The recent Presidential election left many Americans, including me, embarrassed and exhausted. The winner, Donald Trump, might just make America Great Again, one of many campaign promises he made, but he seems to be a mercurial person.
Many people I've spoken with have told me that they expect campaigns to get nasty. It was just so nasty, it left me wishing and hoping that we can all hit the restart button, and begin again, in brotherhood and peace, with not politicians but with leadership.
AM I JUST RIDICULOUS? Maybe so, but if there is any time of the year in the Christian world where we can have such hopes, I think that's the Christmas time. It's become the most materialistic time of the year. It should be the most idealistic.
It's coming up on us fast, and so is the swearing in of Donald Trump as the President of the United States. People I meet are not idealistic about his - regime. They are afraid they will go without health insurance or housing and be out on the street. It's enough to make me think MAYBE CALIFORNIA SHOULD BECOME ITS OWN COUNTRY... WE'RE ALREADY BIGGER THAN SOME! THE MENTALITY HERE IS JUST - DIFFERENT. Some people are suggesting we leave the Union - for four years or the end of Trumps regime, whatever comes first.
No, that's not likely to happen.
In particular to my state, California, there is a lot of fears about illegal immigration, that there will be "sweeps," and people will be taken away, like the Nazis taking away the Jews in the Holocaust.
One of my friends is a librarian for the city, of Mexican origin, her great grandfather walked into Arizona, worked full time there, and founded a family that has done well for itself. On the library desk I found print outs that had been left there by immigration advocates, in both English and Spanish, intended for illegal residents to hand to any police officer that might start asking them questions, stating that they are going to stay silent. I took one for my wallet, even though I'm legal, as a reminder that I don't necessarily have to answer the questions asked by an officer, though I don't think I'm headed for trouble with the law. I told her that I did not think there would be sweeps. Our mayor and police said they would not cooperate if ordered to. However, if someone commits a violent crime or is dealing drugs, especially if that person has broken Federal law, then I would not be surprised if they were deported.
What is so difficult about becoming a citizen? If you come legal, it's not! I have a neighbor from Hungary getting his citizenship. Another neighbor who got his a decade ago came as a refugee from Kosovo. There is a Moslem family, peaceable, who are refugees from Pakistan, also in process. Another neighbor, has just gotten dual citizenship - Great Britain and the U.S. Yes, there was time involved, and money, and tests, but it worked out. None of them ever felt their stay here was threatened because they were doing the right thing from the start.
I believe that if you do the right thing from the start, you will be honored.
Recent killing rampages by people of Moslem origin especially, have basically sanctified what Trump is talking about, and that is, that we have let in all sorts of people who do not deserve to be here.
Do we really need more immigrants? We welcome the educated, but Blue Collar American Trump advocates want their jobs back here and now. Here is the hitch. Illegal immigrants are not protected by labor laws and can be hired for cash and less than minimum wage and they are not likely to complain about the worst conditions. Some of them are afraid that becoming legal will mean no longer getting work. They also break the Unions, simply because they are willing to be underpaid. It's not hard to find them. I suspect that every construction site has some. Some dirty people take terrible advantage of them including dumping them off after a days hard labor without the promised pay, and the threat to call the INS on them.
It's kind of like the situation for background actors for film. Everyone who does it wants to get into SAG, the union, because the pay and benefits are then decent, but everyone says that once they got into SAG, their bookings diminished, so they worked less, and made about the same money.
California decided that a person didn't need to be legal to have an ID or a drivers license, which means they have to be insured for accidents, they can have library cards, they can have medical care at County hospitals, and they can have education. Why? Because California decided that these benefits benefit everyone, not just the illegal person.
Much is made of Mexican gangs. They exist. They shoot and kill each other and innocent people. However, there are gangs of Armenians and Russians, and other ethnic groups as well, and sometimes it seems like identity theft and more sophisticated frauds are committed by these more educated criminals
So, will a wall actually keep people out - or in? If you read around it, you'll learn that the wall has been an ongoing project in the Obama administration, and that it isn't always a physical wall.
Our illegal immigrants are not all criminals and our criminals are not all Mexican.
