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PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE
Uncle Sam vs. Uncle Sammy
- Pati Poblete
Monday, May 29, 2006


AS THE DEBATE over illegal immigrants quickly grew louder and more contested throughout the nation, I carefully avoided taking a stand. My parents immigrated legally to the United States from the Philippines, and I was born an American.

This wasn't my fight.

Yet many people assumed that because I am a child of immigrants, I would be in favor of any plan that would provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.

It wasn't that simple, because I kept thinking about my uncle.

My father's younger brother, Sammy, was part of a tour group from the Philippines whose destination was Canada. During the group's stop at San Francisco International Airport, however, he managed to get away undetected and found his way to our home. I was in high school then, and didn't quite understand how he came to us so unexpectedly.

From that day on, my uncle was in hiding, unable to find work because he had no legal documents. Though my parents knew they should have reported him, their guilt didn't allow them to do so.

He stayed with our family for two years, contributing nothing to the nation's economy and draining my own family of its resources.

I asked him repeatedly why he had come in the first place, with three children and a wife back in the Philippines. "To make money so I can help them," he answered, but I never saw any evidence of that.

When he discovered that some of his old friends were living in Los Angeles, he packed up and left. After a few months, he called from Manila to tell us that he had been deported. He and his friends had started selling phony driver's licenses and green cards to other illegal immigrants before authorities finally had caught up with him.

I was relieved.

There's no way to know if he would have become a productive member of society, had the current version of the Senate bill then been law. Even if he had come out of hiding, he had done nothing to earn a right to stay.

These are the illegal immigrants who deserve to be deported -- those who come to chase an elusive American dream, but refuse to work for it.

But as I watched the numerous protests, one right outside The Chronicle building, I knew there were millions of others -- those who work in the fields, restaurants, hotels and construction -- who have been here for years. Like my uncle, they, too, have been living in hiding. But they have not only contributed to the economy, they have become an integral part of society.

Desperate people with mouths to feed will find a way to come where hope and opportunity is seemingly everywhere. As long as there are employers willing to hire them, no wall, no matter how thick and wide, will prevent them from coming.

The House bill, which would provide no path for citizenship and no guest-worker program, takes the harder line by making all illegal immigrants felons. While the concept is clear, the execution is not.

As reported in The Chronicle, there is no system in this bill to determine who is legal and who isn't. Had my uncle not been on the streets of Los Angeles selling fake IDs, he may have never been deported.

What the Senate bill does, however, is give illegal immigrants who have clearly earned a right to stay, a chance. Under its restrictions, my uncle would have never gained citizenship because he would have had to prove that he had been working and paying taxes while he was here. In addition, my family may have never kept him, given that the bill makes it a crime for U.S. citizens to help family members or friends.

There is no easy answer when it comes to the issue, as evidenced by the numerous protests and the deep philosophical divide between the House and Senate. But given the large population of illegal immigrants here, and the consequences of failing to reform our immigration policy, Americans must remember that this is not solely a "Mexican issue'' -- nor is it simply one of immigrants versus politicians, or documented workers versus undocumented ones.

In a nation of immigrants -- where the debate has sparked a necessary rethinking of what it means to be a nation of immigrants -- this is everyone's fight.

Pati Poblete is an editorial writer. You can e-mail her at ppoblete@sfchronicle.com.

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©2006 San Francisco Chronicle
2006/05/29/EDGDOIJI611.DTL