I was listening to -- yikes -- Johnathan Karl interview Senator Ted Cruz, and I couldn't help but notice the parallels of the parable of the prodigal son and the intransigence of conservatives who insist that illegal immigrants shouldn't have any path towards citizenship.
He said to his father in reply, "Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.
But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf."
He said to him, "My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found."Immigrants, legally or illegally here, are here because they want to be here. Ted Cruz -- a legal immigrant --- is upset that these other folks hadn't played by the rules that his family did, and therefore do not deserve the rewards of US citizenship.
These men and women who work hard for very little money -- often under the table -- are the kind of people you want in America. As Emma Lazarus wrote:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
She didn't write, "Give me your acceptable masses, among the smartest and brightest, the well-educated and the richest." But that's our current immigration policy.
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