American dream for all

By Kyle Kubo

In what some are calling the largest affront to Christopher Nolan's Inception and intellectual property rights since the porn adaptation of The Dark Knight, a new ragtag group of savvy individuals hope, by entering into a shared dream, to continue doing what they love in America.  

No, not you Jets and Bears and every other superbowl hopeful.

I'm speaking of course about the thousands of young, illegal aliens hiding in the pile of stuffed animals that is the American people, hoping to someday march  down the yellow brick road, up to the Great Wizard of the United States government and be granted their wish of citizenship.

That's what's being offered, anyway; the appropriately named — for the purposes of that joke — DREAM Act or "Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors" Act — brought to you by the cutesy acronym-composing portion of your tax dollars.  

This controversial bill endeavors to provide a path to staying in the same place for those youthful illegal immigrants who have a U.S. high school degree, have lived here five plus years and are willing to spend at least two years waging war or a college education.  

Will youngsters be willing to pull on fatigues, lace up their combat boots, and march off into hazards unknown prepared for battle — or alternatively join the army — just for the right to live in the country that brought us a sandwich where sandwiches are made with fried chicken instead of bread? Perhaps.  

The real issue, though, is whether or not the proposed legislation should be passed.  

If the answer is yes, then why in the name of healthcare has it been killed again and again like a zombie piñata at a child's seventh birthday party?

At first glance, these may seem like difficult questions.  

At second glace, they do not, and the answers are "yes" and "I don't know," respectively, for the following reasons:

I will begin, as all good rhetoricians do, with the point I believe most likely to alienate and/or provoke my audience, namely that Mr. Border-chev needs to tear down his wall….of feelings.  

While it may indeed be pragmatically necessary that we maintain limits on immigration, to turn off all compassion to those already here illegally and treat them as anything other than peers in humanity is cruel, unusual and more than a smidgeon hypocritical.  

I'm no history major, but I'd wager my last buffalo pelt that at some point prior to being shot in the head on a reservation, Sitting Bull thought to himself something along the lines of, "the results of these ‘Americans' coming to live with us have been less than satisfactory."  

So no, illegal immigrants, particularly those that have shown a determination to learn and work, do not deserve a finger-wagging because they took a shot at a good life by violating our law when we have more than a little dirt under our flag.  

And if we can help them out in a way that offers little harm to us, then it behooves us to at least pretend like we care.

Of course, the idea of helping just to help is a moot point, since the most obvious and beneficial outcome of this law is a shiny new bunch of educated, skilled Americans.  

We already have people here who refuse to serve or become educated and yet feel entitled to the benefits of this nation because they walked out of the womb onto U.S. soil.  

If there are people who are a) already here and b) want to fight and learn so as to earn the right to stay here and prosper, the least we can do is not pay to package and ship them somewhere else — and I mean least we can do in terms of benefiting ourselves.  

And to those who say this provides hope and incentive that will increase illegal immigration, the consequences of such a stance are twofold:

1)  It is impossible to control the influx of people into our border, so the best we can do is make America a sucky place to live

2) People coming here to get educated, protect the nation, and stick around instead of coming here for whatever reason to do whatever and then go back when they so choose are a menace and must be stopped

Both of these implications have multiple obvious problems associated with them.  

The Dream Act would provide deserving people the opportunity to serve the place they call home, or better themselves with an education. In my mind it is a no brainer that it should be passed.  

So in the end, the real question is, and should be: Illegal immigrants, are you SURE you want to live with us?

Kyle Kubo is a freshman English major.