Immigration And The Accident of Birth
– By Ed Kociela –
If you were anywhere near a television these last couple of weeks, you saw the myth that we are all created equally dispelled.
We don’t all have a Balmoral to escape to; we don’t have Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace to hide in.
The greater majority of us live workaday lives, toiling to pay the rent and put food on the table and maybe, just maybe, have a few creature comforts.
It’s all a result of the accident of birth.
Few are born to the throne, few ever taste the sweet fruits of luxury, and few move unencumbered through this challenging, changing world. A life of privilege and comfort just isn’t in the cards for most of us working stiffs.
As a result, you would think that we would do our best to extend comfort and brotherhood wherever and whenever we can.
But that’s also not in the cards.
In fact, we are seeing just the opposite as Texas and Florida primarily are gathering up asylum seekers by busload and shipping them to cities to which they have no connection.
Most of these folks are from South America, where violence and political persecution have placed their lives in jeopardy. They arrive at the border after treacherous, arduous treks through a no-man’s land of terror and fraught with danger, only to be swooped up and dropped on unknown doorsteps.
These people, seeking sanctuary, peace, and safety, are often left to fend for themselves in lonely, hollow bus stations or, as we saw, on the sidewalk in front of the vice president’s residence with no money, no means, no connection to the society or culture in which they arrive.
There is minimal assistance from the states where they arrive and usually a group of volunteers who work feverishly to relocate the asylum seekers to a place where they can thrive.
But, what do you do with so many unwitting pawns of this cruel political game?
They are immediately discriminated against by the so-called law and order bunch that would have turned back the Mayflower.
They get job offers, but mostly the minimal, menial jobs that pay little and provide almost no security.
They are belittled as “illegal,” which is simply not true because anybody who arrives at our border has a right to cross and apply for asylum. They are not illegal, undocumented, or whatever other tags you hang on them. They are here, trying to maneuver a complex weave of bureaucracy and regulation that taxes their very being as they try to simply exist in our xenophobic culture.
Meanwhile, the system does little to prevent them from becoming chattel, a part of a disposable society that just wants to be given a break.
The accident of birth brought them into a world of terror and violence instead of money and prestige. They will never own a high-rise in Manhattan. They will be lucky to find a two-bedroom flat with hot and cold water. They will never roll down the road in the back of a luxury car, only the back seat of a police car when the cops round up the usual suspects and cart them off to stand in a lineup. They will likely never receive an education at one of our most prestigious universities unless they can run very fast with a football.
Most likely, they will wash dishes until their hands go limp with arthritis, or pick strawberries until their back gives out and they can no longer bend.
And, that’s the lucky ones.
The others will be constantly looking over their shoulders for the cop who will take them away to the local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. They will pay into a Social Security fund they will never tap because they need a Social Security Number to earn a paycheck. They will be reluctant to call the police if abused or taken advantage of for fear of deportation.
Yet we have the cold-hearted who would send them back home without a fair hearing.
Of course, the United States does have a history for doing that, most sadly when it refused to take in thousands of Jews trying to escape the Holocaust during World War II. Our government was no better than the Nazis who ran the concentration camps when they denied these doomed people entry. Who thought we would face such prejudice again, as applied by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and any of the others who are playing political games with human lives.
How dare they!
There but for the grace of God or the accident of birth go they.
Crossing in dusty, desolate border towns, they are not welcomed by the infamous words that greeted my ancestors when they arrived from Poland and Italy:
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Immigration is one of those steadfast hot-button issues like abortion, affordable health care, gun control, and the other points of division in our country where our leaders have dug their heels in on both sides. Political ideology rather than humanity tends to govern in such matters.
As it stands now, I have little use for stringent immigration rules and regulations. We should, and could, fix it with changes that limit rejection at the border to those who commit violent crimes and are potential threats to terrorism. Other than that, I find that the greater the mix, the greater the diversity, the broader the tapestry of ideas, customs, cultures that enrich us. These are things we must celebrate instead of homogenize. As it stands, the United States is nothing more than a bologna sandwich on white bread with a slathering of mayo. I’d prefer a lengua taco, escargots de Bourgogne, or even a hot pastrami on rye with some seriously spicy mustard to satisfy my palate.
How boring it would be to live in a one-dimensional world with no depth of context and gentle mix; how sad to share but one perspective; how tragic to see only your reflection in every face you greet.
We cannot fix the inequities of the accident of birth.
But, we can move more and more towards true equality.
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