I see where a federal judge has upheld the part of Alabama’s harsh new immigration law that requires public schools to check the immigration status of all students. This is one more effort to punish the children of undocumented immigrants.
What I find particularly galling about laws like this, and opposition to the Dream Act (which recognizes what any sane person understands–that a two-year-old did not intentionally ‘break the law’ by coming to the US with his parents) is that the people who are dead-set against allowing these children to attend public schools or universities tend to be the same people who can be found piously proclaiming their concern for ‘the children.’
Protect the children from exposure to porn on the internet! Protect the children from recognizing the existence of gay people! Protect the children from studying ‘dirty’ books in school, or taking them out at the local library!
This heartfelt desire to ‘protect’ children would certainly be laudable if it weren’t so selective. But somehow, this often-expressed concern doesn’t extend to paying taxes to insure that poor children have enough to eat, and it doesn’t extend to educating them so that they can be productive members of the only society they have ever known.
Even Rick Perry, in the only statement he has made that I agree with, has said that people who would keep children of undocumented immigrants out of school are heartless. But then he heard the voice of the Tea Party, genuflected, and apologized. God forbid a candidate for President should show some human compassion!
How mean-spirited have we become?
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