On Immigration Policy

Before our white bothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can't have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys,and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefor a man's worth couldn't be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorneys or politicians, therefore we couldn't cheat. We really were in a bad way before the white man came, and I don't know how we managed to get along without the basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a civilized society.

(Lame Deer, John; Erdoes, Richard. Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions. Washington Square Press, 1994)

It's election time in the U.S. and the Republican candidates are in heated debates about who's going to be better at keeping Latin Americans, mostly Mexicans (just because these hypocrites mince words doesn't mean I have to), from entering the country illegally. They all seem to have conveniently forgotten that the U.S. was founded by illegal immigrants. The Europeans who came to the Americas, murdered its inhabitants and robbed them of their ancestral lands never asked for anyone's permission. Columbus did not ask the Taino chiefs in the Caribbean islands if he could enter their lands. Cortez never requested a visa from the Mexica (Aztec) authorities or the authorities of any of the neighboring peoples. The Englishmen who founded the Jamestown colony never applied for residency permits from the chief of the Powahatans. Moreover the illegal immigrants who founded the U.S., unlike most of the undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today, really were criminals! And we are talking here about the worst kind of murders, racketeers and thieves. They committed genocide and enslaved people. Now the descendants of these same scoundrels want to keep Latin Americans, most of whom (ironically) have indigenous ancestors, from moving north in search of better economic opportunities -- opportunities which might exist in their homelands if not for the exploitative neo-liberal economic policies which the U.S. establishment exports all over the world via the World Bank, World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund.