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Date Posted: 09:40:15 04/19/08 Sat GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: Opinion: Kansas efforts to curb illegal immigration (Kansas City Star)




OpinionSaturday, Apr 19, 2008
Posted on Sun, Apr. 13, 2008 10:15 PM

AS I SEE IT: Kansas efforts to curb illegal immigration are a lesson in forgetting history

Deyoe

Never known as one to keep his opinion to himself, I just finished reading the article “Immigration is a minefield for lawmakers; Political considerations and practical concerns can undercut legislators’ zeal to enact reforms” (The Star, March 16).
I recently sent an e-mail message to my area state senator and a member of the Federal and State Affairs Committee. The committee had just endorsed its immigration solution, a substitute for Senate Bill 458 which has been called “the most comprehensive immigration legislation in Kansas history.”
Paying for college in Dodge City, Kan. in the ’70s, I worked in a local beef packing plant where there were numerous employees from “south of the border” — some who had legal work visas and others who probably did not.
They were extremely hard-working, caring employees who really appreciated having their jobs and were making a better life for themselves and their families. They were doing hard, physical labor. But they did it with a smile.
I am also personally aware of cases where immigrants are treated poorly and forced to work seven days a week, or forced to cover for “legals” during all holidays, weekends or odd hours (24/7 on call) for minimum wage jobs.
I feel proposed legislation being considered in Kansas partially protects small business, the state’s social services programs and these workers who do fill an important niche in our business enterprises.
The only missing piece is a simple, non-bureaucratic method for these people to gain valid work visas or citizenship. This needs to be provided for the 90 percent of these workers who do a great job at roles spoiled “legals” feel are “beneath them.”
Before you toss the first stone take a look at your own genealogy. On my mother’s side of the family I have a lineage from the Mayflower, immigrants driven from England and who landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620.
On my father’s side, his Huguenot descendants were ousted from France by Louis XIV, and pursued by the king’s agents until he landed in New York in 1675.
My nephew’s father is three-fourths Native American, but his mother’s descendants have been in America less than 150 years, one side being chased from Russia by Catherine the Great and the other having to leave Ireland because of the potato famine. Who named here was not an immigrant or considered “unwanted” at one point in history?

Jack Deyoe grew up in a farm family in western Kansas. He is a former journalist and a current De Soto School District administrator. He lives in Olathe.
 

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