I can’t pretend to understand why immigration status is a thing people actually get riled up over.
Maybe I’m sympathetic because I am exceptionally terrible at filling out paperwork. If American citizens had to reapply for that status every five years, I would be among those in court for missing a deadline, forgetting to complete a page, or wildly overthinking and then misinterpreting a question.
Maybe I’m sympathetic because I know that we can never control what our parents do, but especially not as children, who are dependent on them for survival. Maybe I’m sympathetic because none of us ask to be born in a particular place. It is sheer luck if you are not born in a war zone, or in a culture where being outside of their norm promises a lifetime of violence and oppression.
I have friends, acquaintances, and co-workers who can vouch for how complicated it is to become a citizen, how dangerous it would be for them to return to their native country, how they would have opted to live almost anywhere else but did not get offered the choice while in utero. These are not abstractions. They are not the people over there. These are folks with names and faces. None of them have stolen a job out from under me. None of them are criminals.
As we settle into our age of climate chaos, we need to seriously reevaluate how we interact with our fellow humans. Setting up arbitrary borders and rules will not be helpful. Learning how to collaborate to solve problems is where our focus should be.
