Who on Planet Earth is here illegally? And the difference between immigration and migration is…
Between February 2021 and December 2024 [approximately] 6.5 million people migrated across the southern [and northern] border of these United States. It was a people flood for certain, with 80% coming from Latin American countries. Why? Most of the people were migrating for the same reason as other mammals, basic survival. The same reason that 1.5 million Irish citizens fled the country of their birth between 1846 and 1852, when there were just 33 states in the union.
I’ve become a Globalist. Everyone should be welcome anywhere they wish to go on this planet. If someone born in Norway wants to move to Brazil-then move. If someone from Brazil wants to move to New Zealand, then move. Etc…Who cares…
But too many side-stories to America's immigration issue were not accurately shared with legal citizens by politicians or media - who didn't have their property overrun by tens of thousands of immigrants e-v-e-r-y-d-a-y. Eg: the plight of unaccompanied minors in 2020 [that CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS protested as a disgrace] numbered just over 2,000. However, those same screaming networks [and politicians] were curiously silent after 2021 numbers ballooned to well over 18,000 unaccompanied minors. Why was that?
Were all the orphanages in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela…emptied out for America to feed, clothe, educate and raise? Will that flood of unaccompanied minors get citizenship before the "Dreamers"? Is that [another] one of the side-stories kept from those of us living on Main Street?
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 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 asked [it could have been me] a question that stopped the other five people in mid swallow and bite. "In the beginning--who laid out the borders? For that matter, who was responsible for dividing up land that became countries then counties then farms or city lots in suburbs and shopping centers? Who?"
What really happened in the 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?
In the beginning Adam and Eve [with their two boys] had Eden/Earth all to themselves. Then sometime later the emergence of more humans [aka: Mesopotamian, Sumerian, Minoan etc...] and territory in which to settle became important. Further, not only was settled territory important - also important - was the Clan.
As more clans formed [like vast ant hills] 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 and root vegetables, manage goats or sheep and hunt or fish.
Eventually though specialists emerged like the farmer who made better chairs, tables and beds for his house. So, 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 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 other farmers... Enter a wise Elder in the clan to settle disputes and create value.
Years slipped by and the Elder's time was detoured more and more to resolving many disputes that cut into his ability to farm - so he became the official appointed clan leader. Besides a leader, the clan had other specialists who spun yarn woven into fabric for 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 those 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 with grand titles like king, queen, emperor, and leaders like mayor, governor, premier, prime minister and president... Those who assigned value became money changers, tax collectors, bankers and brokers. That's WHO! [Ethics, sometimes optional.]
Okay! What? You ask - does any of this hazy hopscotch through history have to do with America's immigration/migration tangle? Everything - because - all the clans 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 [migrating] settlers first arrived on the shores of North America the Indigenous people were confused then later appalled that the newcomers were paying for and then taxed for land that Mother Nature already offered freely. Our spiritually advanced and wise First Nations citizens 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! Share?
Which brings us right back to WHO again and America's [2021-2024] people flood. From my kitchen table on that fateful night, we all agreed that no one is here 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 150/200 miles. More entry ports would allow more frightened, desperate people, whose backgrounds we could check, before they join our Clan.
And the Dreamers! Oh, for goodness’ sake - let them register, take a test and grant them U. S. Citizenship. They have and are finishing their education as teachers, engineers, business majors, entering medicine...and more, that 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 taxpayers too! Since the parents of Dreamers obviously raised some great kids they'd be a huge future asset--or is that logic flawed?
Anyway, the vast majority of the people coming to America contribute to America by making furniture or bread or sandals - or - perhaps discover a medical breakthrough. [I developed 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…
Since my grandparents [and likely yours] came to America a century or two ago how do we want immigration managed going forward? Certainly NOT a continuous cycle of criminals from other countries bringing children taken from the 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. Too many have run for public office... Ohhh, sorry I digress…
I do understand--If only we had 'fairy-dust'...if only the globe had people with 'only' the best of intentions...if only we could live with our doors unlocked...if only...
Sherrie you sprinkled a lot of fairy dust on people moving all around the globe, maybe in normal times but countries being flooded and over run with people that are not like themselves is not a good idea.......ever. We all want the same things really, peace and harmony, food, water and shelter and our own space.....with our own kind.
I once live in a province that the majority of people looked like me and spoke my language and we all ate the same food basically. Then slowly we started getting more ethnic people and languages and foods, and for a time that was do able. Now I watch the news and I see in the malls and all around me people that don't look like me, names I can't pronounce and I don't hear my language. I am not in the same country......and that is a shock. I want to live with my own kind and my small town is still that place......for now.