Column
was personally challenging
I
am writing in response to “A Personal Challenge”,
by Teri Conrad, published June 27, in The Desert
Advocate.
Ms.
Conrad is wrong on so many points, that it will
difficult to address them and remain concise.
First,
Ms. Conrad has the audacity to urge “all Christians
to accept a personal challenge to extend
hospitality and kindness to those undocumented people
who enter our country. ... Together we can influence
social policy.”
This
is a fancy way of saying let’s get more involved
in assisting people to break the law and make it
easier for them to do it. You don’t even have the
intellectual honesty to describe these people as
illegal immigrants. Shame on you.
Second,
Ms. Conrad makes the assertion that a wall “will
not hold back the human tide. We learned that lesson
in Berlin.” Are you serious? There were 5,000 escape
attempts through the Berlin Wall post 1961. Three‑thousand
were unsuccessful, and the last person killed attempting
to cross was in 1989. Walls are not perfect, but
they do work, see also Great Wall of China.
Third,
Ms. Conrad pulls out the standard diatribe about
inhumane working conditions, deaths in the
desert and families ripped apart by deportation.
Guess what, that was their decision. If you want
to complain about building a wall, don’t snivel
about people dying in the desert.
Unless,
of course, you are suggesting we rent air conditioned
buses and bring every willing soul from Mexico to
the U.S. I know, why doesn’t your group go to Mexico
and support policy reform on the Mexican side of
the border?
Raids
and deportations are not the problem. People breaking
the law is. The illegal immigrants do not do the
work U.S. citizens won’t do. They do it at a price
citizens can’t compete with. The working poor in
this country are hurt by wages that don’t rise in
areas of the country with significantly cheaper
pools of labor.
The
immigration laws that exist now need to be enforced
on the border, as well as on the employers.
Why do people such as Ms. Conrad who shout from
the rooftops about equity openly support giving
illegal immigrants a cut in the immigration line.
We have people that have been enduring
the long pathway to citizenship for years. Should
they be disenfranchised because they followed the
rules? How is that fair or the American Way?
Finally,
Ms Conrad writes, “It is time for Christians to
speak out for those weak and oppressed.” Perhaps
as a representative for the Social Justice and Peace‑making
Committee of the Presbyterian Church she can influence
them to become active in some of the following ways.
Start
a fund raising campaign to support the Christians
being killed in Darfur by an Islamic government.
Boycott all products imported from child sweat‑shops
in China. Actively protest against
religions supporting sexual mutilation and denial
of education to women. On a more local level, support
Habitat for Humanity for the poor folks who have
been here for generations. Poverty didn’t start
here last week and it didn’t get imported from Mexico.
