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Davis Journal

Time for citizenship to be granted to Dreamers

Sep 01, 2022 02:06PM ● By Bryan Gray

Some things make perfect sense: Hot dogs at a ballgame…ice cream cones on a hot summer day…salsa at a Super Bowl party…hot cocoa on a wintry Sunday morning…living within your means.

And here’s another no-brainer: providing an efficient and rational immigration policy allowing families in unsafe countries a new start and kick-starting our economy.

The votes are here. A Gallup poll earlier this year found that 75% of Americans believe that immigration is a “net positive” for the country and more than two out of three favor a more open policy.

It should be simple.  Businesses need workers; the Now Hiring signs aren’t coming down. We also need the working dreams of immigrants.  The majority of new businesses in the U.S. are created by immigrants, not the self-satisfied “white guys” who are resting on the couch while watching the Cowboys game.

And one of the first sensible efforts should be granting citizenship to the 800,000 “Dreamers,” men and women brought here as children, many of whom have no ties to their birth countries.  Our tax money has educated them, but they have no permanent status.  They have relied on work permits, deportation protection, and other executive orders while they have attended our schools, opened businesses, and earned degrees as nurses, doctors, lawyers, and scientists.  

They have purchased homes and started families, yet too many conservative Republicans see them as intruders. To these politicians, charity rests with tax cuts for the wealthy, not the acknowledgment that the “Dreamers” are integral to the economic health of a country with a diminishing birth rate.

This is not a matter for border control.  These folks are already here, speaking English and paying taxes.  Five years ago, President Trump attempted to cancel the protection of the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals could nullify the program, sending them back to Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.

What a shame for the families.  What a waste of talent.  All because of a bunch of rednecks who think a brown-skinned man or woman threatens their job in the warehouse!

Ask the business community. Ask most church leaders.  Ask statisticians who have studied the positive impact of immigration.  They will tell you that without hard-working immigrants, a country will decline.  And some will even note that the Bible encourages a welcoming hand to people in need.

Yes, ask them. Just don’t ask the ultra-conservative congressman who listens, not to his conscience and to science, but to the handful of angry people in their neighborhood caucus meetings.

The racist right-wing supporters claim that there are “hoards at the border” aiming at eliminating our way of life.  Actually, there are men, women, and children at the border, victims of gang violence, unable to feed their families, merely wanting to blend in and enrich this country.  They are a labor pool; they are also an opportunity for so-called Christians to step up and show they truly care about Christ’s teachings. 

Bryan Gray, a long time Davis County resident, is a former school teacher and has been a columnist for more than 26 years in newspapers along the Wasatch Front. λ