Why don't 'they' wait in line to come to the United States? Here are the answers

Each day, I recognize in my prayers my good fortune to be born in this country.

What if I had been born in Mynammar, and lost my family and all our possessions from a cyclone? And what if hope of recovery had been deterred by a totalitarian regime?

What if I had been born in China, and lived in a village where the schools were poorly constructed? What if my children lost their lives in an earthquake because of the poor construction? What if the Communist government refused my grievances so this outrage would not happen again?

What if I had been born in Dafur, in the Sudan, and government and rebel forces took their turns raping my family and destroying our home? What if the world for years had recognized our suffering, but yet had not the courage to intervene militarily?

What if?

The reply has always been "then go to America" -- for so many of the suffering people of this world. And the Statue of Liberty that this nation celebrates is inscribed with an invitation to them as the world's huddled masses yearning to be free.

Now consider if you lived in Mexico, for instance, only a matter of miles by foot or car to get to the border and to cross into this land of prosperity and justice.

Would you take the risk of entering the United States, even though you realized it was illegal? Unlawful presence in America is a civil offense.

Would you stay home and apply for legal entrance, knowing that it would take 12 years and more than $7,000 you don't have?

If you had $7,000, you wouldn't be looking to leave Mexico in the first place. You'd buy your own land and raise corn and wheat to sell at new, all-time high prices to be made into bio fuels.

But then there are your children -- six months, two years and four years of age. In 12 years of waiting for legal entrance, if you are accepted, they will have grown old enough to be recruited by the only growing opportunity for advancement across your troubled nation -- the drug dealers and smugglers of narcotics and people. They currently are waging a war in Mexico's streets against the government for control.

Rember the term "family values"? Conservatives should.

Besides, the people in America brag about believing in the same God as you do and cherish the Statue of Liberty. They're sending its sons and daughters to Iraq to fight for the freedom of a people 5,000 miles away.

You don't want anyone fighting a war for you. And you're even willing to fight in America's military in exchange for legality. You know, deep in your heart, that when Americans see you work hard and worship a higher presence on Sunday, they'll recognize your value ... just as they did when Mexicans were actively recruited by the U.S. government for the Bracero farm program in World War II.

You've heard all the arguments by many Americans about why you should not come to to their country.

Stay home and change it and change your own country. The poor in Mexico have never been able to change their country. They don't have the money to contribute to candidates or to finance a war. Even in America, one of its leading presidential candidates is talking about change. If America has found it difficult to change, how could Mexico have any success?

Surely, Americans understand the moral imperative of providing better for one's children than you have. President Bush does. In an interview in the Oval Office, he bragged to me of his understanding of this truth as the governor of a border state and a child who was raised in Houston by a Mexican nanny. He called her a second mother.

Now, however, Bush has allowed the 287g deportation program in 55 U.S. communities including Davidson County and increased ICE raids of workplaces. Compassionate conservatism has been replaced by a sad sacking of integrity.

Besides war, truth is the first casualty in politics. And so it has been with this nation's immigration policy. It has become a political football.

Friday, I was speaking to a friend of mine, a descendant of German immigrants. He recalled how his ancestors formed their own communities in big cities and only spoke their native tongue there for generations. He cited the Poles and Italians as having the same history.

Meanwhile, Hispanics have shown themselves to assimilate to the English language by the next generation after immigration, he said. That's the fastest for any group, my friend said.

The defining issue in this nation's refusal to reconcile its immigration policy to simple truth is a historical bigotry, he said, which also was exhibited against Italians, Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Irish and Poles to mention only a few.

My friend of German grandparents told me that punitive programs like 287g are akin to squeezing a plugged garden hose. One only increases the pressure of the moment, and then the water explodes everywhere, uncontrollably and a lot of folks end up getting wet and irritated.

He's right. And compassion is one of the first virtues to get dampened. So is forward thinking. Baby Boomers are retiring. They are needing more frequent hospitalization while nursing numbers continue to fall. Hispanics constitute the youngest workforce in the nation. We need those numbers to care for people and to keep the Social Security fund solvent.

We need these Hispanic immigrants -- to care for our aged, to fill their professional jobs and be America's workforce of the future.

While this fact is not often reported, most of the 12 million Hispanics illegally in this country have come into America legally -- under temporary work visas to labor in our fields at harvest time, to keep up golf courses at tee time and perform other menial tasks at dinner time. They became illegal when they failed to return home, usually because other employers hired them out of respect for their work ethic.

That truth says more about citizens of this nation than about them.

According to that experience, Democrats including Sen. Barack Obama and a Republican such as Sen. John McCain proposed the creation of an expanded temporary work program in comprehensive immigration reform legislation. With the expanded program, temporary workers would be more closely followed to ensure they left the country after their legal stay period ended.

Republican lawmakers, however, blocked this important reform.

Punitive measures they support are 287g deportation, ICE workplace raids and a silly wall on the border to address the issue at the moment. They do not look to a better and more prosperous future for all people involved and affected. Immigrants pay taxes, particularly the sales tax which accounts for most of the money used for Tennessee state operations.

A University of Arizona study released earlier this year determined that undocumented immigrants contributed almost $1 billion more in revenue than money expended for government services they used. In addition, undocumented immigrants have money taken out of their wages for Social Security benefits they'll never receive. At the beginning of this decade, their contribution to the Social Security fund topped $20 billion. Earlier this year, the federal government announced that the size of SS contributions by undocumented immigrants would keep the Social Security Fund solvent by an additional two years.

So there are the answers to why undocumented immigrants and their families are here and what they contribute to a more prosperous America. Some people won't like the answers. But unless we deal with the matter of illegal immigration truthfully, the controversy will only grow.