Thank God we are in the place where the world wants to live. Next time you are in a hospital, nursing home, or driving by a construction site, look at the variety of faces and listen to the voices doing these tough jobs. Higher on the spectrum, immigration feeds into the technology and programming that powers Silicon Valley and military hardware. Immigration has been spectacularly good for America.
Just getting to America does not make it easy street. Most immigrants start from scratch and build a living. For those who wish to become Americans, they ultimately need to pass the Naturalization Test. I used this test as a teacher to prepare my students for their social studies exam.
It might surprise one to learn just how many of our natural born students struggle to answer questions from the test that immigrants must pass. Maybe we can agree that regardless of our thoughts on immigration, natural-born citizens should be able to pass the same test that aspiring citizens have to. Here are just a few of the questions:
What is the supreme law of the land?
What is one right from the first amendment?
How many U.S. senators are there?
If the President and Vice President can no longer serve, who becomes President?
What is one power of the federal government?
There were thirteen original states. Name three.
What territory did the United States buy from France in 1803?
How many Supreme Court justices are there?
Name one war fought by the United States in the 1900s?
Who did the United States fight in WWII?
Name one American Indian tribe in the United States.
Name one of the two longest rivers in the United States.
Name one state that borders Canada.
Name one state that borders Mexico.
How did you do? The test is only one step that immigrants must go through to become Americans. I suspect we’ve elected quite a few people to office that could not pass the naturalization test, though they will proclaim immigration a problem in the name of liberty and freedom.
Immigration is not a problem. Wealth inequality, climate change, and access to affordable healthcare are real threats to our stability. If we continue getting distracted by false flags like immigration, it won’t matter what we believe or who we elect. We’ll be subject to the economic decisions of other countries who are playing the long game. While we squander our time and intelligence on building walls against make-believe enemies, other countries make gains by spreading their wealth and influence around the world. The generations of Americans after us could end up speaking Chinese.
For more on the Naturalization Test, visit: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Office%20of%20Citizenship/Citizenship%20Resource%20Center%20Site/Publications/100q.pdf
Daniel Parker is an author, educator, and public servant. He may be reached at 13scribes@gmail.com
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Education without morals just makes for a more clever devil.
This is a straw-man setup article from the beginning. Labeling people who cross our borders illegally as “immigrants” is an asinine premise on it’s face. “Immigrants” LEGALLY apply to come in and become citizens of a country. “illegals” wrongly walk in and steal what isn’t theirs (just as any common thief does) by taking social services, medical services, and untaxed money from a society they have no LEGAL right to claim. Simply walking over our southern border doesn’t bestow some false nobility, refugee status, or rights to any of America’s resources – illegals are criminals. They have no right to ask anything from our country because they came in illegally as their first move. Trying to paint these people as some “immigrant” class is idiotic. The rules are crystal-clear: Come in LEGALLY and you are welcomed – come in ILLEGALLY and you should be bussed or flown back to your country immediately, or placed in prison if you’re a repeat offender. We owe these illegals nothing. Everyone knows the truth: Dem-Socialists NEED illegals because they need a permanent underclass of people totally dependent on the government for welfare and handouts (as they’ve done to blacks for decades) – and of course these people will all vote Dem-Socialist (they’re constantly trying to give illegals voting rights) to keep the handouts coming, and thus at some future tipping point illegals will out-vote natural-born American citizens. Stop this farcial idiocy about illegals being “immigrants” – they are illegals, as the term (and their actions) defines them.
Mr. Parker, I was good with your opinion piece until you said “Immigration is not a problem.” I beg to differ. Immigration accomplished properly and by the rule of law is not the major problem. However there are several issues with immigration that make it a major problem. First, the sheer numbers of immigrants has escalated over the past 75 years to huge numbers. That alone causes pressure on our ability to provide services to our own natural citizens let alone throngs of newcomers. Second, the success of America has been through immigration and assimilation, a word not used much any more but therein lies the second problem; many of the new immigrants, especially the illegal ones, refuse to assimilate. Why learn the language or laws if you don’t have to? Just turn the neighborhood, then the area, then the town into a repeat of the country we immigrated from. Therein lies the rub, whole communities resembling the mother country of immigrants instead of America. That is not what made America strong.
The third problem is the lack of willingness of otherwise reasonable people to recognize illegal immigration, for what it is; an invasion, an attack on the nation’s systems, services and abilities to provide for our current residents. It cannot be allowed. If we are a nation of laws, then lets follow them…everyone.
Legal immigration must be reformed. Ending the visa lottery and chain migration is a must. We must have a merit based system just like Canada and Australia. I did not conflate anything.
The conflation of LEGAL immigration with ILLEGAL immigration must stop. I agree with the commentors who have pointed out that virtually no one disagrees with legal immigration.
Illegal immigration is no false flag. It is a burden on an overburdened middle and working classes. Both legal immigration and illegal immigration must be reformed and stopped. You mention health care Mr. Parker. Please tell us how illegal immigration, and legal immigration is a benefit to our health care that already has major issues?
No citizen from another country has the right to come to the United States illegally. Mr. Parker should read a speech that Dr. Otmar Edenhofer, a German economist, gave to the U.N. about 12 or so years ago, where he clearly indicated that climate change policy was not about saving the planet. It is about de facto redistribution of the world’s wealth. (His words…not my opinion based on his words)
Socialism has never worked and never will. You live in fantasy land.
Mr Parker, maybe your opinions would be better received in New York, California,and a few other liberal states…and if elected officials cant pass this test…it is an indictment of the left’s grip on our education system…and their failure to teach US History in the classroom, which makes a stronger case for more charter and private schools. Also, if they cant pass this citizenship test they should be disqualified to hold public office, because they must take an oath to uphold the constitution…a document they do not know.
You are doing what many other leftists do…you’re trying to advocate for illegal immigration, by just calling it “immigration” in an attempt to confuse the issue. Anyone who says illegal immigration is just fine, calling it a false flag is saying basically we do not have a right to control our own borders. Your judgement therefore must be called into question on every stand you take…as just a leftist ideologue.
Thank you for reading. Besides the labeling, you make some interesting points.
I can’t even begin explain the stupidity of this article. if anyone was trying to prevent legal immigration you would have a point but all you are trying to do is change the subject to validate your position. Do you even know the difference between illegal immigration and legal immigration? Maybe when you can explain that your opinion will have some value.
In grad school, at various employ over the years, and even a next-door-neighbor were all “legal” immigrants in that they did it the RIGHT WAY. They applied for citizenship at the American Consulate in their home countries as required. After showing they were not criminals in their own country, they were allowed in to begin the course requirements to take the test. There is a COURSE TO STUDY. It usually takes four or five years to learn, pass, and become a citizen, but in the meantime, they get to live in this country LEGALLY, be gainfully employed and have 95% of the life that legal citizens have.
“The media”/cheering section for the Dems and globalists never portray the above, but rather boo-hoo about those who are being turned away because they want to get in NOW.
DO IT LEGALLY AND YOU’LL BE WELCOMED WITH OPEN ARMS. Instead the focus is on border jumpers, sneaks, drug dealers, gang members crossing in who have no intention of doing it the right way as the norm.
The path to doing it the right way is well-illuminated and there are government-sponsored programs to HELP legal immigrants to become citizens, again the “right way”.
Switzerland should be a model for the United States, as in Switzerland it is incumbent on the immigrant to prove he/she has a clean past, and sign documents that once granted, the immigrant will not be a burden on the country’s economy i.e., gainfully employed and contributing positively. By contrast, the U.S. is lax in that department. And Switzerland has among the highest employment rates, lowest crime rates and overall citizen satisfaction quotient of any developed country in the world.
What you talked about is what’s wrong with America’s schools. If a few of the students struggle, well, let’s just dumb down the curriculum. We’re graduating students who can’t read, write or balance a checkbook, but they have a diploma. Even the stickers that used to say “My child is on the A Honor Roll” has been booed out of existence. Now it’s been dumbed down to “My child attends school”…almost. Hey, that’s an easy bar to get over.
KEEP the citizenship test the way it is. You want to get in, DO IT RIGHT and at least be thankful you’re not trying to get in to Austria, Japan, OR Switzerland. The U.S. is tough but still a cakewalk in comparison simply because of the government and private programs available to HELP a person who wants to do it right.
With the opinions you espouse, I am surprised you were not elected when you ran for public office in Tallahassee/Leon County. You are speaking of legal immigration; the problem is illegal immigration and the government giving these people benefits that veterans, the elderly, and poor Americans are not entitled to. How many immigrants have you and your family invited into your household to break break and spend the night?.
I’ll forego the wall if you make giving benefits to people who arrived here illegally against the law and to include if any politician or group of politicians subvert that law, they go to jail without a trial.
I would definitely like to challenge you to research everything you just reported on. Let’s research healthcare, socialism, climate change, illegal immigration, jobs, everything you have written here. Then, and only then, when you present educational, real live research reports from many sources, historical sources too (what works and what doesn’t), would I, for one, actually take this article as “fact” and not just your “opinion.”
Chari
Thank you for reading.
Don’t take liberal Parker too seriously:
He’s just here to stir up common sense conservatives to keep us interested and commenting until the FBI gets around to dropping some indictments on a few other of the more interesting usual suspects like Gillum and some Commisioners.
Thank you Mr. Parker.