Ask any Native American what the fate is of a people that cannot control its borders. The answer is obvious--annihilation and marginalization. If a nation cannot control immigration into its borders, then immigration will control it--for better or for worse.
Forget the debates on what the depth, breadth and width of immigration should be. They are irrelevant until the borders are shut tight, by whatever means, to the undocumented masses. This is the overarching issue. It has nothing to do with legitimacy, race, color, culture, religion or country of origin. This is now our home. Expediency, not legitimacy, demands that we control first our borders and second the influx of those desiring the privilege of calling themselves Americans.
We can ignore the lesson we ruthlessly imposed upon the backs of our native brothers and have that same lesson visited upon our own heads, or we can choose our fate. To so choose should not include negotiating with the undocumented, the cordoning off of our laws into the infertile grounds of the reservation. This is not to say that illegal immigrants who would dictate their legitimacy are not worthy of this privilege. It is only to recognize that it will be mere handfuls that will bring us future 9/11's in manifestations even more destructive than the loss of life and property that was so dearly suffered in New York.
Let us therefore make prudence the better part of benevolence because the preservation of our culture and land may be the greatest gift we can offer the world.
Loren Lambert
© April 10, 2006
