The Moral Imperative of Immigration

Today marks a day of the newest “civil rights movement” in America. Today is a day that a “shadow people” of America stands up to be recognized just as Irish, German, Italian and Polish immigrants of the past stood up. Let us not fool ourselves into believing there weren’t “illegals” in this group of Europeans that migrated to this country.
Let us not fool ourselves into believing they too weren’t taken advantage of by the rich employers who sought cheap labor and used immigration status as a way to extort workers.
I have lived in Denver all of my life except for my time in the military. While in the military I was sent to Vietnam to take part in an immoral war that resulted in millions being killed and hundreds of thousands being left without a country.
Americans took in the “boat people” resulting from the downfall of the puppet South Vietnamese government. I remember the controversy of these immigrants being provided government assistance while hungry “legal” Americans went without. I remember Vietnam veterans homeless on the streets and without assistance when “boat people” were allowed housing and food stamps.
Still, taking in the Asian refugees made homeless by our senseless war was the morally correct thing to do. Taking in Koreans from the war we perpetrated there was the right thing to do. Taking in the Europeans oppressed by Nazis and Stalinists was the moral thing to do. It is moral to feed, clothe and shelter our brothers and sisters according to the Beatitudes of Jesus.
The American history is littered with violent seizure and theft of lands once belonging to the indigenous peoples of North America, Central America and South America. The American people today forget this history. The American people have never apologized for the atrocities committed in the name of nationalism.
Few if any realize the United States seized and stole over half the entire nation of Mexico during the Mexican war.
Few Americans realize we used the School of Americas to train assassination squads and death squads in Central America to thwart legal elections that didn’t go the way the American government wanted. As a result thousands of refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala fled to the U.S. without documentation.
Rather than give them asylum they were deported when found by the INS. Deported to the waiting arms of the American trained death squads that had most of them on their lists to die.
Today, the descendants of indigenous peoples called Mayans, Incans, Hopi, Zuni, Aztecs, Zapotec ,Toltec and other proud nations will be represented in a march for immigrant rights. Descendants of people long oppressed by European culture will march for rights they should be granted because like the Irish and Italians, the Vietnamese and Hungarians they are humans who seek a better life for their families.
Today the Chicano, Latino, Hispanic and Mexicans who march seek the right to be treated like humans and to come from out of the shadows of the buildings they clean for less than a living wage; to come out of the shadows of the concrete companies, the landscapers and garbage companies.
We, as a nation need to acknowledge these people who provide so much to our country and are forced to hide like criminals because of unfair and racist laws set up to exploit them for the labor they give to a nation that prides itself for being a refuge to the oppressed peoples of the world.
The fields of American farms and fruit groves would go without harvesting were it not for the immigrants that come to this country to earn a pittance wage in back breaking work. They come because of abject poverty that keeps families impoverished for generations without escaping to a better life.
The descendents of so many proud nations living in America shouldn’t need to ask for recognition as citizens of America. They were citizens long before a white face ever came to the shores of any part of America. Our brothers and sisters who are hatefully called “illegals” by alleged flag-waving patriots have more right to be here than the mostly white groups who oppose their presence in the U.S.
I see hateful and hostile people calling themselves Americans and patriots demean and belittle proud young brothers and sisters who walk for their parents’ rights. It only takes a glance at these “patriots” to know they are the same people we saw in Selma, Alabama when Martin Luther King led civil right’s workers into a racist environment. They are the same as those who opposed Gandhi with hate and violence.
The excuses of limited services, homeland security and employment taken from legal citizens of the United States are only code for racism. Let us not be fooled with the arguments that lack merit when examined for the truth. Let us not allow racists cloaked in the flag to enact immoral laws against humanity.
Too often we’ve become blind to the human condition for ignorant and hateful reasons. Too often we’ve missed the opportunity to know brothers and sisters because of race and nationality. Too often we allow borders to obstruct morality.
I rejoice the numbers I saw today. Unprecedented numbers of brothers and sisters made their voices heard across this nation. Viva!!

Terry Leichner, RN
VVAW
North High grad 1967 (the starting point of the march in Denver)