Immigrating to the US Legally is More than a Hassle, It's a Punishment

Look, I am not gonna bore everybody with another analysis of the immigration crisis. Most reasonable people can understand why there needs to be an orderly, well-regulated flow of immigration into our country. After all, if we just "let 'em all in", our infrastructure would collapse from not being able to keep up with the influx. There needs to be background checks, to insure that only the best, brightest, and hardest working individuals enter, as long as they intend to become citizens. There needs to be additional safeguards in place to ensure that dictators like Castro and Chavez just don't use the United States as a dumping ground in which to empty their prisons and mental hospitals.

I am not against immigration at all. As a matter of fact, I am only the second generation of my family born in America. However, my forbearers came here wanting to be Americans. They did not wave the flags of their motherland and shout hateful things about their new home. The learned English, rather than insist that Americans learn Polish and Slovak. They became citizens and learned and respected our laws BEFORE they got jobs, and took a lot of crap at work, without whining, and it made my people tough as nails. They did not call themselves "Polish-Americans" or "Slovak-Americans"; they were proud to identify themselves only as Americans.

Now that that's been established, this "guest worker" ridiculousness is purely the brainchild of Big Business and the plutocracy. They love playing the race card on this issue, claiming that Americans who want to protect our sovereignty and standard of living simply hate Mexicans. The American laborer, whose value has been greatly diminished because of this unregulated flow of illegal labor into our country, is portrayed as bigoted. Eliminating all emotion and going purely on common sense, reasonable people understand that this issue is not about race.

Or IS it?

Several years ago, my best friend served two tours in Iraq as an MP, whose duties included escorting convoys through mined roadways and guarding prisoners. He willingly put himself in harm's way, thinking he was protecting the American people from terrorists. After he fulfilled his commitment in Iraq, he was stationed in Italy, where he met a smart, beautiful Polish national named "Illyana". They fell in love and wanted to marry, but he wanted to bring her to the States and do whatever it took to make her a legal US citizen.

They waited over two years, filling out form after form, and wading through a veritable bog of red tape. They worked with the INS, and both Polish and American embassies, not to mention several immigration attorneys. When it looked like things were about to be settled, Illyana came here to marry my friend, and start her new life as a new citizen. But soon after they were wed here in Tennessee, the nightmare was just beginning.

He was soon contacted by INS, stating that she was not yet legal, and her status was in peril. It seems they "lost" half her paperwork. My friend is resourceful, so he kept copies of everything, but that isn't good enough for Uncle Sham. THEY lost the original documents, but put the burden of proof on him to rectify the problem. At least their newborn son has citizenship here, so MAYBE that might help stave off any attempt at deportation.

When my friend came home from Iraq, he had saved over $30,000. He is now broke, and not due to irresponsibility on his part, but because of bureaucratic corruption and incompetence. He had to quit his high-paying long haul trucking job to take lower-paying local routes so he could be home every afternoon to deal with immigration lawyers almost daily. Yes, even though they are doing everything the legal, honest, and expensive way, our government seems to just keep on throwing up one roadblock after another. If they keep stonewalling them until he runs completely out of money, this proud American veteran may have to move his new family back to Poland. Some thanks he's getting from the government whose interests he risked everything to protect!

Now why do you suppose Illyana is having so much trouble getting citizenship? She is smart, educated, hard-working, self-reliant, and is a woman of character. Above all, she WANTS to be an American; it has been a dream for her. We have joked with her that my buddy should have just died her hair black, flown her to Mexico, and just had her sneak in from Tijuana into San Ysidro, California. I don't care who gets pissed off at that, because it's the truth, and if that offends you, that's just too damn bad!

Let's sum it all up, shall we? Okay, Illyana is white, European, educated, and has no desire to hide in the shadows and be treated like a dog by a boss who would work her fourteen hours a day for less than minimum wage with no overtime pay or workman's comp. In other words, Uncle Sham does not want her here; she is of no use to the Ruling Class. I believe they "accidentally" lost her immigration forms like I believe the moon is made of Swiss cheese!

In spite of how horribly she has been treated by our regime here, she still wants to call America her home. She wants to raise her child here, and spend the rest of her life with the man she loves in his homeland, but is unwilling to be part of this new slave class in an America that I don't even recognize anymore.

On second thought, maybe this IS about race after all!