I saw this Yahoo article earlier today and it just made my blood boil:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
"Three buses filled mainly with undocumented immigrant children were forced to turn around in southern California Tuesday afternoon after a crowd of 200 to 300 anti-immigration protesters surrounded them. The buses were supposed to drop off about 140 migrants from Texas at a Murrieta, California processing facility when the crowd, full of people waving American flags, blocked their path …"
Here's a picture of one of the signs the anti-immigration protesters posted:
Yes one of those pathetic little signs says:
"Obummers dirty game … dumping disease carrying illegals to force martial law. Return. Return them all."
Wow, truly said in the spirit of America ...
Now this is not really a diary about the legal policy issues surrounding immigration. It’s a diary simply about who we are as a country … as Americans.
And regardless of how many American flags these anti-immigrant protesters wave, they do not carry the spirit of what it means to be an American. These bigots are perverting everything America stands for.
Here's the situation taking place across the southwest:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://www.nytimes.com/...
"Border Patrol agents in olive uniforms stood in broad daylight on the banks of the Rio Grande, while on the Mexican side smugglers pulled up in vans and unloaded illegal migrants. The agents were clearly visible on that recent afternoon, but the migrants were undeterred. Mainly women and children, 45 in all, they crossed the narrow river on the smugglers’ rafts, scrambled up the bluff and turned themselves in, signaling a growing challenge for the immigration authorities … The migrants are no longer primarily Mexican laborers. Instead they are Central Americans, including many families with small children and youngsters without their parents, who risk a danger-filled journey across Mexico. Driven out by deepening poverty but also by rampant gang violence …"
"Since Memorial Day weekend, about 1,000 women and children have been flown to Tucson from Texas, then driven by bus to Phoenix and dumped unceremoniously, weary and hungry …"
You know what that makes me think of? This:
In contrast to the pathetic little signs the bigots put up, the quote above stands engraved on our Statue of Liberty:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
And this is what America stands for. In this sense, these anti-immigrant bigots themselves are not true Americans.
Oh, and by the way, I'm sure most of them would claim to be God-fearing Christians as well. The passage below is from Matthew 25:40:
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'