You have to be cold-hearted if you can accept this

It is an old argument, and I doubt anyone is going to be swayed today.

Yet anyone who can read through a feature story published by the McClatchy Newspapers (ie., the Miami Herald, the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram and the Anchorage Daily News, to name a few) and see hardened criminals in the people who have a desire to have a new life in this country is cold-hearted.

AS IN YOUR ethnically-motivated ideological hang-ups have overcome any sense of compassion.

At stake is a story written by the company’s Mexico correspondent, who wrote about the path by which people have to work through Mexico before they even get to the U.S./Mexico border.

In many cases, we’re talking about people from central American nations (even though the ideologues want to label the whole stretch of the continent as “just Mexicans”) who had to slip through Mexico before they could even contemplate trying to get across the southwestern deserts that separate our nation from Mexico.

These ideologues are the ones who claim that President Barack Obama is somehow not respecting “The Law” by saying that some people already in this country are now at the bottom of the priority list for those who might someday get deported.

THESE PEOPLE ALSO are the ones whom the ideologues want to label as serious criminals, just because they set foot north of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande.

Anyone reading the McClatchy report sees that these people in search of a better life are the ones who get preyed upon by criminals – in many cases being forced into illegal activity by drug cartels.

And not necessarily transport of drugs. Sometimes, the violent acts involve these people who were passing through, and just happened to be found by the criminal element.

That is, of course, presuming that the criminal element doesn’t just feel a certain whim and have these people killed. Sad, but true. It has happened.

THE THING IS that a lot of people make the trip up north, knowing full well how treacherous it can be – and how their success depends so much upon luck. Yet these people being preyed upon are the ones whom the ideologues of our nation would try to claim are the problem.

Now I’m not in any way saying that the U.S. government ought to be taking any action to address this violence and harassment. There’s nothing it can do. This is a Mexican problem (and the fact that Mexico officials are in some cases willing to turn their backs and ignore the violence is a large part of the reason why many Mexican citizens also make this same trip).

Which is why I find it particularly pathetic whenever I learn of a story involving some sort of scam that targets the newly-arrived of this nation.

Preying on people who endured a load of doggy-doo (substitute your own preferred crude epithet here) to get to this country then have to deal with more abuse once they get here.

AND ALL TOO often, we find people who take an unsympathetic tact. As though those individuals deserve to get ripped off. Nobody deserves to be treated as prey for the criminal elements of our societies.

These crime victims (that’s really what they are) definitely don’t deserve to be considered criminal just for existing.

Then again, those people who have a problem with such thought probably also think that the Statue of Liberty is some mouthy French broad who speaks un-American thoughts with that line about; “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

In my mind, anyone whose trip to this country including clinging to a Mexican freight train – keeping alert so that low-hanging branches don’t knock one off the rail car – certainly qualifies.

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