Nothing Human is Alien to Me

“Nihil humanum a me alienum puto, said the Roman poet Terence: 'Nothing human is alien to me.' The slogan of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service could have been the reverse: To us, no aliens are human.” - Christopher Hitchens


This is an article called "House Republicans debate legal status for immigrants" found in the LA TIMES about a hot button issue that I hold particularly dear to myself. The House which is ruled by a large republican majority is beginning to discuss a way to fix our immigration problem. 11 million undocumented workers are estimated to live in The United States. It has been a problem hotly debated for over 30 years. The Republican Party's platform for a long time has been one of "self-deportation" ( making conditions in The United States so unbearable for undocumented people that they leave) constructing fencing, and deporting all undocumented immigrants. It is safe to say they are not the party of immigration. The Democratic Party has by large voiced their support for facilitating immigration to The United States. However, even when democrats have held the presidency and both the house and the senate not much has been done for immigration (In fact President Obama's administration has increased the number of deportations). This inaction on real policy is failure to the millions of people that call this country home yet are forced to live in secrecy. Unfortunately it seems that The Republican Party, whom lost the previous election with horrible latino support, seems to have realized that the players of the game have changed and will continue to change with demographics leading to a much larger latino population in the future. It would seem the republicans covet the latino vote rather than being true believers of facilitating immigration to this country. However, as previously stated, The United States has been very inactive in bringing about real change on this front. I suppose every day is a new day but, you won't catch me holding my breathe.