Maybe I’m naïve, but I’ve always taken the founding words of this country seriously. I’ve paid attention to what was put down on paper, carved into stone and enshrined in monuments.
Which is maybe why I’ve been confused these past few years as I’ve watched our government do one thing after another that left me blinking and wondering “Huh? How can they do that? Doesn’t the constitution say…? What happened to equal rights and equal treatment before the law? What country am I living in!?”
I’ve been baffled listening to government officials, elected representatives and everyday people arguing over seemingly unrelated things like State Children’s Health Insurance Program, immigration and Guantanamo Bay. Each of these issues is rooted in the founding words of our country.
Too many politicians on the hill still don’t understand the guiding principles on which this nation was founded: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The Declaration of Independence does NOT say “all United States citizens are created equal.”
Therefore, the rights held to be self-evident and unalienable for Americans MUST be held so for non-citizens as part of their basic human existence.
Yet just Tuesday, Morning Edition of National Public Radio reported a new controversy surrounding SCHIP. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., was outraged not because of the cost or how the program would be paid for, but by the fact that a provision was added to cover the children of legal immigrants.
“It would seem to me that we are giving more incentives for folks to come to the United States, not just to participate in the American dream, but to get on the government dole,” Ensign said. “And I think this is exactly the wrong direction we should be going with this legislation.”
So allowing a little Armenian or Pakistani or Sudanese child to die of pneumonia, an easily treatable disease, because their law-abiding parents couldn’t afford the doctor’s bills and waited too long to take them to the emergency room is a better option? Does that send the right message?
Sen. Ensign, could you honestly look that child’s mother in the face and tell her that it was better for her family to struggle under the crushing weight of medical bills, for her son or daughter be terribly ill and unable to receive treatment, or, heaven forbid, even die, than to allow immigrants to think America might be a good place to live because at least they know their children can be healthy?
What makes immigrant children less important? Aren’t they “created equal?”
People complain about illegal immigration and jobs being outsourced overseas. Yes, it creates hardship for families when people lose their jobs, and anger is understandable.
The unfortunate tendency is to turn that anger into blame – all focused on that person who “took” away “your” job. Anger and hatred and blame lead us to dehumanize the subject of our pain, to somehow make them less than we are, less deserving, less human.
The truth is, that person is just trying to care for themselves and their family in the same way that you were trying to care for yours. Don’t we all have the right to try to do what is best for our families?
While it is sad that some individuals need to break the law to do this, blame and hate are not the answers. Laws need to be reformed and we need good foreign relations so that we can work with those countries whose citizens are illegally immigrating here in search of better futures.
Have we forgotten the words etched on the Statue of Liberty? “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Do we forget that it was these very huddled masses who made the United States a great nation?
Is our country to become America the Privileged? A nation where we only care for those who have earned, by accident of birth, the title of citizen and ignore all the rest?
No. At least, not if President Obama has anything to say about it. Closing Guantanamo Bay was the first step in redressing the gross violation of human rights perpetrated by the Bush administration.
No matter what claims Bush may have made about the inmates there, that they are terrorists and criminals who hate America (which if they didn’t before, they certainly do now), he never claimed they weren’t human beings.
As human beings, one of their unalienable rights as set forth by the Constitution is that of habeas corpus, protection from unlawful detention. “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion,” it states in Article One.
The “War on Terror” may be many things but I think even I would have noticed a rebellion or invasion. Unless, of course, the authors were referring to us being the invaders, which I doubt.
I hope President Obama agrees and, in addition to closing Guantanamo Bay, he either swiftly brings to trial or releases the prisoners.
Further, I hope Americans remember the principles and ideals on which this nation was founded – that all people have certain basic rights which no government, not even ours, may revoke, suppress or abridge – and that we learn how to apply those principles across the entire expanse of law and government.
Monica Sanford is a graduate student in architecture and community and regional planning. Reach her at monicasanford@dailynebraskan.com.
SANFORD: Immigrants deserve same rights as citizens
Published: Thursday, January 29, 2009
Updated: Thursday, January 29, 2009
Great article, please ignore all of the nasty Repubicans comments above. They are extremely closed minded and apparently have no sympathy to people who come from hardships and turmoil. Thank you for writing this article, I realize it is extremely difficult to have a non-republican opinions in this state. Kudo
Great article, please ignore all of the nasty Repubicans comments above. They are extremely closed minded and apparently have no sympathy to people who come from hardships and turmoil. Thank you for writing this article, I realize it is extremely difficult to have a non-republican opinions in this state. Kudos.
Great article, please ignore all of the nasty Repubicans comments above. They are extremely closed minded and apparently have no sympathy to people who come from hardships and turmoil. Thank you for writing this article, I realize it is extremely difficult to have a non-republican opinions in this state. Kudos.