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Immigration is important to me. I am the result of immigration. Hard working men and women who gave up their lives in foreign lands and came to the United States to make a better life for themselves and their descendants. Nearly all my ancestors arrived before the country regulated immigration. As the line goes "They were poor men, with dirty faces". They followed Gunny Highway's dictum, and adapted, overcame, and improvised. They became Americans, and America became great through their efforts.

What bothers me about the illegal immigration issue is the apparent racist nature of the debate. It is estimated that Mexicans make up the largest single group in that population. Once upon a time, it was the Irish, the Chinese, the Italians, the Poles. In the 200 plus year history of our great nation, many groups have comprised the majority of immigrants at any given time. For the vast majority of that time, immigration was unrestricted, or rarely limited. Yet race or ethnic origin was still a means for the bigoted to discriminate against immigrants.

The President has proposed a plan that would, in part, allow illegals who have a job to remain in the country. And the answer from the nativist right is "Deport them!"

Why should people who show that they are willing to work, and who have a job, be sent back to a country where they don't? Is this about who they are rather than what they do? Tell me how the anti-immigration arguments differ from those of the Know Nothings, or the Klan in the 1890's? Immigrants speak a different language. They live in the same neighborhoods. They celebrate different holidays, eat different foods, smell different, act different. For 150 years it's been : No Irish Need Apply. No Chinks. No Wops. No Polacks. And every single time the ethnic group most hated and reviled and looked down upon has assimilated. It takes generations, and we have to have that view of history and of our nation.

The nativists raise the issue of terrorism. Since 9/11, all the attacks on American soil that are termed terrorism were conducted by American citizens or legal immigrants (though Johnny Malvo was illegal, his mentor was not). The El Al shooting guy was legal. The ALF / ELF folks are all citizens, so far as we know. The FBI believes the anthrax attacks were domestic. The Texas folks just convicted of WMD type charges were citizens. I'm stating fact, and suggesting that a chain of facts may prove a theory. My theory is that we should first be looking for acts that

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