Dear George Washington...is any person on Planet Earth, here illegally?
Our 2021 Immigration numbers are ballooning -and- our Border Patrol Officers are under greater [daily] siege than our overseas military - why is that?
Everyone should be welcome anywhere they wish to go on this planet - but there is a backstory to America's immigration issue not shared with all legal citizens by politicians who don't have their farms and ranches and local communities invaded by tens of thousands of immigrants e-v-e-r-y-d-a-y. Are there refugee tents on the front lawn of the White House or the grounds of the Naval Observatory or on the estate of the House Speaker?
AND unaccompanied minors in July of 2020 [that CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS highlighted as a disgrace] numbered just over 2,000. However, are those same networks screaming about the 2021 numbers that are well over 18,000 unaccompanied minors? No. Are all the orphanages in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala - being emptied out for America to feed, clothe, educate and raise? Will this flood of unaccompanied minors get citizenship before the "Dreamers"? Is that [another] one of the back-stories kept from WeThePeople?
Around my kitchen table one night [a while ago] those present, drinking strong coffee and eating pie with too much whipping cream, got to talking about America's immigration issue. [Other countries might have immigration issues too, but CNN made better [2020] theater from ours.]
After about an hour, far from solving anything our congress might consider noteworthy, the discussion came to an abrupt halt when someone [it could have been me] asked a question that stopped the other five people in mid swallow and bite. "In our beginning--who laid out the borders? For that matter, who was responsible for dividing up land within those borders that became farms or city lots then suburbs and shopping centers? Who?"
What really happened in our beginning--was it Adam? Or--was Eve our planet's very first land developer? Or, was it Mosses as he crossed the desert? Was Mosses a squatter pitching his tents anywhere there was space--anywhere he liked across Egypt's fast miles of sand?
As more clans formed [like beehives] each clan was protective of their territory and their clan connection. Strangers were rarely or cautiously included. Early on within an established clan were generalists with everyone able to grow their own crops, root vegetables, manage stock and hunt their own fowl, rabbit or fish.
Eventually though specialists emerged like the farmer who made better chairs, tables and beds then he stopped farming to make furniture for everyone else. There was the farmer who baked better tasting bread who eventually made bread for everyone else. Okay - but what happened to the land that was their farm? Well, the farmer who grew better crops - grew even more crops on the carpenter's land and the baker's land so the carpenter and the baker could still have some harvest.
Ahhh, but disputes arose [naturally] over the value of furniture versus the value of bread versus the value of crops and one farmer's access to a larger piece of land to grow more crops than the other farmers...Enter a wise Elder in the clan to settle disputes and create value.
Years slipped by and the Elder's time was taken more and more with resolving so many other disputes that it cut into his ability to farm - so he became the official appointed clan leader. Besides a leader, the clan had other specialists who wove yarn into fabric that became robes, there evolved tanners who made leather sandals for everyone's feet. This is simplistic, but you get the idea.
However, humans being humans there were some clan members who didn't always agree with the Elder's decisions so some clan members left and started a new clan in another valley or on another hilltop. Still others challenged the Elder by convincing other clan members 'they' were wiser with better ideas. Ta da! The birth of politics! And with that awkward birth came making sure that everyone with land had an equal 'value' amount to cultivate and an equal 'value' for baked bread and equal 'value' for leather, woven fabric, wood and so on.
It's at this point in our sketchy human, social evolution that we can see more and more evidence of a complicated system steadily developing. Someone [another specialist] had to assign a value to land, bread, crops, chairs, sandals, fabric, pots - and if that person did that task full time how were they compensated?
Don't leave me yet - we're getting close to unmasking that illusive WHO.
Suffice to say that over time Elders evolved into monarchs like kings, queens, emperors, and leaders like mayors, governors, premiers, prime ministers and presidents etc...Those who assigned value became money changers, tax collectors, bankers and brokers. That's WHO! There isn't 'one' single person who we can point to and blame for dividing up perfectly good scenery into taxable real estate. There was a s-l-o-w, but steady blossoming among certain upright humans into a growing number of people/who were born with an enterprising ingenuity. [[Ethics, sometimes optional.]
Okay! What - you ask - does any of this frail skip through history have to do with America's immigration tangle? Everything - because - all the clans now living in the 21st Century are just as territorial as their ancient ancestors. Problem; in the 21st Century we have thousands of Elders with thousands of 'different' ideas and they have created an even more complicated system with arbitrary borders and even more arbitrary regulations to protect territory...
When pioneer/immigrant/settlers first arrive on the shores of North America the Native Indians were confused then later appalled that the new pioneers were paying for and then taxed for land that Mother Nature already offered freely. Our spiritually advanced and wise First Nations People possessed a highly evolved understanding that the Universe had provided water, soil, animals and plants for everyone to 'share'. Well, we soon set them straight...
Which brings us right back to WHO again and America's immigration tangle. From my kitchen table on that fateful night, we all agreed that no one is on Planet Earth illegally. Therefore, perhaps we need to redefine illegal immigrant, when what we really see in the vast majority of people are; frightened, desperate humans seeking to join our Clan in order to live and prosper without fear.
The U.S. Mexican border is 1,954 miles long and one suggestion was we open more ports of entry with smaller offices along America's [arbitrary] southern border, perhaps every 100 or 150 miles. More entry ports [14 to 20] would allow more frightened, desperate people, whose backgrounds we could check, to join our Clan. [Another suggestion to 'slow' illegal crossings was introducing Alligators into the Rio Grande River...Hmmm.]
And the Dreamers! Oh for goodness sake - let them register - take a test and grant them U. S. Citizenship. They have and already are finishing their education as teachers, engineers, business majors, entering medicine...They already contribute with energy and enthusiasm. And - while we're at it let's get the parents of Dreamers into the system so they may apply and become legal too - then pay taxes too! Since the parents of Dreamers obviously raised some great kids they'd be a future asset as well--or is that logic flawed?
Anyway, the vast majority of the people coming to America contribute to America by making furniture or sandals or bread - or - perhaps a medical breakthrough. [I have bone marrow cancer and my doctor was born in Mexico City, do you think I'm thrilled he's here?] New Americans might invent effective cyber security or compose song lyrics or create a unique form of art or find a scientific means to breakdown and reuse plastic or write a new literary classic OR live a quiet productive life...
Since my grandparents [and likely yours] came to America in a century past how do we want immigration managed in this century going forward? More ports of entry along our southern border [where our border patrol can work safer behind a finished wall] could allow for better checks of the people seeking future citizenship. We do NOT want a continuous cycle of criminals from other countries [bringing children taken from those streets or orphanages] posing as families, then abandoning these children here to grow up in American foster care.
America should be a welcoming nation, but 'only' to those with ethical intentions, we have enough of the other kind born here already. Sadly some have run for public office...Ohhh, sorry I digress. Okay, where can voters go from here? We can email, call, write then email, call, write - over and over and over - to those we elect to serve us --not the other way around...
AS well, we're all Americans--not African-American, not Asian-American, not Hispanic-American, not Norwegian-American or Muslim-American or Jewish-American...just American...If not then why live in America?
https://medium.com/@BraveNewFilms.org/heres-how-to-contact-all-535-members-of-united-states-congress-call-email-tweet-20b8a1c54195
Sherrie Todd-Beshore is a mystery-suspense novelist and former journalist.*
Via amazon.com or patchworkpublishing.com
Romantic Suspense-Thriller: "Dream Gate...Grabbing Air"
Sequel: "Dream Gate II...Grabbing Time"
