It is hard for some of us to understand the opposition to granting a pathway to citizenship to people who have entered our country illegally. When you take into account that the rights protected by citizenship have been greatly reduced, it makes sense.
Before our First Amendment rights were lost (as evidenced by the Department of Justice grab of journalists’ emails), before our Fourth Amendment rights were stripped after 9/11, and just as our Second Amendment rights are being stripped, citizenship meant more.
Now, it means that you can earn a living… albeit a meager living… in relative safety unless you live in inner-city Chicago or close to the Mexican border. That is about it.
So why would we not want to share that privilege with everyone and anyone who is escaping economic oppression… we surely can relate to those seeking the American Dream as we watch it being torn from our grasp.
If we can’t relate to their plight, we do not really understand ours.
Across the country, representatives and senators return home during Capitol Hill’s summer recess. They have returned “home” with their guards up… and guards at the door to their perfectly staged “public” events.
Jeff Flake responded honestly when he said there was no chance of him changing his constituents’ minds and no chance they would change his. Honesty, no matter how ugly, is appreciated.
Jeff Flake and his fellow navy blue sport-coated cadre fanned out across the country to sell immigration reform. They want to talk about that because they don’t want to talk about the NSA, the IRS, etc.
They can use illegal immigration to instill shame on us… because they think we should be ashamed. What they don’t understand is that the vast majority of Americans don’t hold immigrants in contempt; we hold double standards in contempt. What we are now only figuring out is that our representatives hold us all in contempt; legal or not.
So, if you resisted the work of the Gang of 8, don’t. Instead focus on working with all people who crossed the desert or the ocean to commit, or recommit, to defending rights protected, not granted, by the Constitution.
Focus instead on deporting the navy blue sport coat/khaki pants crowd from D.C.