Greisa Martinez Rosas expressed her views at a recent rally condemning the deportation policies of the administration, which received enthusiastic support from attendees. Many people in the country have ancestors who originally migrated from other places. Personally, my ancestors were from Prussia, but post-1945, I identify as Polish. They legally immigrated to the U.S. in 1888, and my great-grandfather worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Interestingly, there are some scandalous stories in my family history, like the suspicion that he poisoned his first wife and then married her sister. But I’ll save that story for another time.
However, there is a contrast between my family’s immigration story and that of Ms. Rosas. My ancestors followed legal immigration procedures and were heterosexual. I’m grateful for the latter, as it played a role in my existence. Nevertheless, they shared certain traits with Rosas, such as fearlessness and lack of shame. Despite any fears, their bravery to venture into the unknown led them to travel on a ship to the U.S. Josef Zoernig and Francezka had a son who served in WWI, established a successful real estate business upon returning, and raised two sons who led normal, fruitful lives.
Personally, I believe that immigration can bring positive outcomes. I have a favorable opinion of immigrants and strongly support them. Specifically, I endorse legal immigrants. The country has established processes to facilitate lawful immigration, including pathways to citizenship. The journey may be lengthy, as it should be. It’s important to invest time in understanding the country’s values and society to successfully integrate into the American cultural fabric and become part of the nation.
If you don’t, then you not only miss out on being part of that, you don’t contribute to it either because the first thing you learn by coming here illegally is that our law doesn’t matter. If you came here as a child, then you’ve learned this from your parents, and as in the case of Ms. Rosas, it’s become one of your convictions. So a main pillar of the American value system that keeps the roof from falling in is that we are a nation based on law. The founders set things up that way because they were Englishmen. And Englishmen had the shared legal tradition of the Magna Carta since way back in 1215. Long history with a law that essentially made the King subject to the law as was any peasant tilling the land. And because of that shared history, all Democratic politicians today will proudly tell you that “No one is above the law,” unless…unless you’re Joe Biden and one of the 12 million friends he invited over for dinner and extended stay, that is. Those guys float above the law like Zeppelins. I think when Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) says something demonstrably untrue, like no one is above the law, someone in the press should borrow a Trump Card from the president’s stack and stick it in her face.
Anyway, I have a friend who married a Salvadoran woman. When he got out of the Navy, they moved here and married. She spent the next few years studying to become an American citizen. After she took the oath, she became very vocal and critical about the line jumpers. And she should have because she was right. Illegal aliens don’t put any effort into the American experience. They might hold jobs and some might pay some taxes, but I bet if I asked one of the numerous landscape workers that visit the same Quik Trip I do each morning, “Hey, I forget, was it the Germans or the San Franciscans who bombed Pearl Harbor?” I know I’d get “¿Que?” for an answer. At least being aware of stuff like that is important to our collective experience because a lot of it explains how we occupy time and space right now. But if you’re here illegally, and not in high school, you probably don’t know it was the Japanese. And if you are in public high school, you still probably don’t know it was the Japanese. When I was in college, I had a history professor who taught us the acronym SCRAPE, which stood for Social, Cultural, Religion, Art, Political, and Economic. These were the threads that held the tapestry together. They were the glues that made up what a society was and ensured cohesion. Doesn’t mean that everybody has to be Methodist and like Picasso, but it does give definition to a people who have many of these things in common. It’s patently true. Look at the Middle East. Most of those guys are Muslim and most of those guys stick together. Even hating Israel more than they love their own kids. But when you don’t have enough common beliefs, virtues or experiences among your population, then your culture fractures and your country Balkanizes. Some of the Nordic countries are learning this painful lesson right now.
So, I mean, there’s a lot of other bad stuff that illegal immigration does to a country. Especially when so much of it happens overnight. Remittances that go out which are less than tax revenue coming in. Actual citizens having to pay for services that support fake citizens. Drug trafficking, sex trafficking, children trafficking…fake citizens that have no reason to assimilate because they neither care to or there’s no economic reason for them to. The list keeps going. But most of you know what those are, and there’s no reason to take them all on here. Suffice to say that people like Rosas who are here illegally think that they’re entitled to be here because they’re queer and progressive. They intend to stay here and think that defiance of a basic tenet of U.S. law makes them ‘bold and beautiful” enough to demand that other such entitled nobles jump the fence and run to the racist, homophobic and xenophobic place called America.
I hope Tom Homan puts her on the next bus out of here. Pour encourager les autres.
