The nation is currently up in arms about people crossing the border illegally. These illegal immigrants are supposedly ruining America with their mere presence. A lot of individuals feel that if your family does not have a history here, then you should have to go through the bureaucratic red tape set in place for people who are new to this land. If you can successfully jump through all of the hoops involved then you are deemed an American Citizen.

In fact, unless you are a Native American, you are on stolen land. When this continent was "founded" by the Spanish, it was already inhabited. This makes your ancestors illegal immigrants. It also makes you seem hypocritical when you look down on people trying to cross the border.

People seem to be happy to claim their unique heritage, but fail to realize that their illegal forefathers are the reason that they are here. American society has been taught to look down on people who want to get out of their country and into the U.S. The government makes it seem like these people who want to make a better life for themselves (and their families) are bad people. That is why border patrol is needed, Elian Gonzalez was sent back to Cuba, and an Atlanta library board eliminated funding for Spanish-language books, just in case they were being used to entertain children of illegal immigrants.

Border Fence Reaches Ocean

There are American citizens with guns guarding the border and calling themselves Border Patrol, and there are citizens of Mexico trying to escape their land (while avoiding being detected) and getting stuck in drainage pipes. What is wrong with this picture? Does this make you proud of your country? Does it make you feel safer? Does it not remind you of big children bullying smaller children?

Three of the reasons that illegal immigrants are destroying America, according to some American citizens: immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans who need them, immigrants are more than likely terrorists, and tax money is being wasted on them.

First of all, illegal immigrants cannot exactly become lawyers. They take jobs that Americans are either too proud to take or would report to the Feds, because they know about the labor laws. In fact, heightened border security has resulted in a shortage of agricultural workers, which in turn caused a significant loss of crops this year.

Second, stereotyping all other nationalities as terrorists is called racism. You cannot just assume that everyone who speaks with an accent is a terrorist. The current state of the country is not an excuse for racial profiling.

Third, government Officials are notorious for misspending tax money. You need to look no farther than the American prison system for an example: do inmates, criminals who are there as punishment for their misdeeds, really need PlayStation 2s and cable television? Illegal immigrants are the least of our concerns where national spending is concerned.

It makes the government seem hypocritical to ask for money to put up a 700-mile-long, 15-foot-high fence to separate America from Mexico. How can they, the people who are supposed to represent this land of the free that was "founded" by immigrants, tell Mexicans that they are not welcome here?

People are always preaching about how the U.S. is a great big melting pot, that it is a land of opportunity, and many other catch-phrases that seem like good ideas in theory but are not executed by those in power. The people in office are willing to send troops around the world to Iraq and try to establish a democracy there (even though they never asked for help), but they snub those who share the same continent and who obviously want what America has to offer.

The government makes it nearly impossible to get a green card, and then Americans tell immigrants that they can't cross the border illegally. What other options do they have? Are they supposed to stay impoverished and starve in their homeland because they can't get a green card? Should they stop hoping for their children to receive a decent education?

This country was founded by the poor, the tired, the hungry, and the illegal. Now that it is what it is today, Americans seem to have adopted a pointedly unaltruistic mentality. We have forgotten not only who we are and where we came from, but who our grandparents were and what they had to endure. We are too self-involved to see the hypocrisy of telling someone they don't belong in a country that doesn't belong to us.

Tell us what you think. Write Spectrum at editor@mcckc.edu.

Copyright 2006 Metropolitan Community College