by Kyle Allen

Created on: July 01, 2007

The fate offered to illegals under Bushite "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" is the same as the fate offered to Africans during and shortly after the trans-atlantic slave trade. That, to be sure, is a fairly bleak fate, which promises a legacy of hardship and civil wrongs for which a new generation of Americans will one day have to account.

"Amnesty" in the latest immigration bill isn't true amnesty by any stretch of imagination; Amnesty is what happens when a government gaurantees that a political person or group of people will never be punished for a particular crime they are known to have comitted. Illegal immigrants will not have that gaurantee; under Bush's Comprehensive Immigration bill, twelve million illgal immigrants will be offered a so-called "Z Visa" which will grant them permanent residence within the United States, but will NOT grant them citizenship in the United States. The Z Visa is conditional: so long as immigrants remain gainfully employed and avoid criminal activity, they can stay as much as they want. And of course, this gives them a new path to citizenship... at least so far as it puts them on the bottom of an eight-year-long waiting list for green cards and, ultimately, naturalization.

At least under the Bush plan, the fate of illegal aliens is to become a new race of second-class quasi-citizens, deprived of any form of constitutional rights, political power, or even the right to vote. Not since the civil rights movement of the 60s has such a thing existed in this nation; then, as now, massive corporations depend on cheap labor of a powerless, controllable, voiceless mass of people who can be easily intimidated or abused into submission. The civil upheaval of the 1960s made sure that no black man would ever be forced to pick cotton (or anything else) for pennies a day again; already, corporate America has finally found their replacement.

What should be the fate of illegal immigrants in the United States? That's just a matter of common sense: they should be dealt with according to the laws that already exist in this country. They should be given a chance to become American citizens, to contribute positively to American society, to learn the culture, language, history and heritage of their addopted nation and join the brotherhood of our proud society. If they cannot do this, they should be asked to leave; again, this is a matter of common sense. It goes without saying, of course, but common sense isn't as common as it should be: the fate of illegal immigrants should be different from the fate planned for them by the Bush Regime. Indeed, for the sake of our future and our national conscience, it MUST be. We have been here before, and it's time to stop repeating our mistakes.

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