Welcoming the Stranger

As anyone who has followed this blog over the years knows, I am a strong advocate of immigrant rights. Quite honestly, I favor amnesty for most of our immigrants pending an international criminal background check funded by the potential citizens. I especially favor this with Mexican immigrants, whose land I believe we stole at the same time we stole land from the Native Americans in the last century. I believe the Homeland Security issue involving immigration is often a red herring. I also believe that much of the protest against illegal immigration is tied with an implicit racism, and the threat of terrorism is more of a threat coming through Canada than it is coming through Mexico. If we are going to build a fence on the Mexican border, we should also build one around Detroit and Pontiac, MI, and along the Great Lakes Borders in Canada. (After all, this is how most of the 9-11 immigrants entered the US).

This implicit racism was in full view when I got home late Thursday night. As I watched MSNBC I heard Pat Buchanan yell at the immigration rights person to shut up on national television, and then heard him say that "This is the beginning of the end of America," and that Americans will pay the price of immigration in "increased crime and increased diseases" as people come streaming across the border to take over America. I got angry enough to change the channel to FOXNEWS to hear Bill O'Reilly quote that the US is now "less than 3/4 white" and losing ground every day. This made me more angry so I turned to the moderate CNN to hear the report cite the states that were going to be"minority majority" states by 2020--which included Hawaii (too many Asians and Islanders I guess), District of Columbia (its implied that there are too many blacks and we must be scared), New Mexico (can we see the word "Mexico" in the title of the state?), and California (which has large populations of all minority groups).

I will be honest. It is a struggle for me when I go to a fast food restaurant and people cannot speak English, and I am less likely to shop for a car in a small street corner lot when there is a banner bigger than their business sign saying "Se Habla Espagnol" with holes through it. However, I firmly believe that the immigration struggle in relation to Latin Americans in this century is as important of an American human rights issue as the Civil Rights movement was a couple of generations ago. Furthermore, the health of our economy is dependant upon foriegn workers that are willing to accept wages that are less that what most non-immigrants are willing to work for.

As far as the Word of God teaches us, we are commanded to welcome the stranger and the alien. We are called to defend the downtrodden and give voice to the voiceless. The Bible is clear, God is on the side of the underdog and the poor. So, as a Christian, as a human being, and as an American I can do nothing else but be thankful for immigration reform and hope the bill passes Congress very soon.