Immigration.

"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."

I am very much pro immigration. I believe that our nation does, and has always drawn strength and resolve from its immigrants. I don't understand how people can be so intensely opposed to the single greatest source of renewal and growth present in our country today. The millions of men, women, and children that enter our country everyday are a vital part of our economy that work hard digging ditches, washing dishes, and doing other manual labor that even the unemployed citizens of this country feel are below them.

Opponents of immigration would have you believe that for this reason, we shouldn't welcome immigrants. They would have you believe that there are legions of unemployed white ditch diggers and dish washes roaming the streets. This is a ridiculous assertion, not far removed from the scapegoating that has been used by the blood thirsty regimes of the past to justify unspeakable crimes.

This idea steams from an irrational fear that has been present in this country from its beginnings. The belief that an incoming culture will replace our normal way of life terrifies us and has lead to reactions against waves of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, China, Poland, (Jews from) Eastern Europe, China again, Checkloslavakia, (gentiles from) Eastern Europe, Italy, Mexico, Cuba, the Caribbean, Vietnam, and Finally Mexico once again. All in only two hundred years. Yet somehow, despite the fears of the many older established immigrants, our American culture has never been obliterated, if anything, it has grown stronger.

The convoluted process we expect our immigrants to go through to become citizens is ridiculous at best, and purposely discriminatory at worst. We are asking more now of our immigrants then we ever have before. How can we expect those who enter our country to establish any kind of life when we systematically separate them from us through outdated and ill advised immigration codes that vary radically from state to state? We have a religious, moral, and patriotic duty to do more for our "huddled masses." Anything less is blatant hypocrisy, a disgrace to our immigrant roots.