This is hard to imagine

[Dave Grubb]

Three migrants rescued in Spain's Canary Islands, after apparently enduring an 11-day journey from Nigeria crouched on the rudder of a fuel tanker, should now be returned home under stowaway laws.......

[Truckman]

Brutal, but:

However, the migrants may be able to remain in Spain if they claim asylum, Helena Maleno, director of migration non-governmental organisation Walking Borders, told Reuters.

...Ben

[Sandman]

Years ago AlJezera did an excellent documentary on how the Africans work their way to the Canarys.. People do desperate things trying for a new, better life..

[Kevin]

Might even be desperate enough to try to sneak into this country, the bastards...

[Honda]

Might even be desperate enough to try to sneak into this country, the bastards...

The operative word is "sneak".

[Mike]

The operative word is "sneak".

Yup!

[Kevin]

No offense meant, but I think both of your lives are way too comfortable to be able to understand the desperation that lead people to sit on the rudder of a ship at sea like this. Or a woman whose family was so poor that she had to play a deaf/mute and was prohibited from even speaking to anyone for the first 19 years of her life so that she could be kept as a farm laborer and not sent to school because otherwise, the family might starve. In fairness, I doubt many Americans can truly appreciate that.

I had the privilege of growing up with that woman and as such, understand that serving up compassion and empathy are much more important than serving up arbitrary rules. In a choice between the two, I'm happy to count myself on the side that my religion teaches me to take - that of people over laws. Laws serve people, not the other way around.

Again, I don't mean any offense and this is not a personal judgment I'm making. I understand your position and recognize it as a valid one. I'm fundamentally opposed to it, that's all.

[Honda]

Not to be argumentative but I'm trying to understand your position. It seems that your position would be that anyone who wants to be in the United States should be let in no matter which way they come in sneaking legal or otherwise

[Mike]

Kevin, I have no problem with legal immigration. I have a big problem with sneak thieves in the dark entering our country.

[Kevin]

No problem, Honda. I'm not taking offense or viewing your comment as argumentative.

On a personal level, that's exactly what I believe. I identify with their suffering and want to alleviate it. Their humanity speaks to me and I am unconcerned with whether they have followed the rules. Those rules were the product, in my estimation, of beliefs and attitudes of exclusion and "keeping America free from that sort". The Chinese exclusion laws, the quotas on people from certain areas - our immigration laws are a reflection of the disapproval of those here about those who wish to be here. I'm Irish - there was a time when "No Irish need apply" was the rule. I'm also Ruthenian - the quota laws were developed in part to keep people like my family out. The basic notion behind most of the laws is exclusion of those who come after. Of course, from the Native American perspective, that might not be a bad idea but I digress...

Because the laws rest on what to me seems to be injustice and an inability to see immigrants as anything but a threat to the established order, I feel no real need to support those laws. In my religion, an unjust law need not be obeyed. Martin Luther King said

“One may well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?Â’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.'

“Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

Martin Luther King, "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", 1963

I see many correlations between this topic and the issue of discrimination. If obedience to the law was paramount, the south would still have segregation and poll taxes. The laws striking them down came only as a result of people refusing to obey those laws. The same is true of apartheid in South Africa. There was a mass refusal to obey what was seen as an unjust law and then the law followed to codify the new understanding. So for me, I see our immigration laws as the result of injustice. I would let everyone, with the same qualifications on "everyone" that we had during our Ellis Island period, in. You can get a listing of what that means but basically, if you were not going to be a burden on the state or someone who was out to destroy our system of government, you were allowed in. And that would solve the border issue.

Add some provisos about checking for terrorists or whatnot - that's detail to me. The main idea is to let as many in as we can. I can give a list of reasons why we as a nation would profit handsomely from that but truthfully, that's icing on the cake. I identify with anyone willing to sit on the rudder of a ship or walk across a continent or spend weeks in the cargo hold of a ship, leaving everything they knew behind. I feel that sort of desperation and I am on their side, if there is a side to be taken.

Now having said that, I fully understand and appreciate the side of law and order but I also know that with a wave of the wand, those rules can change and what yesterday was forbidden is fine today. My father in law was arrested for engaging in betting on horses, an activity that is state-run today, so what was criminal before can easily be changed today. To me, seeing how laws change, I choose to stick with supporting the human beings rather than what the law is today because humans will still be there tomorrow. The law might not and that impermanence means to me that it is a construct of man, subject to change. I choose to follow what I believe is a more permanent law. But I understand that people of good will can disagree so I very much hope that nothing I have said comes across as insulting. The calculus is different for everyone and I get it.

[Kevin]

Kevin, I have no problem with legal immigration. I have a big problem with sneak thieves in the dark entering our country.

Sneak thieves are criminals. A man and his family trying to flee violence, poverty that kills 1/2 of the children born, political oppression that denies a voice to the people - that's a man who is desperate, not a sneak thief. I see them as precisely the same people that generations ago were our own ancestors, coming here for the exact same reasons, and transient laws make them into criminals today when they used to be called our great grandparents.

But I grew up with my immigrants. It isn't "long ago" for me.

[Honda]

Sneak thieves are criminals. A man and his family trying to flee violence, poverty that kills 1/2 of the children born, political oppression that denies a voice to the people - that's a man who is desperate, not a sneak thief. I see them as precisely the same people that generations ago were our own ancestors, coming here for the exact same reasons, and transient laws make them into criminals today when they used to be called our great grandparents.

But I grew up with my immigrants. It isn't "long ago" for me.

Kevin I understand and appreciate your sentiments. But it is my firm belief that an open unchecked border is a threat to any Sovereign Nation. As Mike stated I'm all for legal immigration. But I can pretty much assure you that many of the people coming across the border now do not meet the criteria of the people you have described in your response. These people to be well fed healthy for the most part and have money. We need immigration for our economy to thrive. If they want to change the law to expedite immigration I'm all happy with that. But I can never imagine myself in favor of a Sovereign Nation who has no borders regarding immigration

[Mike]

Come spend some time in Texas or the other southern border states and you will probably change your thinking on this. Or, maybe not. I doubt you have the problems in the mountains of New York that we experience. I also doubt we will ever see eye to eye on this topic no matter how much we discuss our differences. I will step out of this discussion.

[Kevin]

Ellis Island was not an unchecked border. It was pretty organized. The difference was that there were no limitations on the number of people that could be allowed in. That's what I'm after. Unchecked is unregulated and Ellis Island was very far from that.

I'm for letting in the maximum number of people possible but setting up an Ellis Island to regulate the process.

At Ellis Island, you had to have enough money to indicate that you were not going to be indigent on the dock. You had to have a specific place you were headed and the name and address of people there with whom you will be staying. You had to pass a physical to show you were not medically unfit. In many cases, such as my family, companies hiring immigrants assisted the process by having agents at the docks to help people get on the trains going inland, buy their tickets for transportation, pin their destination to their jackets along with their names, that sort of thing. When coming off the boat, an army of translators stood at the ready to ensure that people could be questioned in their own language. It was a lot of bureaucracy, but it was anything but unchecked. It was highly regulated.

The big difference is, there were no limits on the numbers to be let in. That is what I'm after. An unchecked border is absolutely not what I want.

[Mike]

Everything I remember reading about Ellis Island was that it was a perfect hell-hole for the immigrants. I don't want to subject them to that, many have suffered far too much indignity before even getting there.