Immigrant Protest: The Day After

Just so you know, my great-grandmother came to Texas decades ago, bringing her widowed mother and younger siblings to some place where they could find work and be a family. She payed six cents to cross the border.

Does this make her a legal immigrant, or an illegal one?

Yesterday factories shut down, businesses probably closed (though from what I read, there were still a large number of people out shopping), the neighbors didn't send their kids to school, all that jazz.

You know what? My garbage still got picked up on time. One of the sanitation workers in the truck was on his cel phone, jabbering away.

I didn't go grocery shopping, not because of my immigrant sympathy, but because I had a migraine.

On the one hand, I think there's something to the idea of a Guest Worker program, with the option to become a citizen later. Give these people a chance to be taxpaying citizens instead of burdens on welfare programs. I certainly oppose any law that would make illegal immigration (or giving aid to illegal immigrants) a felony.

On the other hand, I agree with the legal immigrant who said that instantly granting citizenship to 12 million illegal aliens is a surrender. We can't handle having the entire Western hemisphere show up at our border demanding a green card, a job and a house. We only offer that kind of welcome package to people from the Eastern hemisphere, particularly Arab countries. (What? It's true. The U.S. recruits people from Arab countries to move here, granting them $50,000 and ten years of free rent.)

Seriously, how screwed up is America's immigration policy?

One thing I definitely oppose, and that's a wall along our border. When did we become East Berlin? Does anybody seriously think that if we put up a wall, the terrorists won't get through? Does anyone actually think some razorwire is going to keep someone from getting into our country and bombing us? Honey, I lived in a prison town during college; we had three separate incidents of escapes in a single year, include men on Death Row. Trust me, razor wire is not the most effective deterrent to a truly determined man.