Responses to a potpurri of stupid comments heard during the Day Without Immigrants (aka The Day Without Traffic Congestion):

1. They are working and paying taxes (Every-darn-left-body). – As the Ghost of Christmas Past told Ebenezer Scrooge, “That these things are what they are, do not blame me.” If crossing a nation’s borders illegally puts them at some sort of disadvantage, then this is of their doing. If they knew of the possibility that this would happen and came here anyway then surely they thought that this would still be a condition superior to what they had in the country they left behind. If they did not know of this, then more’s the pity for their ignorance and presumption. (We all make decisions which we might not otherwise have made, if only we had known this or that. Life’s difficult, even for legal Americans, immigrant or otherwise.) If you break into someone’s house and in so doing you break your foot, you show precisely what you are if you sue the homeowner for negligence.

2. We can’t “woo” them here and then call them criminals (Caller to Mike Rosen’s radio show). – If I had a radio show, this would be one of my stupid calls of the day. The identities of those doing the woo-ing and those who call them criminals are not the same.

3. These are honored guests; we don’t want to get them angry (Geraldo Rivera. To think, this man and I may share a common, Rivera, ancestor—it makes my skin crawl). – I have been an honored guest. I have never protested my host or made demands on him. Guests don’t make demands; they may make requests. On the other hand, someone who sneaks onto the property isn’t normally called a guest. He is usually called a traspasser. Where I come from, we used to know how to deal with trespassers. (Warning: My home is protected by Smith & Wesson, Winchester, and a man with PTSD and anger management issues—among other things—who, if awakened suddenly in the middle of the night, has a tendency to act first and ask questions a couple cups of coffee later…if then. Ask my wife.)

4. We will be paying $10.00 for a head of lettuce, et cetera. – Fine. My country is worth my blood. If my country costs me $10.00 for a head of lettuce, then so be it. If that gets to be too much, I’ll grow the darn lettuce myself. (And yes I really know how. I won’t need a Mexican immigrant, legal or illegal, to do it for me, or even to show me how.)

5. They do jobs “we” (Americans) won’t do. – Maybe, but they are not doing these jobs as a favor to us. Besides, one of my first jobs as a kid was going through boxes of tomatoes (E. A. Brown tomatoes, to be precise) and replacing sub-standard tomatoes with good ones. I’ve been an American all my life; I did that job without complaining—too much. (Well, it’s no one dream job, after all.) Another one of my first jobs was lawn care; but when I was growing up that was typical, even for an American boy! (Some of the lawns I took care of were multi-acre lawns. I mowed them with a push-mower!)

6. These immigrants have human rights just like everyone else. – I approach the issue from a single basic premise: Nations have the right to expect that their borders be respected and to prosecute those who do not so. We, the people of the United States of America also have rights just like everyone else. Among those rights is the right that our government shall protect our borders. We want our rights, too. I mean, if it isn’t asking too much. After all, Mexico would hardly do less.