Illegal immigrants and the Land of Immigrants... Part II

I thought I would respond to the comments left on my initial post of the same topic here. The comment can be found at the bottom of the post itself, and I've reproduced them below. My comments follow the quote.

"I should slap you for this post. You have taken the view of a happy American trying to control immigration without considering the point of view of the immigrant himself.

Before you claim that you are an immigrant: you we're, but you did not emigrate by choice. Your parents made that choice.

Thus, consider the point of view of the immigrant himself. The adult who decides that he needs to leave his country to: escape war, escape political opression, escape poverty, escape social inequity, etc. Many will come over to work 2,3, even 4 jobs to try to start a new life as an unskilled laborer. Do they have time to jump through all these hoops that you have identified?

Also, how do you propose that #1 be accomplished? Should the U.S. build a great wall to seperate U.S./Mexico? There are tons of illegal immigrants that come in through other ports of entry and not just the land borders. How many people immigrate to the U.S. through an international airport with a 90 day visa, then just never leave?"

I don't think that my status as an immigrant is necessarily altered by whether I made a decision to be one or had that decision made on my behalf; I'm an immigrant all the same. I think the point you are trying to make is one of whether I can truly claim to have the viewpoint of an immigrant having grown up in this country. This is a more difficult question, and one that I cannot answer objectively. However, I don't think the validity of my opinions mentioned in this
post acquire or lose any legitimacy based on the answer to this question, so I'll forego further discussion of it.

I have difficulty in understanding how it can be argued that I am not considering the viewpoint of the immigrant in my comments. I make the point that we definitely need many of the immigrants that are currently in this country illegally. I also make the point that I want those that legitimately are needed/welcome here, to come without harassment and in safety.

Though I do not discuss the need that some may have for leaving their country to attempt the difficult journey to come to the us, the ones you mentioned are certainly examples: war, oppression, poverty, social inequality etc. These problems ought not to be ignored, but letting
everybody just flood into the US can hardly be the answer. Its not really good for them, and in the long term its unsustainable for us.

Are you suggesting we just open our borders to whoever wants to come? We can't do that for a number of reasons, here a couple of big ones.

First, it proposes a security risk. I read in the magazine Foreign Affairs the other day that the "Bush administration is spending more every three days on the Iraq war than it has in three years on the security of all US commercial seaports (Oct 2004 p. 20)." We don't have to build a wall, but we could certainly direct resources to make the border patrol more effective. You're right. We will never be able to stop everyone (ie. 90 day visa violators and the like), but what's the alternative? To not try at all?

Secondly, we can only take so many people, before the social infrastructure of this country begins to deteriorate adversely affecting those who are legal citizens. Believe it or not, the US is not a charity. If it became one, it would not be able to sustain being one for long before it would need charity itself. You know what they say about charity: it starts at home; we need to be able to take care of our citizens first. This is not being selfish, it is the basic duty of a nation.

In summary, solutions to the problems you mentioned cannot be solved simply by opening up borders; they require a sustained holistic development effort as suggested by J. Sachs or A. Sen, among others. In the mean time, we can help by increasing foreign aid in its various forms: money, food, medicine etc.