President Barack Obama’s administration announced last week some changes in the way immigration policy is being enforced, and the ideologues on all sides are making predictable arguments for (and against) the changes.
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| OBAMA: Not ignoring problem |
Personally, I view the changes as short-term moves. Real reform is going to have to be done on a more intense level than this.
BUT I COULDN’T help but get a giggle at reading some of the news coverage that came out during the weekend (when people supposedly don’t pay as much attention to news reports as they do during the week).
The Christian Science Monitor, in particularly amused me. For while they did a nice report, their attempt to use a headline and subhead to frame the issue showed all too clearly what the problem truly is in our nation.
According to the Monitor, the changes will “likely … shore up his support among Latino voters,” but adds that they “could also polarize the country.”
Polarize the country?
AS THOUGH WE’RE now all in agreement on this issue, and it’s going to be Obama’s fault that we suddenly have a flawed immigration system that has become so convoluted it is virtually beyond repair?
That’s nonsense. We’re already “polarized” on this matter. That subhead reeks of an attitude that we’d be better off ignoring the problem.
Perhaps if we don’t look at it too intensely, it will go away. “Yeah, that’s the ticket.” As Jon Lovitz’ pathological liar character used to say in Saturday Night Live sketches whenever his statements were stretching further and further away from reality.
Anyone who says (or writes) anything is going to infuriate someone else. That doesn’t mean we ignore the problem and wish we could somehow pretend it does not exist.
BECAUSE THAT IS the problem. We have a flawed immigration policy, and some people don’t care because of their own ethnic hang-ups. Others are just too eager to avoid a fight.
But it is a fight that our society is likely going to have to go through if we’re ever going to achieve a sensible policy that does manage to properly regulate the flow of people from around the world into this country – without those aforementioned hang-ups being their focal point!
And let’s be honest. Changes in immigration policy such as the 1996 measure (by a then-Newt Gingrich-led House of Representatives) that requires some people to leave the United States for up to a decade before trying once again to apply for “resident alien” status were created for that very reason.
It is with such conditions in place that Obama is using his authority to make some minor changes – such as allowing people in families where some are of legal immigrant (if not citizen) status and others are not to be treated with a higher priority.
KEEPING FAMILIES TOGETHER (instead of applying the ideologue’s idiotic logic that claims the “foreigner” should leave this country and take his (or her) U.S. citizen brethren with him/her.
There’s even going to be more training for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, which likely will slow down the deportation rate for a time while said training is being implemented.
There ought to be nothing radical about having better-training people in such sensitive positions. Unless you’re the type who doesn’t care about sensitivities and merely wants people removed.
In which case, you ARE the problem! And the fact that bringing this issue to a head is going to offend your sensibilities isn’t something that our society should be concerned with.
I BELIEVE WE’RE going to remain polarized on this issue until we have the debate and engage in the reform. That is ultimately what will bring us together.
And as for those people who are so hard-core that they will remain offended for the remainder of their lives? They can join the segregationists of old who are nearing the end of their lives – muttering under their breaths about how our society has gone straight to “hell in a hand-basket,” as that silly cliché goes.
While the rest of us will have the sense to ignore them and move forward with our lives.
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