Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

I recieved yet another email from dear old dad today. You'll notice that this is a common theme - I get them a lot, we don't always see eye to eye, and when I respond to them, I risk putting him out with the thought that it's a personal attack...so often I just comment here instead, to promote peace in the family. It's usually for my personal benefit, anyway, as I like to explore the topic and qualify/quantify why I have my initial opinion (and even, sometimes, to change that initial opinion after some reflection on it). This email happened to tie into a post I'd intended to make for some time, so here we go.

Anyhow, back to the email...this one showed a photo of Teddy Roosevelt, and a quote he apparently gave in 1907 regarding immigration, cultural assimilation, and discrimination.

Here's the quote:

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

Now, I agree with his sentiment for the most part...but there are a few issues, which I'll enumerate:

1) English isn't currently this country's official language, nor was it at the time Roosevelt made the comment...in fact, it's never actually been the official language - always just an assumed language based on the fact that our founding charter was written in English. We don't have an official language. We should. Without a declared standard, the responsibility of providing translations to any language imaginable falls on the government and the people. "I don't speak English, and I need this in Swahili...accomodate me". That's expensive, unnecessary, and ultimately serves to deteriorate our own cultural unity by reinforcing (or at least not removing) unnecessary cultural barriers. You should speak the language of the country you're moving to...except...we don't have a standard language - it's all good!

2) Roosevelt seemed a little over-critical of retaining cultural self-identification. Perhaps that was not the intent, and the short format of this quote is simply working against it in this regard...I'll give the benefit of the doubt, but I'll also comment. I don't really have an issue with someone identifying with their cultural heritage. Without the fusion of so many world cultures, we wouldn't have the interesting variety we have in this country today (and I couldn't get good Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Ethiopian, Indian, Italian, or German food like I can today). Diversity forces us to take a good hard look at our own ways, and sometimes we find them lacking when compared to how someone else is doing it. We're not the best at everything, but if import something that's better, and assimilate that into OUR culture, we're all better for it. So long as immigrants recognize that's now their heritage and no longer their cultural identity, and don't segregate themselves into ethnic communities, I'm good with having Italian Grandmas.

Now, I do feel like we've got a border security issue in this country today, and I feel like there's some relatively easy steps we can (and should) be taking to resolve that issue. Allow me to lay it out for you:

1) Mandate English as the national language. All legislation, government forms, standardized testing, etc. will be provided in English, and it will be the responsibility of the non-English-speaker to obtain translation, if necessary.

2) Offer free or low-cost English Language education for residents and new immigrants that don't speak enough English to get by. To be clear, I feel that someone moving here from another country that doesn't speak English *should* take the responsibility of learning it (and paying for that education) on their own...but I also feel that it deteriorates cultural cohesion too much for society to not "pick up the slack" for those that can't/won't/don't take on the responsibilty themselves.

3) Secure the borders. This means both Mexico and Canada...if we're going to be serious about halting illegal immigration and border security, we need to make sure we're not just cracking down on the ones that look and talk different from us (or hav ethe misfortune of being born in a 3rd-world country and don't know a useful industrialized trade).

4) Stop the system of only issuing set allotments of immigration visas to other countries. This system results in lotteries in most countries were there's more demand for immigration papers than there is supply. It's a built-in system for discrimination before someone can even get here, and it kills any argument that anyone tries to make about "you should have come here legally" if there's any chance that someone can actually work within the system and be rejected without legitimate cause. DO issue a visa to anyone that applies, pending reasonable background and health checks. If I lived in squalor with no real opportunities to improve my lot in life in my country of origin, I'm certain wouldn't take the government's rejection as the final word on the matter, either...and I'd be trying to cross that border illegally, too.

5) Allow a brief amnesty period for anyone living in the country to apply for citizenship even if they arrived illegally (provided that the illegal immigration is their only major legal offense...don't reject them for a speeding ticket or misdemeanor offense). It's not realistic to think that someone here illegally will leave for 6 months and come back to become legal (as is currently the requirement in order for an illegal immigrant to gain legal status...and it's still not a guarantee that they will actually get issued a visa). It's just not going to happen - would you pack up your family and go back to El Salvador for 6 months to apply for citizenship if you'd been living here for the past 20 years and were largely integrated into society, had your kids in a decent American school, had a decent job, etc? Especially if there was any chance that you might be rejected once you got there?

6) Issue a Federal ID to all citizens and legal resident aliens. Take fingerprints at the time of issuance, and maintain a central federal electronic database for lookups so that the person holding the card can be biometrically verified very quickly. If you're here after the amnesty period without a valid Federal ID issued to you, and you get caught, your next stop is INS to determine your country of origin for deportation. This also more-or-less fixes the issue of identity theft.