months later and my own (Allbeit delayed) opinion on Immigration

Immigration legislation is in the throes of hot debate right now. Immigration, a multi-faceted issue with passionate people on all sides.

Protests, demonstrations and school walk-outs have dominated headlines the past week. David and I attended the mass demonstration in Los Angeles on Saturday. It was inspiring and impressive. I blogged nearly two years ago about being fed up with the anti war protests I'd attended two consecutive years. I felt as if there was no unity, as if everyone was there promoting their own agenda be it to legalize marijuana, impeach Bush, give women the right to choose...you name it. What I witnessed Saturday was nothing short of massive organization and cohesiveness. (Getting half a million people into the streets is an accomplishment, I don't care how you look at it.) While there were people there waving flags from their native countries, it was overwhelmingly pro-America with American flags being waved and signs that proclaimed allegiance to this country.

I am intimately affected by immigration. My husband came to this country as an immigrant, an illegal one at that. I have spent 5 years working closely with immigrants--most of them undocumented as well. I have an obvious bias towards the plight of the immigrant and a desire to be openhanded with them. And, as cliche as it is, this country was built by immigrants--most of whom were escaping perscecution in their homeland. The story is not much different for the current immigrants of today.

I realize something has to be done but nobody in authority seems to be asking the right questions. The solution is not to build a wall, or make it illegal for all legal residents of this nation to aid and help an undocumented person. What we first need to ask is the why. Why are the immigrants coming here in the first place. Do politicians really think individuals want to pack up their lives and come to a foreign land to work for low pay, poor living conditions, all the while leaving their families behind? Why are the immigrants coming here? Because of globalization. Because of policies such as NAFTA, CAFTA, and other free trade agreements. Because labor has moved south and the wages of Wal-Mart, Gap, Dole, (Insert big corporate company name here), workers isn't enough to sustain life in even the poorest nations of the world.

Why did my husband come? Because the good ol' boys of the government and Ollie North got involved in Central American politics and funded a civil war lest socialism be given a chance in an otherwise autonomous, democratically run country. David came here fearing for his life and that of his family would he have stayed in El Salvador.

On my first trip to El Salvador I stayed in tiny pueblo on the border of Honduras. The people were fighting a government initiative to build a damn right on their river that had been their life source for decades. The initiative was backed and encouraged by the US Government and the IMF/World Bank. In a nutshell, it was about money and generating electricty. Electricty is a good thing. However, in the case of these people, (who lived on a volcano and could have easily generated geothermic electricity) they were going to be forced off their privately owned land for a fraction of the price it was worth. This agricultural community had no option. The displacement would be huge and the majority would have to relocate 4 hours to San Salvador in hopes of finding some sort of low paying labor job which isn't an easy task in an already flooded job market. One man who I stayed with during my stint, Don Jacobo, implored me to take their plea to President Bush. He believed that if the United States was going to encourage and financially back this then they should be given the option to relocate to the U.S.

So why do they come? Because they have no options. They come out of survival.

What I will be interested to see is the immigration pattern from countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina which have all cut out U.S. intervention (both big buisness and governmental) or severely limited our invovlement. If these people just need to be left alone, then there should be a decrease in numbers from these countries.

It is going to take a long time to repair the damage that has been done. This is a complicated issue that isn't going to go away. There is not a simplistic answer. But in the meantime, the immgrants continue to shape and give flavor to our diverse nation, there should be no wall put up to keep that at bay.