatriotic.
In the meantime, there are real problems. Some people bring disease, some bring a criminal background that escapes recognition or regulation. Well, that's not good but the primary problem is, without proper documentation they have a myriad of problems engaging with and participating in society. This leads to a number of subversive, survival strategies some of which are actually low-level crimes and can lead to real harm. Unintentional or not, it's still harm. We're right to be concerned. We are not right to refuse to employ obvious solutions because unrealistic fear blocks our judgment.
How many different ways can that be said? We can not allow unrealistic fear to block our judgment. It's a recipe to create real problems. It's time to dismiss those fears and employ realistic solutions to actual problems. We have a model for that we employed to beneficial effect for decades. For some reason, we seem to get the idea our forebearers didn't think clearly. That's not right and our successful model is Ellis Island.
40% of the American public can trace at least one ancestor to Ellis Island. This is how that process worked. For the most part, people were screened for criminality in their home countries before they embarked. That resulted in a minor 2% being rejected at Ellis. People were screened for obvious disease and quarantined and treated. Then they documented them. Ya, see that? They addressed, in a realistic way, the obvious problems. For the most part, the process took a couple hours. We didn't have a wall, we had a gate. We don't need a wall, we need a gate.
Yes, I am advocating open borders on the Ellis Island model. That really only raises one question: Won't we be flooded with immigrants? Reasonable estimates say we have 13 million illegal immigrants. We can honestly observe; anyone who wants to be here is here. Even the famous 2018 caravan of illegal invaders petered out to a pathetic 1200+. There are 334 million Americans. I think we can take it. I ain't scarit.
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