Immigration Reform

I don't know what so many Americans seem to have against immigrants, but I for one cannot abide this know-nothing nativism that much of the "older generation" is indulging in. I am frankly sickened at the self-righteousness of those who, themselves obviously descended from relatively recent immigrants, posture and preen, scorning the aspirations of our unfortunate neighbors to the South of the Rio Grande River aas somehow less deserving of teh American Dream than their own forbears from the Mezzogiorno, the Backa Banat, Silesia or the Ukraine.
ICE raids a Georgia chicken processing plant, and the Latino workforce is dispersed, presumably deported. (See the story at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10461104) In order to replace these workers, the company embarks on an intensive recruiting program, including “hiring” inmates of the Georgia penal system. Ultimately, to fill the ranks the company goes to the Hmong community of Minnesota, a number of whom uproot themselves to migrate to an isolated part of Georgia, where Asian food is virtually unknown. Meanwhile, the Hmong communities in Minnesota and California are disrupted.
There are those who rail against Latin American workers, comparing them with their own ancestors who immigrated “legally” through Ellis Island. For these critics, the notional issue is the illegality of the migration, not the desirability of the immigrant himself. Yet, consider the state of American immigration policy at the moment, Iraqis acting as translators and guides to American occupational troops in Iraq, whose lives and whose families’ lives are at acute risk, are denied any opportunity to take sanctuary in the very country for which they are fighting. It is notable that the Hmong, were used (exploited?) by the CIA during the Vietnam War to stage raids against the NVA, were granted refugee status in 1979. (How many were executed by the North Vietnamese before they were given sanctuary.) The fact of the matter is that America has become a whole lot more hostile to immigration in the last twenty-five years. Fear of “The Other” has overcome the open arms of Lady Liberty.
I know a lot of Latino immigrants, legal and illegal, and 99% of them are the hardest working people on the planet -- particularly doing jobs that you and I and Tom Tancredo will no longer do. Let 'em in, the more the merrier. After all, we're all immigrants -- that is, unless we're native Americans.