Is it Worth The Risk?

I just heard the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, a man who I generally admire make a statement that seems to me to run contrary to the whole of the history of this nation. I realize that illegal immigration is a major concern of many people. I also know that a nation needs in these troubled times to control its own borders. However, I just found what he said today a bit incredible.

The statement that I found so incredible was made in the context of what to do with the tens of thousands of children crossing alone into America from Mexico and Central America. These children, most likely being sent by their parents in an effort to help them escape the violence of the drug lord's in their homeland and the oppressive poverty, willingly faced the deserts of the Mexican/USA  border in many cases with nothing but a birth certificate in their hands.

Governor Perry said, "And those who come must be sent back to demonstrate in no uncertain terms that risking your lives on the top of those trains and the ways that they are coming here, it's not worth it."  A life in America is not worth it!

Our colonial forebears thought it was worth it. They crossed a tumultuous ocean in rickety wooden boats to establish communities in a wild and savage land. The braved hard winters with little shelter from the cold. Tell them that "coming here" isn't worth the risk.

Our founding fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to form a more perfect union, namely these United States of America. So risky an undertaking that Franklin would tell them that if they did not hang together they most certainly would hang separately. But because they took that risk we will celebrate the birth of a nation tomorrow (July 4th). Try telling them that "coming here" isn't worth the risk.

Try telling every mother's son who gave his life to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of these United States of America that "coming here" isn't worth the risk.

Friends that is precisely why every single one of us is a child of an immigrant who looked at America and said to themselves, "It is worth whatever it costs me to "come here."  It is worth the trials and hardships; the hunger and deprivation; persecution and poverty; and whatever it cost just to live in America.

I feel about this like the person who was not born in Texas once said, "I wasn't born in Texas but I got here just as quick as I could."  That's what these children are doing. They weren't born in America but they are trying to get here as soon as they can and at whatever cost. Why? That's easy. It is because just "being here" is in fact worth the risk.

On the base of the Statue of Liberty we announce to the world:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "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!"

But in our streets we act like and on our lips we speak like the people who were here when our ancestors arrived. We sound like the Loyalist who said if you don't like it here go somewhere else. We act like the people who interned our own citizens in concentration camps simply because the were of Japanese descent.  The English, the Dutch, the Irish, the Polish etc, etc. etc. were scorned and abused by those who came before them. Truth is the only people who were here from the start, the Native American, got the worst treatment of them all. Sadly, it seems every new group must survive this distorted right of passage until another group comes along.

They may not be here legally but that is not the issue. The issue is, "Is coming here to the land of the free and the home of the brave worth the risk." 

The question is not. "Do they deserve to be here or not."  The question is, "Is coming here seeking a better life, liberty and the ability to pursue happiness worth the risk?"

Coming to America . . . .you bet its worth the risk. The statement below by John Trenchard is about as good a definition of what America aspires to be and explains why "coming here" is worth the risk.

"Liberty is the power which every man has over his own actions, and his right to enjoy the fruits of his labor, art and industry, as far as by it he hurts not the society, or any members of it, by taking from any member, or hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys.  The fruits of a man's honest industry are the just rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal equity, as is his title to use them in the manner which he thinks fit: And thus, with the above limitations, every man is sole lord and arbiter of his own private actions and property...no man living can divest him but by usurpation, or by his own consent. True and impartial liberty is therefore the right of every man to pursue the natural, reasonable, and religious dictates of his own mind; to think what he will, to act as he thinks, provided he acts not to the prejudice of another; to spend his own money himself, and lay out the produce of his labor his own way; and to labor for his own pleasure and profits, and not for others who are idle, and would live...by pillaging and oppressing him, and those that are like him..."

 

Sometimes we wonder if right will ever prevail or whether evil will rule.  James Lowell in the same year Texas became a state put into context for us when he wrote:

James Lowell

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.