Why All of Us Are ‘Illegals’
Nearly every one of our forbears were subjected to persecution, like the early Christians who gathered in the ancient ‘home church’ I visited in Rome.
Family and friends,
When I wrote about my emotional private Mass in the bowels of Basilica di San Crisogono recently, I overlooked one important aspect of my sacred moment. I neglected to make a connection between then and now.
Over the cycles of history, we’ve witnessed how one group “others” another, in some cases to the ends of genocide. One of the most heinous: The holocaust that Germany’s Nazi regime launched against Europe’s Jews. It boggles the mind to consider how so much hatred conscripted so many collaborators to have fueled an industrialized effort at extinction.
You would think that this single example — if not what’s going on in Gaza — would be enough to make people realize that no cohort is black-and-white bad. And here’s the thing: To do so is to exile the exceptionalism that characterizes our humanity. Imagine how impoverished we’d be without, say, the likes of Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, or Frank Sinatra, who represent once vilified Jews, African Americans, and Italians.
Those Christians who gathered in the suburban Roman home in the early centuries had to meet there in secret because they were vilified too.
Yet the same penchant for fearing someone different continues to rear. It’s evident in the recurring language that Donald Trump uses in describing illegal immigrants.
The law is the law. We’re a nation of laws. The same laws that would apply to illegals apply to all of us. No one is above it, not even our President. This is what makes our nation so special.
But I can assure you that not all those people seeking a better life here are evil. Not all of them are drug dealers, criminals, or mentally ill. They’re not coming here to take our jobs. As comedian Dave Chappelle once famously said, “No one wants to pick their own strawberries.”
They’re no different than other waves of immigrants who birthed generations that went on to raise fine families, pay their taxes, obey the laws, and raise their own children to better lives. That includes my own grandmothers and grandfather.
The Beloved1 and I live in a place with large Hispanic community. We share a parish with them. I can assure you from day-to-day experiences, they are raising fine children.
I have friends who stand with Trump over his pro-life positions. I won’t let that come between us. I distanced myself from family and friends during the first Trump Administration. I won’t do that again.
I respect their stance on the sanctity of life. I can’t agree with how far some people want to carry it.
Most of all, however, I’m baffled how they stand with the unborn yet turn a blind eye to the hate and fear-mongering aimed at illegal immigrants. Jesus himself embraced the outcasts — the Samaritans and the lepers. What would He do today?
I have to disagree with one thing you said. If you come into a country illegally you are a criminal. That’s what illegal means. My relatives took years to legally come to the USA . My mother and grandmother had to wait eight years to get here. My grandfather got here sooner because he was an outspoken critic of Mussolini and was on an arrest list with a dead penalty. They had to have sponsors that had to say they wouldn’t be a drain on government money. They were checked for diseases, they couldn’t have a criminal background and had to have an ability to make a living.
That is the proper way to become an American. I have no problem with refugees coming to the USA but do it legally. Ken Cuneo.
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