Immigration

Culture has no intrinsic value to the development of human peace and well being. In fact, culture can often be the enemy of progress and individual development. This understanding has been lost in the current American sensibility about immigration. 

Some cultures are indeed backward, impeded by superstition and sexism. These cultures cling to the past and resent any encouragement to progress into a cooperative future with other cultures. American culture, while arguably a loosely defined civil process rather than a clearly defined status quo,  has gradually progressed away from its xenophobic backwardness since the massive waves of legal immigration beginning in the nineteenth century. A stabilizing sense of America as a place of adjustment and accommodation has developed over 150 years with the acculturation of those earlier legal immigrants, who were  brought in as exploited labor for the most part. My own ancestors were among them.

America is now adjusting to new forms of immigration, legal and illegal. Legal immigrants in America are often from the more elite economic or social classes of their home countries. They are coming here to take jobs which require advanced education. Their educations were largely influenced by American and English media. They are partially acculturated to the literate American culture upon arrival.

Illegal immigrants generally have little education. The majority of them enter the country against American law in order to submit to unfair labor practices. The worst among them come to America to ply whatever criminal activity they practiced in their home country. This is made easier by our lack of adequate immigration reform. In any case, their life is shaded by their undocumented status. This impacts the lives of their children and their grandchildren. And, this burden is not the fault or fiscal responsibility of law-abiding American citizens who pay taxes and try to live decent lives. However, some corporately funded media has tried to convince Americans that it is.

The entitlement of illegal immigrants to compensation and governmental benefits is simply irrational and dysfunctional for a democratic society. The current realistic assessment of international finances supports the realization that a society must be supported from within and take care of those who contribute to it through taxes and earned membership in social security networks. Entitlements are for those who pay into entitlement systems. Distributing entitlements to those who have not contributed to their source in an accountable and legal manner is just bad business. It is charity without acknowledgment or appreciation. This process is also a form of corporate welfare. Businesses provide no benefits and substandard wages to illegal workers, who then turn to public funds for medical and educational needs.

There are those on The Left who feel there should be no limits to immigration of any kind. This would be practical in a globalized world. However, we are still living in a nationalized world. Things are paid for locally and nationally, not globally. This is not a matter of culture or race. This is a matter of dollars and cents. If the system is not financially just, a culture of corruption is inevitable. The endless scamming of systems for benefits and entitlements by those who do not qualify eats at the integrity of those systems for everyone, including those who have conscientiously followed the letter of the law. This is not economic or social justice.

There is more to immigration than the superficial cultural trappings, which we all find charming and personally enriching to some degree. The media, perhaps in an attempt to avert ethnic conflict, often overcompensate by minimizing the effects of illegal immigration. They would do well to look at the reality of our current financial situation in this country. They would do well to look at the struggling public education system, which has been additionally stressed in many communities by the demands of culturally impaired students, who were raised in this country without English in their homes. Mono-culture, whether Anglo, Latino or Chinese, is not American. A functional, reformed immigration system with established methods of intentional cultural integration would be far superior to what we are now dealing with as Americans. The corporations which have benefited for decades from illegal immigration should be called upon to foot some of the bill to put such a system into place.