Monday, February 18, 2013 - A Novelist’s View of the World by Jack Engelhard
The Washington Times


Photo: Uncle Sam

NEW YORK, February 18, 2013 - Legal or illegal, what’s the difference? America is having a party. Bring your own. No need to check in at the door. Anybody can come.

Give us your tired, your hungry, your jihadists, your gangsters, your drug lords yearning to breathe free. Come. Make us your home.

Our President and our Congress, Democrats and Republicans, have decided that illegal is legal. Amnesty legislation that provides an eight-year path to citizenship is not yet a done deal, but it is coming, it even tops Washington’s agenda at the moment. Soon everything will be okay, and remember to vote, vote Democrat.

Americans who came here legally from Mexico and other parts south are as true, as loyal and as patriotic as everyone else.

Without them America would be much the poorer, certainly in terms of our culture and our military. They serve! Even on the Supreme Court.

So this is not about them, except to say that they were so foolish to fill out the papers and do the waiting. Millions from everywhere did it like that over the centuries. Sometimes, waiting in countries in which they were hated and persecuted, they still had to endure sometimes 10 years to get that green card. They played by the rules.

Rules are for suckers.

Even when they got here, legally, and after all that hardship, they could still be sent back. This could happen and did happen in cases where there might be people who carried diseases that could spread. Ellis Island had such rooms to quarantine suspected individuals. That was then. This is now, and now we don’t care what you might be carrying or spreading.

For all we know you might be spreading crime, and that is the point, we don’t know, and we don’t care.

In some countries they won’t even let you in unless you can prove that you can contribute skills that would benefit the country. Here, we don’t give a damn. In places, like Babel, where people spoke in mixed tongues, there was chaos. The entire civilization was confounded. The surgeon who asked for forceps got drills instead.

It’s getting to be like that here, where we have to press different numbers for different dialects, even for emergencies. We’re all right with that, too.

Already throughout the country there are thousands of neighborhoods where all signs are foreign and if you speak English only, you are the foreigner.

We find that acceptable. We think it’s terrific.

Therefore, don’t worry about learning English. We don’t require this or hardly anything else. Why waste the time? You already know a language, any language, and remember, illegal is legal, and anything goes. We used to be a melting pot. That’s over and done. We are still a pot, but we don’t melt. Speak any language you want. No problem. It’s our job to figure it out.

You’re driving your cabs in Arabic. This means that among the 11 million illegal aliens, millions came from parts outside Mexico but used Mexico to enter and exit.

Smart move.

We know you’re not being rude when you won’t speak to us. You are simply being loyal to the country you left behind and to the folks back home.

That county could be Somalia or a hundred other places and it is good to keep in touch with family. Bring them here as well and don’t worry about documents, (how silly!) and don’t worry joining our culture. We do not require this. We don’t require your language skills, your patriotism, even your friendship.

Just come as you are, and keep to yourselves, as you already do, since we are no longer a nation under God.

Now we are many nations fragmented under many gods.

Illegal Immigration: Uncle Sam wants YOU | Washington Times Communities