Immigration and the American Indians

A council of Native American leaders has offered partial amnesty to the estimated 220 million illegal white immigrants living in the United States.

At a meeting of the Native Peoples Council (NPC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico … , Native American leaders considered several proposals on the future of this continent’s large, unauthorized European population.  The elders ultimately decided to extend a pathway to citizenship for those without criminal backgrounds.

“We are prepared to offer White people the option of staying on this continent legally and applying for citizenship,” explains Chief Wamsutta of the Wampanoag nation. “In return, they must pay any outstanding taxes and give back the land stolen from our ancestors.

“Any white person with a criminal record, however, will be deported in the next 90 days back to their ancestral homeland.  Rush Limbaugh will be going to Germany.  Justin Bieber will depart for Canada.  And the entire cast of Jersey Shore will be returning to Italy.”  [snip]

Progressive native groups welcomed the council’s decision today as a step forward toward normalizing relations with the White community.  However, many conservative Native Americans are upset about the plan, claiming that amnesty will only serve to reward lawbreakers.

“Why can’t we just deport all of the Whites back to Europe?” asks Ité Omáǧažu of the Lakota people.  “They’re just a drain on our economy anyway.  They came over here to steal our resources because they’re too lazy to develop their own back home.

“I can’t believe we’re just going to let them pay a fine.  They should get to the back of the line like everybody else — behind the Mexicans.”

via The Daily Currant.

The above is satire.  It never actually happened.  Experience has taught me I need to include disclaimers like this.

It is a joke that cuts both ways.  Poor people from Mexico, Central America and other countries have just as much dignity and worth in the cosmic scheme of things as my Ebersole ancestors did when they came to Pennsylvania and Maryland 250-some years ago.

The vitality of the United States is due largely to our hard-working, freedom-seeking immigrants.

But looked at from the perspective of the original inhabitants of North America, there is only so much immigration that you can absorb and not be overwhelmed.   I don’t think the solution to world poverty is for American working people to have to compete with the world’s desperately poor people in order to increase the wealth of the top 0.01 percent.

I don’t have a good answer to this.  I don’t know of any example of a rich nation being able to keep out neighboring poor people—certainly not any nation that engages in world commerce or seeks to be a world military power.

Tags: American Indians, Illegal immigrants