GEORGE TEMPLETON COMMENTARY
By George Templeton
Gazette Contributor
MIND
“Mind is the master-power that molds and makes, and Man is mind, and evermore he takes the tool of thought, and shaping what he wills, brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills. He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass: Environment is but his looking-glass.”
The real issue is not whether immigration is beneficial or harmful, but whether you want immigration at all.
We can’t read the minds of our representatives but we can make inferences from their overt behaviors and verbal slips. When a Republican described landscapers as police killers on television, it revealed hostility to Latinos. They probably were drug pushers using landscaping as a front. The scribbling on the bathroom wall of a major hardware store that prides itself on helping Spanish speaking customers said “Gut shoot them at the border”. This followed a Republican campaign speech claiming that Mexico is trying to take over Arizona and that the Tucson ethnic studies courses, like Elvis Presley, were part of a elitist Marxist conspiracy attempting to deprive the virtuous and homogeneous people of Arizona of their rights, values, prosperity, and voice.
Politicians benefit by demonizing immigrants as employees of drug lords though they are mostly honest, squeaky clean individuals who come to work, not to live on the dole. They are a society within a society, diseased, prone to criminal behavior, and lazy welfare cheats. They are an insurgency intending to destroy white Anglo-Saxon protestant culture, destructive to schools, and too different to ever become real Americans. Proud citizens must drive them away to preserve “America as we know it.”
It’s not possible to identify illegal aliens by skin color or English fluency. This fact is at the core of mean-spirited propositions that would deny public services to those who are undocumented regardless of consequences and make their presence a felony crime subject to imprisonment and deportation.
Envy goes too far when it denies the value of a human being’s life, when it converts doctors and teachers into policemen, and when it deports innocent children who speak only English and have known no country other than America. Laws written to punish day laborers waiting by the road for work, with the excuse that it might slow traffic, while ignoring gun smuggling, reveal thoughts of resentment. The Nazis used the populist anger of the distressed German people to scapegoat the Jews and rise to power. It backfired on Hitler causing his scientists to flee, America to develop the atomic bomb, and Germany’s defeat. Institutionalized pride and prejudice is the result of rewarding politicians who promote shameful thinking because it is a winner at the voting polls.
ASSIMILATION
The bumper sticker reads “Welcome to America, now speak English.” Don’t make me change because you don’t want to. There are no immigrants that don’t recognize the value of English fluency. This is obvious to anyone who has ever visited foreign countries and felt shut-out because of their inability to communicate. A talk show host complains about the “Mexican on the saw blades” and “press 1 for English”. The business community recognizes the value of marketing to foreigners and publishes information in many languages. They don’t find this to be threatening or inconvenient. It is wrong to reject immigrants because they do not assimilate and then make it difficult for them to assimilate.
Ronald Reagan claimed they “brought their own music, literature, customs, and ideas. They did not have to relinquish these things in order to fit in. In fact, what they brought to America became American. And this diversity has more than enriched us; it has literally shaped us.”
AMNESTY
If you have ever driven 60 mph in a 55 zone you know what amnesty is. Speed cameras don’t have a police officer to exercise discretion and pardon you. All reasonable people oppose unlawful behavior, but does the law make sense?
The ideological right does not like immigrants. The business community regards them as manna from Heaven. We can’t afford to detect, arrest, and deport 11 million aliens at an average cost of $20,000 each. Sixty one percent have been here for more than 10 years, 45 percent have families, and 5 million children have undocumented parents. An unlawful hidden underclass cannot be protected by the law. An incentive will be necessary to get them to come out and risk homes, businesses, and family.
Constitutional fundamentalists say the Federal government has no powers that are not explicitly granted but then they want to undo the explicit provision of citizenship for children born here.
It is not written that God became a rigid universally valid law but that God became man. It is not about an envious obsession with fairness. Individuals have rights apart from their citizenship.
OPEN BORDERS
References to the mythical “Open Borders Crew” stir up fears of a Mexican take over. You can’t have a country without borders but there is a need for temporary workers who come and go. The question is whether we want to import more produce from foreign countries or if we want seasonal immigrant workers to harvest our crops.
FENCES
All you need to reduce illegal immigration is a pencil, but that does not gain votes like the image of an invasion and 2000 mile fences along the Mexico border. Nearly one half of the illegal aliens in America arrived legally with temporary non-immigrant papers. They overstayed their visa and found jobs, and are part of our economy. They own businesses, homes, and pay taxes yet politicians ignore their contribution and look only at costs.
JOBS
Globalization created opportunities for importing the best, boldest, and brightest foreign employees to America. They were paid the same as citizens. We didn’t hire them because they were cheaper. We hired them because they were well known, had specific experience, and because no American could quickly fill the slot.
Do we want America to seem unfriendly to immigrants? We don’t want foreign graduate students to return to their mother country and compete against us. We have a skill shortage, not a job shortage.
BRACEROS
I worked with the Braceros in the late 50s and early 60’s and found them to be hard working, enthusiastic, highly motivated, and well treated. The alarm clock went off at 3:30 am, 7 days a week. I returned around 10 pm. The work was hot, dirty, and physical, un-benefited, without overtime, and below minimum wage. A heavy duty pair of work gloves would wear out on the first day and at first hands and fingers would be too sore to wrap around the steering wheel. The low pay and hard work did not motivate locals.
When you are starving in Mexico and can no longer make a living on your small farm, an opportunity to legally come to America and work for a season and send money home looks good. This mutually beneficial arrangement is being choked to death by over-regulation. Now is our chance to free business from the constraints of regulation and to drastically reduce undocumented migration.
HISTORY
The 1942 to 1964 Bracero program brought 4.2 million temporary seasonal Mexican workers to America. Though the legal Bracero program stopped, immigration did not, adding another 5 million Mexicans over the next 20 years.
RINOS (Republicans in Name Only) have historically supported amnesty. In 1986 a bipartisan effort on immigration reform, the IRCA (Immigration Reform and Control Act), was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. The law tightened up on the employment of illegal aliens. It also granted amnesty to those who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and who resided in the USA continuously since then, as well as seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants. All told, about 3 million unauthorized immigrants received amnesty under the act.
The failed 2007 McCain-Kennedy Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act was bipartisan. It proposed a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants residing in the United States as well as increasing border enforcement. A faster citizenship process, fines, and payment of back taxes were features. It did not reward those who broke the law or punish those who waited patiently in line in their home country. It planned a rating system based on a combination of education, job skill, family connections, English proficiency, and employer sponsorship. President Bush strongly supported the bill and said that he was disappointed at Congress’s failure to act.
NOW
America was once known for its benevolence. We helped to rebuild Germany, and Japan after WWII even though as a nation we were much poorer then and even though they had been our enemies. “The mind is the master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstances.” This is the message for Congress. We need policies that define rational, stable, orderly, legal, safe, humane migration.
3 comments:
So according to the author it's just fine to enter our Country illegally and stay as long as you please, use our educational system our health care system, be protected by our laws at the very same time they break our laws every day by their very presence. Add to that driving without a license, without insurance etc. I call 11 million illegals an invasion of epic proportions. What Germany failed to do in WWII and the Soviet Union failed to do with the cold war has been exceeded by the destruction of our economy. I am for legal immagration from any country and opposed to illegals from any country. If that makes me racist to some then so be it.
It is obvious that George Templeton Commentary is living in a fantasy land .
Illegal immigration is the third largest drain on our economy .
Illegal aliens cost us BILLIONS in social services , anchor babies and prison fees.
Its plain , Its simple and its documented , unlike the individuals who are criminals in this beautiful country .
George Temple ton's commentary is just another example of a bleeding heart, misguided person who thinks this country can continue to support criminals and their families .
America has laws that need to be followed , that's what this country is all about.
CRussell
Sedona,AZ
In the early 70’s a Spanish speaking citizen contractor bragged to me about how he and his business colleagues flew highly skilled illegal immigrants in by small airplane landing in the night on the strips used by crop-dusters. They didn’t speak a word of English and lived in this home for more than a year. These illegals built the urban sprawl that is everywhere in the valley. Illegal immigration was tolerated and even encouraged. Consequently we have a hidden population of 11 million who did not invade but came here over the course of many years and are working, living, and contributing to our economy. Immigrants were not the only ones breaking the law. We share in the responsibility for the existing problem and in the benefits of home, fruit, and vegetable prices. Now, what do we do about those who are well established and are already here and contributing to our economy? “No Amnesty” is a solution that will undermine our economy and will send a negative message to the rest of the world. Electric power, the electric motor, radio, modern physics, rocketry, and the controlled nuclear reaction all came from immigrants. My entire engineering crew consisted of immigrants with advanced degrees from China and India. We need these people. Now many are returning to their home countries.
I would deport illegals who are on welfare and have no prospect of making contributions. In today’s global competitive world we cannot risk the future costs of creating an uneducated class and should educate all children who are here. We need a national ID that will be more than a driver’s license and that can stand in the light of all the other currently accepted methods of identification. I support the E-verify legislation and feel that hiring illegals should not be tolerated. We should be more critical before approving tourist visas when people come from a country where the average salary is less than $300 per year.
A 25 year employee in our company, who came on a temporary Visa, became an illegal alien and was deported, leaving his home, cars, wife and children behind. He had 2 degrees, spoke fluent English, was light skinned, and contributed to defense electronics in the cold war days. He was a participant in the conversion of electronics from unreliable vacuum tubes to transistors in nearly everything. Years later his child received a full page write-up in the newspaper because he was the college student of the year and like his father had graduated and become employed by a major electronics company. The best and the brightest are the ones who have the guts to leave their family, culture, and language behind because they know they can make it here. Yes, he violated the law and paid the price and that was his responsibility. Yes, the law is dynamic, changing, a moving target, and many decisions have been left up to the discretion of our authorities. What is needed is a clear faster unambiguous path to citizenship.
Years later, I spent thousands of dollars of my company’s money to hire lawyers to rescue an outstandingly qualified Mexican individual in similar circumstances. His product appears in the keyboards and touchpads of all sorts of digital electronic devices. You probably own some of them.
These people contributed to our national security and economy and their work indirectly helped to create many thousands of jobs and small businesses. Our components were relatively cheap but we regularly shipped millions every week. No one can easily document or compute the likely billions of dollars they contributed to our economy. This has not been considered by “No Amnesty” advocates who inflate and exaggerate selected costs and ignore the benefits to our society.
George Templeton 11-6-2011
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