USA means immigrants and immigration reform

Except for Native Americans, we are all immigrants or descended from immigrants in America. During Fourth of July week, it is sad to see anger and rage directed against child immigrants in California on Wednesday, with screaming and shouting directed against these young immigrants as they were herded inside a truck and headed to a detention center. And it is most sad — and shameful and inexcusable — to see someone in an anti-immigration crowd — or more accurately a mob — spit on the face of an immigration supporter during chants of U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

{mosads}Spitting on the face of a fellow American who supports immigration has nothing to do with the U.S.A., or American patriotism, or what our country stands for.

In my latest column about the sectarian wars between factions of Republicans, I warned that the hostile position of House Republicans against immigration reform will doom the GOP with the great wave of Hispanic voters for a generation and with thinking Americans across the political spectrum who support immigration reform.

Think about the young woman who was interviewed on the network news Wednesday evening in California who literally walked 1,000 miles carrying her 18-month-old son from Honduras to America to escape poverty and bloodshed and drug wars in search of a better life in the land of the free and the home of the brave. What courage she has! What a great love of the idea of America she expresses! America would be a better place with this woman in it. America is a worse place when Americans spit on other Americans to keep her out.

I do not join those who say: “Throw them all out.” We need the rule of law, and the decency and humanity of our national character, to find the right solution.

Congress should pass the funding that President Obama has requested to address this problem in a humane way, and to better protect our borders.

The House should pass the immigration bill that Senate Republicans joined Senate Democrats in passing a year ago.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) should show the courage and wisdom he showed when the Senate passed the immigration bill and stop equivocating and maneuvering to appease a sectarian faction on the right wing of the Republican Party.

On July Fourth weekend, we should thank our lucky stars that we are blessed to live in our great nation, and remember that the great principle of Americanism is based on Lady Liberty, who holds the torch in New York harbor, and not a member of an angry mob who spits with hatred on a hot day in California.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. Contact him at brentbbi@webtv.net.