"Under current law, virtually all armed nongovernmental groups are classified as terrorist organizations and the U.S. is prohibited from accepting their members and combatants as refugees."

After 9/11, the US revised immigration rules to bar members of terrorist groups from entering the country. Typically, the rule was written as to bar judgment and discrimination. As written, "virtually all armed nongovernmental groups are classified as terrorist organizations and the U.S. is prohibited from accepting their members and combatants as refugees." Inadvertently, this has blocked the refugee status and entry of those from groups we previously admitted as friends, such as "Burmese rebel groups such as the Karen National Union and Chin National Front; hill tribes in Vietnam and Laos; the now-defunct, anti-Castro Cuban Alzado insurgency; Ethiopia's Oromo Liberation Front; and southern Sudan's ex-rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement."

This is a small, but significant, revision of American immigration policy. I think it is significant as part of the question which ought to direct US immigration policy - Who do we want as part of our society?

As a nation, we have limited means for determining who is American and who is not. There are many people native to America at which any of us would probably roll our eyes and heave a sigh of resignation. You hope that someday their piercings will heal over and their mouths will not perpetually resemble sieves, or that they will feel shame at wearing such slogans on their chests and reform their language with maturation, or that someday they will understand that stop signs are meant for reasonable safety restrains and are not "stupid". In this small area, we could permit people to become Americans for whom the term "liberty" means something more than willful self-expression.

Wouldn't we prefer someone who had even served Hamas if it was evident he had been coerced, forced, into that aid? If it was someone who had once borne arms to attempt to force a tyrannous government to accept truly essential human rights, and, not succeeding, fled, then I want them to be my fellow citizens. If it were someone who had been America's friend within such a government, and as such is at risk where he lives, we owe him shelter.

I should prefer us to be a nation of people who see freedom as a prize and a privilege. Wherein we have a right as a nation to choose who comes in, we ought to choose these.

Technorati Tags: Policy Issues