Thursday, April 06, 2006

Personal and Political

I'm not nearly wonk enough to know the fine points of the immigration reform debate. I do know that if the Senate fails to pass the compromise bill, and instead passes something like the House bill, then an injustice will be done to at least one person. He's a longtime friend of mine who's lived in the US since he was very young, who's worked his ass off from the time he was able, who's paid his taxes and who, if the House version of the bill passes, will be sent to prison for a year and then deported to a country he hasn't seen since he was a child. All this because he had the misfortune of having parents who thought it better to live in the US than to live in a nation ravaged by a war the US was covertly waging. I'm not trying to be a bleeding heart. Quite the opposite.

I think the people who authored the House bill, and the jingos like Malkin and the Minutemen, ought to back the fuck off until they can show they are something other than lazy vindictive little shits out to punish powerless people for the crime of being powerless.