Written By Sherwood Kohn
According to U.S. Census figures from 2004, Carroll County’s Hispanic population constituted less than 2 percent of people living in our area. (See “Working Under the Radar, Page 52) That number has probably risen in two years, but it is doubtful that the gain has been dramatic.
Nevertheless, it has been enough to increase the visibility of Spanish-speakers and to alarm some longtime citizens, both locally and nationally; people who fear that the influx of immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador and other countries to the south of the United States will overwhelm our social and economic systems.
At this writing, the U.S. House of Representatives is considering a bill that would fortify our southern borders, arrest and deport most of the more than 11 million undocumented workers who have come north to work in our labor-intensive industries and criminalize those who enter the country illegally.
The Senate has before it another bill that would make it more difficult for immigrants to come into the country, accept the presence of those who are already here, work with them to assimilate them into the general society, and put them on the path to citizenship. President Bush favors that approach.
The Congress and much of the nation appear to be agonizing over what to do, as if the United States would suffer mightily from a surplus of aliens who are willing to do an honest day’s work for low pay and apply for citizenship. But it is likely that Congress, distracted by mid-term elections, will do nothing before its next session.
It has been said before: We are all immigrants. Our country has experienced waves of immigration in the past – from Ireland, Asia and middle Europe, to mention only three – and managed to integrate them without collapsing. In fact, we seem to have thrived as a result of the injection of new and vigorous blood.
Why would those of us who have benefitted from freedom, the opportunity to work and climb up the social ladder, and – as the Declaration of Independence says – the pursuit of happiness, seek to deny others the same chances to improve their lot?
It would appear that the keys to the whole problem are not Draconian measures, but the political will and the application of common sense and simple compassion.
