Illegal immigrants and an N.C. education
What history shows

I fully support the good and just decision to allow illegal immigrants to attend our colleges and universities. Our history reminds us that in 1838 a good chunk of North Carolina and Georgia land was seized from the first Americans by recent immigrants, who ironically had fled Europe to establish a nation with liberty and justice for all, this land of opportunity. The Cherokee Indians were forced to migrate to lands west of the Mississippi River. On this forced march, Trail of Tears they called it, more than 4,000 people died out of 15,000.

Opening our colleges is one of many opportunities we European immigrants have to atone for our sins. And perhaps we fear the new immigrants might learn the history lesson taught by the earlier immigrants: greed + power = violence.

Liberty and justice for the few is not what I read in our Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. Moreover laws and attitudes that oppress people will be judged by God.

Duane Beck
Pastor, Raleigh Mennonite Church
Raleigh
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