For the purpose of keeping people in or out, walls don’t work.
A cousin of mine once observed, “It couldn’t have been too good for them there or they never would have come here.” He was speaking of ancestors fleeing war-torn Germany, but he might as well have been referring to Scots suffering from political tyranny or Huguenots escaping religious bigotry.
Yesterday’s victims of the Irish Potato Famine have much in common with those afflicted by the droughts of Africa today. Russian pogroms destroyed the fabric of life in the same way intolerance blights the Middle East. What caused people to climb into leaky boats or cross burning deserts was the same then as now.
Unfortunately, there have always been those willing to exploit America’s fears and prejudices and greet each new wave of immigration with poisonous demagoguery. As for the refugees themselves, they have gone about the business of bettering their lives, raising families and building a great nation.
Fortunes have been made. Scientific innovations have fed and cured us. Artists and intellectuals have enlightened us. In a sort of human alchemy, the laments of British indentured servants have melded with the rhythms of enslaved Africans to produce music enjoyed the world over. It would be lying to suggest these generations arrived with fortunes and professional degrees. Most possessed only creativity and a dedication to hard work.
Students of history know that for the purpose of keeping people in or out, walls don’t work. The Great Wall of China didn’t stop the Mongols. Pieces of the barricade that once separated East and West Berlin have become nothing more than museum curiosities.
How much better it would be to direct our billions toward rooting out the poverty and corruption that send people off on desperate migrations. It couldn’t have been too good for them there or they never would have come here.
Elisabeth Robe, Spartanburg
Time to grow up
It is about time people grow up about immigration. You cannot have compassion for illegal immigrants when they have no compassion for their own children. I want to know why the compassion-filled people do not worry about the thousands of miles these people drag their children to get to our borders. In this country, I believe that would be child abuse.
What is even worse is the encouragement they are being given by people like our own editor here at the Herald-Journal and letter writers Joan McPherson, Judy Allen, Jack Kolb and Barbara Dorsey. It is always about the children, but their own parents did not worry about their children.
If people want to worry about children, they should worry about their own children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, because with their thinking their children will be stuck with the bill of billions of dollars well into the 22nd century. These illegal immigrants and their children are costing us billions of dollars right now that our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be paying for.
Remember, no government has any money — it is all taken from the citizens, and the cost of illegal immigrants is only going to climb as we keep feeling sorry for them. They are invaders who are breaking our laws, and our own citizens are encouraging them. Be proud — when there is not enough money left to help our own legal citizens, including our children — that you had compassion for these lawbreakers.
Fight for your country!
Walter Hutcherson, Wellford