Thread: Illegal Immigration:No Lifting the Lamp Near the Golden Door

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Illegal Immigration: No Lifting the Lamp Near the Golden Door
Written by Robert Klein Engler
Wednesday, July 06, 2005


The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are symbols that used to be etched in the minds of millions of American immigrants. They are still living symbols for millions of other Americans who were born here and trace their ancestors to the Old World. To go and stand where your grandmother came to America, and see across the water to the lights of New York City still may leave a lump in your throat.

A hundred years ago most immigrants came to the U. S. after a long sea voyage. They left behind the Irish potato famine or being drafted into the Kaiser’s army, and they left behind religious persecution or a handful of rice a day. Many of these immigrants had a one-way steerage ticket. They had to cook their meager rations on board a ship that didn’t have facilities to bathe.

Some of them stopped counting the days at sea and walked the deck back and forth and half asleep. Then, one day somebody onboard shouted, “Look, out there,� and they bent over the ship’s rail and squinted in the half fog only to see the shape of the Statue of Liberty looming before the harbor of New York City. They knew they had arrived, now.

After processing at Ellis Island, these immigrants to America took the ferry across to Manhattan. They were on their own. They had made it to a new life. The ceremony of immigration was legal and complete. They had the rest of their lives to fit in as Americans.

When you are an illegal immigrant you never really fit in. There is no sight of the Statue of Liberty, but just the sun floating a mirage on the Interstate. There is no processing at Ellis Island and a document check, just more walking in the shadows. There is no ceremony of arrival into the New World, but just working in the underground economy and hiding from “la migra.�

The desert that separates Mexico from Texas and Arizona is just that, an arid zone. If it weren’t for the “coyotes� to guide them and the plastic bottles of water they carry, these illegal immigrants would be dead in a few days. Many travel under the cover of darkness and hope not to step on a scorpion. They know they are in the U. S. when someone says so, when they hear English they don’t understand, or see cars with license plates that say “Arizona--Grand Canyon State.� They made it into the U. S., yet these illegal immigrants did so without any ceremony of arrival.

Ceremonies are still important to many Americans. That’s why they want marriages, baptisms, Bar Mitzvahs, the pledge of allegiance and fraternity initiations. Seeing the Statue of Liberty was a ceremony of arrival for many new immigrants to the U. S. That ceremony made them feel they were part of America. Illegal immigrants do not have this ceremony of becoming an American, and are lesser for it. That’s why many illegal immigrants have more feeling about the U. S. dollar than they have for the United States.

There is no Statue of Liberty on the southern U. S. border with Mexico. Illegal immigrants smuggled across that border at night only lift their flashlights to thorny cactus and tumbleweed. There is no Ellis Island either, no rubber stamps on documents, no health checks, no saying good-bye to the old and no sight of New York City across the glistening water. Most of these illegal immigrants look down at their sore feet instead of up at the Star Spangled Banner.

On the southern U. S. border there is thirst, hunger, old clothes and groping in the dark. There is worry, running, and shortness of breath. There is hiding in a gully, fear, and moving on with sand in your shoes. There may be no love for the U. S. and no hope of becoming a citizen who someday will speak English and read the Declaration of Independence. There is no ceremony of arrival hereâ€â€

Nice article with a nice angle, my fear is they'll start tomorrow on a Statute in the Desert.

Perhaps they will erect a statue of George W Bush waving a Mexican flag.

Yes....wearing his big sombrero and straddling his bicycle!!

Of course, the vultures will make a home out of it and then the Park Rangers in charge Statues will have to clean the bird shit off it.

OR....we could make a Meeeestake and set it on their side of the border so they stop just short of US Sovereign Territory!! Then the Mexicans in charge of Statues can clean the bird shit off it and when they are finished, carry their "compadres" back to where they came from.

It would be sort of our own little distorted version of a Trojan Bush!!

Ole!!

The ceremonies and official entry are open to as many of the Mexicans as the American people freely and democratically feel they need. It is called legal immigration. The people who have difficulty are those who choose to ignore the same sort of laws
the Mexican government places on immigrants to Mexico.

RIght on Richard!!