Originally posted by Northern Soul My question was designed to get you to think about whether or not the law is correct. Laws are not set in stone - we make them, we change them, we choose whether or not to uphold them. I believe it is illegal to eat an orange in the bath in California, and illegal to look at moose from an aeroplane in Alaska - the law is not always sensible.
I'm as appalled by certain laws as anyone might be. For those laws, I take part in the legal process to get them changed. I happen to believe that the laws regarding immigration are correct and should be applied/upheld. In many ways, the problem we are having right now in this country, is that those laws are not being upheld or applied as specified. Politicians and powerful interests subvert them at their whim which creates far more problems for the people trying to get into this country legally than if the system was enforced and operated as it was intended.
No modern country can allow people to cross their borders without any restrictions or standards. Your country certainly does not. Mexico, for example, certainly does not! People entering Mexico illegally are very harshly treated and are subject to extreme prison sentences if they are caught.
Originally posted by Northern Soul If no law existed about this issue, would you make one, and what would it say?
I would make it simple... You have to ask properly to come here and if you are caught here without permission you are immediately placed on a means of transport within 3 days to return to your country of origin.
Originally posted by Northern Soul So how would you have played the cards, if you were dealt them? You're 16. You find out you're illegally in a country, and your family have gone to great expense and risk to get you there - no mother sends her child away willingly. Do you go back to a place you don't really know, and where your opportunities are few, against your families wishes? Or do you believe those who are older than you who tell you it'll be ok?
I don't know... but regardless, again, staying and falsifying documents is ILLEGAL. My situation and hardships or my mommy's love doesn't change that.
Originally posted by Northern Soul What would you do? You, presumably, who considers himself be of 'good moral character' - certainly good enough to be judging another without having walked as much as an inch in his shoes? You'd just ask for the money to go home and break the hearts of your family, would you? Because remember you can't work for the money to go home.
I do not have to walk "an inch" in a criminal's shoes to know that the behavior is WRONG! No person of "good moral character" does! And my government will put you on the plane for free... doesn't cost you a dime to go back home.
Originally posted by Northern Soul Well, like all countries yours is one run by the descendants of the people who won the last war for it I suppose. Whether that gives those people a 'right' to tell others where they can live is a bigger question.
Yeah, sorta like your own country.. What would England do if hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen decided to sneak into Wales without asking properly?
Originally posted by Northern Soul What's apparently racist about it? I am trying to suggest that the idea of who is 'American' is rather fluid. At one time it meant something entirely different.
The term "tribe" is generally loaded with a "black African" or "American Indian" connotation in this country and is generally interpreted as a racial slur...
Originally posted by Northern Soul How 'American' am I? My great grandfather emigrated to Chicago, where my grandmother was born and lived until she was nine, when the whole family came back to England. She never left these shores again, so never had a passport in her own name. Her birth certificate was American though. Was she American? She lived 9 years in Chicago, and 80 years in England. I've never been out of Europe, but she was my grandmother.
Nationality is fluid. That was my point.
She was American by birth and British by choice. Unless she renounced her American citizenship she could have easily come back to the United States. Her child, your parent, could have easily applied for American citizenship if she had not renounced and become a British citizen. If neither of your parents held American citizenship, you are not American, you are British. It''s that simple.
Nationality is indeed fluid... insofar as one can renounce citizenship of one country to gain citizenship in another (I'm not considering those countries which allow people to maintain multiple citizenships). However, there is a process to be followed, generally negotiated or recognized between the countries involved that transfers the immigrant's legal rights and obligations. Illegal immigration bypasses those conventions and factually leaves the illegal immigrant in a vary precarious position in both countries. They MAY have no or little consular or ambassadorial protection from their parent country and have no legal standing in the country that they have entered illegally.
Mike