XENOPHOBES NOT WANTED

“The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again”

“Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane, 
All they will call you will be “deportees”

 “Deportees” (Woody Guthrie – 1961)

I read the synopsis of Donald Trump’s immigration plan last night. Only a demagogue/crook/billionaire like him could dream it up. It was a xenophobe’s delight.

Some elements of the plan are patently foolish. If Donald Trump thinks he can build a wall at the border and make Mexico pay for it, he’s even dumber than I thought he was. If he believes that Mexicans are solely responsible for our unemployment problems, he’s got a screw loose. If he thinks that restricting or eliminating green card applications is a stroke of genius, he’s delusional. 

 Unfortunately, that’s the type of rhetoric we get when the populace is angry and a filthy rich blowhard runs for President.

Trump’s position would be merely laughable if it weren’t so laden with evil intent, as evidenced by the centerpiece of his plan. If he’s elected, he’ll deport all illegal immigrants, men, women, and children. Included in the children are those who were born in the United States. For those who aren’t well acquainted with our Constitution, those born here are American citizens and, as such, they entitled to “protections and immunities” that cannot be abridged by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment to said Constitution.

Apparently, the Constitution means little to Donald Trump. He’ll just rule like an emperor. As he said the other day, “They gotta’ go.” Then, at the appropriate time, he’ll decide who comes back. Oh, the milk of human kindness!

I think you can see by now that I have strong feelings about all of this. It’s very, very personal to me.

My mother was an immigrant, like the parents of many of you who are reading this essay. She was uneducated. But, she was also a woman imbued with enormous courage and a desire to see that her children worked hard and succeeded in life.

 She fulfilled those duties admirably.

As I was growing up, there were many times that a letter would come from immigration. They terrified her. For some reason, she wasn’t sure whether or not she was in the United States legally. Any time that dreaded letter came, she would panic. “Let’s pack up. We’ve got to leave so Immigration won’t catch up with us.” The fear that registered in her face was palpable. She was panic stricken by the thought of being deported. That fear, in turn, transmitted to me, my brother, and sister. It was very real.

 My mother has gone on to her reward. She no longer has to worry about that dreaded letter from Immigration. My brother, sister, and I have also moved on. We’ve contributed to the welfare of this country. We’ve gotten educated, worked hard, served in our military. We’ve mastered disciplines like chemical engineering, linguistics, theology, and business.

We’ve taught our children well. We count among them a Rhodes Scholar and practicing attorney, an I.T. specialist, an author, a labor negotiator, a sheriff, a Social Security Administration analyst, a nurse, an investment broker.

We’re proud of our contributions to this country and we’re sure that succeeding generations of Dillons will continue to contribute to America’s principles and ideals.

I believe there are millions of Mexicans and others from south of our border who want to nothing more than my mother wanted for her family.

But, you say, we’ve got a problem with illegal immigration. I agree. But, there is an American way to solve the problem. Deporting 11 million is not the way. Blaming Mexicans is not the American way, nor is it the Conservative way.

I’ve got one more bone to pick before I’m done. According to a recent Washington Post poll, 25% of white Christians support Donald Trump. I hope and pray that the poll is wrong, but if it isn’t, I have question for that 25% percent. What in God’s name is wrong with you? Have you never read the story of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 2)? Don’t you know that Jesus, our Lord, spent part of his childhood living as a refugee in Egypt (Matthew 2)? Don’t you know that God has great affinity for the alien and the stranger (Matthew 25)? Haven’t you read that there will be a day when a “multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language” will gather around the throne of heaven (Revelation 7)?

If you’re in that 25%, you need to wake up. There is no place for xenophobia on earth….or in heaven! In fact, if you’re not careful you could become the deportees when that great day of reckoning dawns.

FERAL CREATURES

Albert Schweitzer has been credited with once saying, “The only escape from the miseries of life is music and cats.” I’m not sure if he actually said it, but if it wasn’t him, it must have been someone with a deep sense of appreciation for things that bring balance and beauty to this often chaotic world.

I’d never spent much time around cats until I fell in love with Nancy. Once I got to that point, I realized that love meant Nancy…..and her cats. In our thirty years together, there have been many cats who generously shared their home with an interloper like me. There was Parker, then Stormy, followed by Tiddles and Beau. Corky took up residence with us about the time we left Memphis. Since we’ve lived in Emporia, we’ve had Emma, Brudder, Turkel, Felix, Mia, Chee Chee, Gracie, and, most recently a little Himalayan kitten we’ve named Kitsi.

We weren’t really in the market for another cat, but Kitsi came to us as the only reward thus far for what has become a frustrating exercise in what I thought was good citizenship.

Permit me to explain.

About a month ago, a friend made us aware of a feral cat problem at a rental property near the corner of 8^th and Rural. There were at least twenty-five of them roaming around. Our friend, who is very kind to animals, convinced us to help her trap some of them and get them to the animal shelter. So, we went and set two traps. In the process, Nancy noticed that there was one little kitten that wasn’t afraid of people. That was Kitsi. She was covered with fleas. Her eyes were clouded over with gunk of some kind. Nancy decided to bring her home that night and then get her to our vet, Floyd Dorsey, as soon as possible.

The next morning, we found that we’d actually caught two of the feral cats in the traps. We took them to the shelter, thinking they’d be glad to see us. We were wrong. One of the staff told us that what we’d done was illegal. After a brief, but mutually combative encounter, they reluctantly agreed to take the cats.

Later that day I called the police department to see if Nancy and I were, indeed, criminals. We were reassured that we were still citizens in good standing.

I wanted to do more, but didn’t see much point in pursuing things further until the city clarified its relationship with the shelter’s management. That’s what I’m still waiting on. As things stand, city management is waiting on the city attorney, who has recently had surgery and is still recuperating. Ain’t politics grand? You’d think that common sense wouldn’t necessitate a lawyer, but politics isn’t generally about doing what makes good sense, is it?

So, the feral cats are still squatting, doing what feral cats usually do – breeding, passing disease to the pets of other homeowners in the area, and being a nuisance.

The cats, of course, aren’t to blame. They’re just doing what comes naturally. The root of the problem lies elsewhere.

In case you haven’t noticed, feral cats almost always find the feral abode of some feral property owner (think slum lord) to take up residence. It’s a mutually satisfying arrangement. The feral cats seem to like it and the feral property owners profit from it by taking advantage of the city’s poor. They also get the added benefit of low property taxes, which are based on the low value of the hovels they profit from.

Where does that leave the rest of us? Our property taxes skyrocket as we try to make improvement to our property. But, even our attempts at improvement have marginal benefit, thanks to the drag on property values that feral property owners inflict on us.

I could go on and on about city governing codes that were designed to deal with problems like this, but that would be pointless. Common sense tells us that this city’s homes should be structurally sound and that our properties and neighborhoods should be “protected from blighting influences (the City of Emporia’s property codes, section 5b).”

Unfortunately, getting the city to respond is a major undertaking. I’m trying not to be cynical, but I’m losing the battle. It appears to me that we’ve got a real feral problem in this city. We’ve got feral cats, feral property, feral property owners, and feral politicians trying their best to ignore the problem.

So, the problems continue to fester. The feral cats suffer needlessly. The feral property owners profit handsomely. The feral properties keep falling apart at the seams. The feral politicians keep hoping the problems will magically disappear. And, the rest of us pay the high price of neglect. It’s what horse racing fans call the exacta, with the public getting the short end of the stick.