A VIEW FROM THE BORDER: WHY THE MINUTEMAN PROJECT IS IMPORTANT
By Robert Klein Engler (06/23/06)
CHICAGO (23 June '06)--The border between the United States and Mexico is flat and desolate along much of its 2,000 mile stretch. There is hardly any place high enough to get above the terrain where you may look down and see the larger picture that makes up the panorama of illegal immigration.
At points along the U. S./Mexican border, members of the Minuteman Project keep watch. They ask that our immigration laws be enforced and want to inform the public about the harm illegal immigration does to our nation. They are not vigilantes, but they are vigilant.
Caught between the forces of big business on the one hand, and the open border lobby on the other hand, members of the Minuteman Project are among the few who rise above the desolate terrain of the border and see the truth about illegal immigration. This earns them the disdain of both the political right and left.
The open border lobby and their one world supporters take a Marxist view of illegal immigration. Those who want a world without borders see illegal immigrants as simply workers. They see illegal immigrants as pawns in a struggle towards a global, socialist revolution.
Is it little wonder that those who want open borders always talk about how hard illegal immigrants work, or how all they want is to support their families? For these open border lobbyists, Illegal immigrants are not human beings fleeing a corrupt country, but workers who have a life only because they fulfill a function in a discredited theory of revolution.
The open border protesters we saw marching last May Day also want to diminish the power and sovereignty of the United States. In the final analysis, they would like to get rid of the U. S. as a nation. The old slogan of "workers of the WORLD, unite!" still echoes in their heart since it was proposed more than 150 years ago.
The proponents of big business aren't much different from the socialists when it comes to illegal immigration. All they see are abstract workers, too, when they look at illegal immigrants pouring into the U. S. from Mexico. The managers of international corporations care more about profits than they do about citizenship and patriotism, so it makes no difference to them where their workers originate.
It makes no difference to transnational elites if a worker is in the U. S. legally or illegally, either. Patriotism and citizenship are irrelevant to the international flow of capital. Patriotism and citizenship may even be an obstacle to increased profits by placing limits on exploitation.
The elites in big business would have the borders open. Then, workers could move as freely as digital bank accounts. If not that, then the elites would have a guest worker program that masks an amnesty. For the elites of big business, illegal immigrants are not persons, but cogs in a great industrial and agricultural machine.
Caught in the middle between two abstractions, the proponents of open borders and the elites of big business, members of the Minuteman Project are important because they have a realistic view of illegal immigration. Members of the Minuteman Project do not look upon illegal immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere as abstract workers who are pawns in the struggle between socialists and capitalist.
Instead, members of the Minuteman Project see that from both sides of the border, the issue of illegal immigration involves human beings and not just abstractions. From the Minuteman Project's point of view, what is ultimately at stake in the debate over illegal immigration is the very human question of citizenship and identity.
A policy that addresses the problems of illegal immigration to the U. S. must be grounded in the lives of real people. Americans take their identity seriously. It is an identity that is formed from a life lived in a certain time and place. Illegal immigration threatens that identity and that conception of citizenship. Members of the Minuteman Project believe that a U. S. citizen is more that just a worker and the United States of America is more than just an economy.
Illegal immigrants to the U. S. are human beings, too, but they are human beings who do not respect the laws nor the culture of the United States. The fact that illegal immigrants are workers or pawns in some greater game to either create more profits or create a North American Union does not absolve them from breaking our laws or abusing our way of life.
Americans cannot expect acceptable solutions to the illegal immigration problem from the open borders lobby or the corporate elites. These groups are addicted to seeing illegal immigrants from the point of view of their own theories. Members of The Minuteman Project are different. They occupy the high ground where there is very little high ground to be found. They ask Americans to consider the human cost of illegal immigration from the point of view of national identity, citizenship and personal responsibility.
Seen from this high ground, amnesty for illegal immigrants is not a point of reference for members of the Minuteman Project. For them, amnesty is to U. S. citizenship what counterfeit coins are to money. The corporate elites and the open border lobbyists, however, will give away U. S. citizenship because it means nothing to them.
Eventually, the American people may listen to what members of the Minuteman Project are saying: secure the borders, enforce our laws and become informed about the problems illegal immigration causes. Once this happens, then the American people will abandon their self-serving politicians along with the elites in big business and the open borders lobby to demand a real solution to the problems caused by illegal immigration.
A real solution to the nation's immigration problems will include deportation of illegal immigrants from the United States. Good citizens will settle for nothing less. The fact that neither the left nor the right, neither the socialists nor the capitalists, want deportation of illegals is a sure sign that deportation is part of the moderate solution.
Deportation of illegal immigrants recognizes their humanity, too. By sending illegal immigrants back to where they came and then helping them improve their own society, we treat them as human beings and responsible moral agents, not just as abstract workers.
Members of the Minuteman Project see a threat to our national identity when they look down at the desolate terrain that divides the U. S. from Mexico. When members of the Minuteman Project ask for secure borders and enforcement of our immigration laws they are doing what is important. They are American citizens petitioning their government to protect the nation.
Robert Klein Engler
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