Bush: We Are a Nation of Immigrants

No, Mr. Fund-raiser, we are not a nation of immigrants. To call the United States a nation of immigrants is to describe Americans by the status of the early settlers. And if we are still what we were when the pilgrims landed, then we also are a nation of criminals and whores. Because, like it or not, that was the status of a majority of those who fled their mother countries to come to the new world. What we are is a nation of American citizens. America’s image has always been that we open our arms to the oppressed from other countries. It is right to be proud of that reputation. But attached to that open arms concept is the expectation that once an immigrant has legally entered the United States and been welcomed here, he/she goes through the process of becoming a citizen. The population of the United States is roughly 296,000,000 people. We are citizens. And as citizens we have been granted the rights and benefits that citizenship gives us. Eleven million foreign-born people who are living in the United States are illegal immigrants. These illegal immigrants believe they should be granted all the rights and benefits that accrue to the citizens of the United States even though they have come into this country illegally and are living here illegally. I confess. I do not understand that expectation. Not all illegal immigrants are Hispanic, of course, but since the US borders Mexico, many illegals are Hispanic. The GOP recognizes that 40,000,000 Hispanics live in the US, and the Latino population is growing. In the 2004 election, it was estimated that 40% of the Latino voters voted for Republican candidates. And that is why the GOP is now wooing Latino voters by bending over backwards to accommodate illegal immigrants. The Bush administration has the belief that if it uses just the right words, it will persuade its detractors of the rightness of any of its myriad cockamamy policy decisions. Therefore the White House is using terms like “guest worker program” instead of “amnesty”, and “undocumented immigrants” instead of “illegal immigrants”. But whatever the weasel words are, the Bush Administration wants to award full citizenship to illegal immigrants by granting amnesty to people who have entered the United States illegally and are living in the United States illegally. The Bushboys know that when the Republican-controlled house voted last December in favor of making it a federal crime to live in the US illegally, it was a deal-killer with the Hispanic vote. That law would turn illegal immigrants into felons. And a felon cannot gain legal status. Currently, it’s a violation of civil immigration law, not criminal law, to live in the United State without authorization. The legislation to make illegal immigrants felons will come to a vote this coming week. I have no problem with legal immigrants. I have a problem with bending our immigration laws to get votes. I have a problem with the Roman Catholic Church once again getting involved in a political issue. I have a problem with the RCC loudly ranting that, "This is not about politics from our point of view, this is about how we treat other human beings” in order to try to get public attemtion off the RCC’s sex crimes and back onto the RCC being a self-appointed arbiter of ethics and morality. Once again, the Bush administration and the Roman Catholic Church are pushing for policies that have nothing to do with ethics but everything to do with image and votes. Fah! On both their houses.