The Riverside Press-Enterprise
U.s-mexico border: open it
Abraham Lincoln was our first Republican president. By taking on the mission of preserving the Union and eventually destroying slavery, the Republican Party’s central value was preserving and enhancing individual freedom and civil rights. That central value was eloquently expressed in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address — “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.”
When I witness the looming candidacy of Donald Trump, I lament how far the Republican party has strayed from that central value. Consider this hate-filled quote from Trump: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”
The Party of Lincoln, the party founded on valuing the dignity of all people, would counter Trump’s hateful harangue by saying, “It’s not just ‘some’ of these Mexicans but almost all of them who are
good people. They are seeking opportunities for a better life, not for themselves but for their children.”
That value was beautifully expressed in a letter from a scholarship applicant to Chapman University, of which I’m president emeritus: “My parents saw that there was much more opportunity for their children if they came to America. Leaving Mexico and all
that tied them to it was not easy. But they made sacrifices for their children, of whom I am one. I love my parents for many reasons, but I love them most because of this.”
Yet, when watching the recent Republican presidential debate (sans Trump), the candidates seemed to fight vigorously for airtime to deliver the message: “Vote for me since my opponent is a wimp on immigration policy.”
Rather than these wannabe presidents doing all they can to position themselves as tougher than their opponents on immigration policy, they should be arguing for something else, something consistent with the founding values of the Republican Party. That something, I would argue, would be to open our border with our neighbor, Mexico, and allow the free movement of people. In my mind, that would truly represent a new “birth of freedom.”
I’m not arguing for guest worker privileges where Mexican nationals are allowed to stay in the U.S. temporarily before being forced back. I’m arguing that people — both Mexicans and Americans — be allowed to cross the border and stay as long as they want.
It would be a simple, straightforward system that would allow workers and their family members to enter the U.S. after some reasonable time to apply for U.S. citizenship without the indecipherable rules and regulations and dehumanizing waits and delays that characterize our current system.
To those who argue that