Dear Editor:
Here in Southern California, we live in a world of immigrants, both
legal and illegal. We see illegals every day, on the street corners of
Orange County seeking construction work; in the homes as house cleaners and on the
lawns of Newport Beach, trimming and mowing; in the fields of Irvine,
performing stoop labor, jobs Americans do not want, or at least do not
want
at the wages, and with the lack of benefits, illegals receive. But do we
really see these illegals as people - fathers, sons, brothers, mothers,
daughters, sisters and grandparents? Those of us fortunate enough to
have been born in the US can easily take a smug attitude toward
immigration and especially toward those who have come to the US
illegally, as economic refugees from the Southern Border, seeking wages for
an honest day's work; a life unavailable to them, and opportunities they
cannot achieve, in their countries of birth. It is easy to brand these
people as law breakers and scoff laws, people to be held to a lesser level
of respect. But it is not these people who are to blame. It is the
leaders
of the governments who have over decades, in fact, centuries, not provided
their countries with the leadership needed to insure success, while at the
same time becoming some of the wealthiest people in the world. As an
immigration lawyer, I am asked on a weekly basis, by immigration hopefuls
from around the world, "Why can't I get immigration benefits, when all
these
illegals are here working?", hostility frothing from their tone of
frustration. A naive question, which I answer with a statement of truth
and
another question, "You can stay illegally. Would you like to be an illegal
alien?" Regardless of the arguments pro or contra on the issues of
US
immigration, 245(i), guest worker programs or outright amnesty for law
breakers, the reality is that while the economic scales between the US and all of its neighbors to the South remain so abysmally disparate,
we will continue to see economic refugees, willing to risk all for the
promise of a better life, coming accross the border, no matter how high we
build the wall or how many Border Patrol or vigilantes patrol the fine line
in the sand in the southern desert that defines where America begins and
the
rest of the world ends. But is the life an illegal alien finds in the
US really better than the life he or she left behind, or is it
just another set of hardships?
David D. Murray, Esq.
Newport Beach, CA
Copyright © 1999-2002 American Immigration LLC, ILW.COM
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