Wednesday, August 22, 2001
|
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 |
|
Amnesty's fine, but then what next? By DAVE HAMRICK There's an organization that sends me e-mails every day or two addressing its concerns over immigration. We in Fayette County are well aware of the fact that there seem to be increasing numbers of people from Mexico and other Central and South American Countries moving into the U.S., both legally and not so legally. Please don't read this as any sort of stereotyping, but facts are facts: one need only ride by any construction site or watch any landscaping crew at work to realize that our area has become a popular destination for Hispanic migration. I'm sure there are many of these immigrants working in very highly skilled jobs as well, but they aren't nearly as visible. My anti-immigration e-mailers insist that they're coming in too fast, and the situation is out of control. They're taking jobs away from legal immigrants and U.S. citizens, and they're going to overwhelm our government services. Now the president wants to allow all the illegal aliens currently living here to earn the right to come out of the closet and stay here permanently. People who were worried before are now frantic. I'm not frantic. I'm waiting to see how the president proposes to get through the logistical nightmare of simply getting all of the paperwork done. And I'm curious about whether the State Department is expecting an amnesty announcement to generate a stampede at the border as people try to cross it in time to be included in the amnesty. But the biggest question I have for President Bush is: "What comes next?" Currently, we don't seem to have a very coherent or cohesive immigration policy. As my German friend has pointed out to me, we give Europeans and Africans a hard time if they want to come here ... sometimes it takes years to get visas. Yet our neighbors to the south come over in droves. Will this amnesty apply only to Mexicans, only to Hispanics, or to all illegal aliens? After the amnesty, will we take measures to slam the southern borders shut? Will we get mean about it ... shoot people trying to get in the way East German soldiers used to shoot people trying to get out? If not, I can't see any way we're going to prevent even greater numbers from coming in, in hopes of another amnesty in the future. But if so, we've kind of lost sight of that whole "Give us your tired, poor, etc." concept. As an aside, although this is really not a liberal or conservative issue, it occurs to me to wonder how liberal thinking deals with this. On the one hand, you want to be openhearted about giving as many people as possible a shot at the American dream (although if you keep driving taxes higher and higher there won't be an American dream). On the other hand, large numbers of people moving quickly into a country, or a community, can be pretty damaging to the environment. You have to cut down more trees, and give them less time to grow back before you have to cut down still more. You have to build more housing and more businesses to serve that housing, and all of that takes up pervious surface and contributes to storm water runoff problems, not to mention pollution of air, soil and water. Anyway, I think most of us can agree, liberal or conservative, that we need a well-thought-out plan for dealing with immigration something fair to both current citizens and potential citizens, yet something that slows down the flow enough that the impact doesn't rock us too much. I don't think we have that right now, and I'm expecting the Bush Administration to give it to us. Soon would be nice.
|
||