My great-grandparents are registered at Ellis Island. They came here the way you're supposed to. And they became citizens. I don't have a problem at all with people going wherever they want to to make a better life for themselves and their loved ones. I encourage positive change. But you have to do it the right way, and breaking the laws of the country you're coming to is not the way to do it.

Quick story...we were choosing a partner family for our most current Habitat house and during the selection process, it was revealed to us that the family was living in the country illegally. They both had jobs and a solid work history, no criminal convictions (that we knew of, but we couldn't be 100% sure because they didn't have valid SSN's), and were very nice people. My problem was that they had lived in the country for almost 20 years, and had not made ANY effort at all to enter the process of becoming a US citizen. They had intentionally chosen not to take advantage of the last amnesty issued, and kept on living their lie. I have a problem with that, and I had a bigger problem building a house for them. If that makes me a bad person, I think I can live with that and sleep at night.

Bottom line for me is that I have less of a problem with how people enter the country than what they do about their status once they arrive.

Maybe the answer is to make the process of becoming a citizen less cumbersome. Maybe the answer is to make it perfectly clear that people that come here and don't go through the process are not welcome. Maybe it's a combination of both. I don't know, and there are people a lot smarter than I am that should be able to figure something out, but nobody seems to want to.

__________________
Though I am different from you,
We were born involved in one another.

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.

Complete surrender should not just come at moments in which one faces overwhelming odds, but in the calm when it seems one is personally in complete control of one's life.