Demonstrators gather in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, Saturday March 25, 2006, to protest federal immigration legistlation (AP Photo/Ann Johansson)

They are white and bright, Brown, and well read.  They are your neighbors, your servants, and working to better your life and their own.

Please review the statistics.  Pages 15 and 16 may be most interesting to you.
* Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: 1990 to 2000 Office of Policy and Planning U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service

I am choosing to share some statistics that may be less well-known . . .
Approximate Number of Undocumented Immigrants in the United States as of the 2000 Census. . .
Formerly Czechoslovakia 7, 000 – 83,000 Total Foreign Born Residing in the United States
Ireland 3,000 – 156,000 Total Foreign Born Residing in the United States
Italy 10,000 – 473,000 Total Foreign Born Residing in the United States
Netherlands 3,000 – 95,000 Foreign Born Residing in the United States
Formerly Soviet Union 46,000 – 839,000 Foreign Born Residing in the United States
Poland 47,000 – 467,000 – Foreign Born Residing in the United States
Other European Countries 21,000 – 1,104,000 Foreign Born Residing in the United States
China 115,000 – 1,519,000 Foreign Born Residing in the United States
Japan 14,000 – 348,000 Foreign Born Residing in the United States

Korea 55,000 – 864,000 Foreign Born Residing in the United States

Philippines 85,000 – 1,369,000 Foreign Born Residing in the United States
Other Asia 74,000 – 1,801,000 Foreign Born Residing in the United States
Australia 1,000 – 61,000 Foreign Born Residing in the United States
Canada 47,000 – 821,000 Foreign Born Residing in the United States

For many of these populations, the numbers vary from year to year. Often, immigrants without papers return home. [Please see the articles below on the Irish and the Russian.] Many migrants, we know, stay successfully underground; census counts do not capture their numbers. In addition, as we ponder these statistics, we must consider that this information is now six years old; numbers have likely increased. We must ask ourselves, “Do we know how many of these that are now, here legally, were not originally; however, after time, they worked to obtained citizenship?” In my experience, often, this is the case.

Decades ago, even centuries earlier, they were your great grandparents, grandparents, parents.  Now, possibly they are you.  The “majority” of people name you, or them, illegal; however, you know that you or they are only without documents.  Immigrants are as legitimate as the next human being.

In a world proud of the prosperity and profundity that a global village creates, it seems odd that there is so much discrimination and resentment.  Might we, as a larger community, realize that times have changed, technology has altered our reality?   Nationally, or internationally, we are all connected.

President Bush, the United States Congress, and Americans are struggling to come to terms with this truth.  You might wish to read . . . President Bush Talks Immigration at Naturalization Ceremony, Transcript Washingtonpost.com Monday, March 27, 2006; 10:57 AM. Might we have amnesty, a guest worker program, or close the borders?  Perhaps, we could consider possibilities that have yet to be discussed.

During the Ice Age, land joined us. We roamed freely; yet, not easily.  Then, the Baring Strait, the Pacific, and the Atlantic Oceans became our divides.  However, the ingenuity of humans untied us again.  Yet, we are not united.  We are not attached.  Our disconnection is more emotional than physical.  On the issue of immigration, rational, reasonable human beings are anything but.

Might we not better serve ourselves by realizing that, what divides us is our minds.  We, as modern beings, are frozen.  We cannot even accept what was true in the Ice Age; people migrate.

There are persons in America from most every country, all without papers that permit their presence in the United States.  Legal status does not equate to legitimacy.  

If we cannot accept the official status of certain human beings, could we please, at least honor them as humans?  Might we consider our own past, digging through the papers of our ancestors, and accept that there is a similarity.  People prefer to travel to a place where they might better their lives and those of their families.

For immigration information, here and abroad, please refer to . . .

Betsy L. Angert Be-Think

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