Not a simple issue

Dear editor:

In response to Mr. Echols’ letter in the May 8 issue titled “Send ‘invaders’ back,” he is correct in saying that many in our great country are “fed up” with illegals coming into America and thus using our tax dollars to support themselves in various ways. However, Mr. Echols, like many who harangue on this issue, see it as a simple “black/white.” To use an old cliché’, issue, when it has become a much more complex one than in the early days of our nation.

I suspect that Mr. Echols is thinking of the so-called Mexican “invasion,” because for years little was done to stop the flow of illegals from that country. However, one reason is that ranchers and farmers in the West, in the past and also today, need the workers to do all the work needed so that Mr. Echols and I and millions more can enjoy the animal food we eat and the produce we eat daily. I suggest that others thinking like Mr. Echols research the statements of ranchers and farmers today about this matter, including the idea of finishing a “wall” (which so far has been a long fence) and its stupidity in harming the present-day ranchers and in not accomplishing its intent without hundreds more guards 7/24 screening those attempting to cross. What tax money wasted!

Mr. Echols may also be thinking in his condemnation of immigrants the problem of radical Muslim activities throughout the world and in our own country. But that is also a complex issue. I suspect that Mr. Echols and others of this mindset are unaware of the history of Muslims in the United States since our founding. Actually, his belief that we who are sympathetic to immigrants of all kinds suggests that he may not know how many Muslims have been in our great nation since the beginning.

An estimated 20 percent of enslaved Africans were Muslim. In Georgia, Muslims on one plantation lived under the guidance of a leader who wrote a manuscript on Islamic law to keep their traditions alive. Thomas Jefferson, in the early years of independence, demanded recognition of the “Mahamadan,” the Jew and the “pagan.” He supported Richard Lee, who made a motion in Congress in June 1776 that “True freedom embraces the Mahomitan and the Gentoo (Hindu) as well as the Christian religion.” And Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons affirmed in 1810, the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 that afforded “the most ample liberty on conscience … to Deists, Mahometans, Jews and Christians.” Ordinary citizens of Chesterfield County, Virginia, presented a petition to the state assembly on Nov. 14, 1785, that said, “Let Jews, Mehometans, and Christians of all denominations enjoy religious liberty.”

Yes, Mr. Echols, we do have a problem, but it is not easily solved in a few days, or with an expensive wall, and definitely not with heavy tongue-lashing against many who are innocent of the charge. I suggest that all of this mindset think on these things. Have a good day. John W. “Doc” Crawford Hot Springs