My father came to the United States from the Philippines in 1947. He was a guerrilla fighter in the Philippines during World War II and even spent time in a POW camp before escaping. He grew up in a rural area of the Philippines and had to leave school after the third grade to help the family make ends meet. He, like many people from foreign countries, came here looking for a better life.
Having only a third grade education, the only work he was qualified to do involved manual labor. He didn't complain and went to work willingly every day. After working at a local dairy, he went to work for the local sugar cane company. It was hot and dirty work. He got up early in the morning to get on a truck that would take him out to the cane field that he tended. He would come home hot, sweaty and smelly each afternoon between three and four.
He came to this country legally, abiding by all the requirements our country had for people of his status. He finally decided in the early sixties that he wanted to become a citizen of our country. He went about filing the proper paperwork to start this process.
I have never seen anyone study as hard and as diligently as my father. Every day after coming home from work and on his days off, he would spend an hour learning about the country that he wanted to become a citizen of. He even quizzed me on the subjects that he was studying and had to memorize. He felt so proud when he could answer the questions correctly and I couldn't. Of course, it did help him that I was only in the third grade.
The day finally came that he took the oath and became a citizen of our great country. He was the proudest man on this earth that day. He did everything that was required by this country to achieve what he did. By doing so, he received all the benefits that a citizen of this country was entitled to. I never told him, but I was just as proud that he worked so hard to achieve what he did.
Today, achievements like my dad's should be honored, but instead, they have been downplayed. He did it as required by this country so he could legally receive all the benefits due to a citizen of our country. Today, it's much different. There are still those that have completed the requirements to become legal citizens of this country, but there are so many more that have not. And yet they receive many benefits from our country.
I have no problem with anyone wanting to come and live in this great country of ours. I do have a problem when they do not fulfill the requirements to do so. They have made what my father and so many others have achieved seem worthless.
Our government is unwilling to seal off our borders. They are unwilling to send illegal aliens back to the countries they came from. These people are using up our resources when we have our own citizens that are unemployed, homeless and go without food or shelter. Something is drastically wrong with this picture.
I am not saying that we don't allow anyone into our country. I'm saying that they need to go about it the same way my father and countless thousands have done over the years. We should welcome anyone with open arms that fulfill all the requirements to receive all the benefits a citizen is entitled to. I would rather spend the money we are spending now in supporting illegals to get them back to the countries they came from and, going forward, use that money for the citizens of this country who need assistance. When they come into this country legally, then they should receive all the benefits that their status entitles them to.
Now here's the BUT. We need to be loving and compassionate not just to our own, but to others as well. As long as they are here, we need to help them survive. This goes against the grain of what I just wrote, but they are human beings, and as such we need to take care of them while they are here. The flip side of the coin, though, is that we still need to encourage them to go back home and to gain access to our country legally. Otherwise, all the time and effort put in by those that legally obtained their citizenship here was worthless.
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