Why can’t people just be people?

I received the following clip in an email from a co-worker. I thought it was very cute.



As my day continued I realized how very accurate this video is and how very sad that a dog and elephant can look past differences, but people see a different color skin or hear a different language and completely shut down.

Last week I attended a forum on immigration in Utah and the U.S. presented by the American Immigration Lawyer Association National President. Charles Kuck is one of the nicest, genuine people I have ever met – even if he is a lawyer! Actually, truth be known, immigration lawyers are probably the best type of lawyers – but that is a rant for another time.

The Deseret News published an article about the forum. It is hard to summarize 2 hours of information into 2 columns. It was the comments I found most troubling. I can’t believe the ignorance of people. There are so many people who are anti-immigration, but they have no idea what they are talking about.

Take for example, “make them all come in legally”. That would be great, if our government allowed for that. Because of poorly planned laws implemented by Bill Clinton illegal immigration jumped from about a million per year to over 12 million because it became too difficult to do it “legally”. Over half the 12 million people who come on visas overstay – the majority of them are from Asia not Mexico. Did you know that if a U.S. citizen wants to sponsor his Mexican brother for a green card, the wait is 62 years? I’d cross a desert too.

The state legislature has over half a dozen immigration bills this session. I’m not normally an advocate, but I see how inhumane and discriminatory some of these bills are and I am appalled, so believe it or not I wrote my representative and I got a response back, amazing – she said my opinion mattered, even though it was the minority. There are so many people who are writing their ignorant comments (such as can be found on the comments of the Deseret News article) to the legislature – it reinforces to me how important it is to be informed. Maybe I’ll need to become an advocate after all.