The American Birdfeeder

I heard a story a few years ago that sought to explain why we Americans are having such a hard time with illegal immigrants. It goes to the “magnet” I mentioned in yesterday’s post.

A kindly older woman enjoyed her backyard. Her husband was a handyman of sorts, so he constructed a nice tool shed, a beautifully appointed patio, and a beautifully built picnic table that he placed under a large oak tree. There were few things the woman enjoyed more than sitting in the backyard, or on the patio, enjoying her beautiful lawn, her flower bed, and listening to a brisk breeze rustling through the branches of her tree.

And she thought that the one thing that would give her more enjoyment would be the presence of birds. She asked her husband to build her a birdfeeder and install a birdbath so that she could watch the birds frolicking in her backyard paradise. That’s just what he did; and when the work was done, he filled the birdfeeder with seeds and started the water pump to keep the water flowing into the birdbath. At first, the lady enjoyed watching her birds; she was amazed how many different varieties of birds came to visit her.

But then things turned rather ugly. The birds began fighting with one another over the birdseed. Larger birds came to chase off the smaller birds. Aggressive birds ruined the tranquility of the backyard environment with their loud, obnoxious squawking. And as one might have anticipated, the entire backyard was covered in bird droppings: the patio, the picnic table, the birdbath, the eaves, and the roof of their small home. Once, while the old woman was hanging out her wash, a large grackle attacked her and drove her screaming inside the house.

The old woman and her husband decided that the only way to restore he backyard to its former beauty and tranquility was to remove the birdfeeder and birdbath. And that’s what they did; the birds soon disappeared and the old man started to clean up the mess the birds had created.

Not unlike the birds, illegal immigrants come here in the thousands. They crowd into areas that aren’t equipped to deal with so many “sudden” residents. They demand services, and when they don’t get them, they turn ugly. Many of our nice neighborhoods have been transformed into vast barrios; slum areas that offer nothing but danger to the people who live there—even the illegal immigrants, themselves. Local authorities ignore the problem.

Our schools have become battlegrounds for rival gangs. We send our children to such places with trepidation; all too often the worst thing happens. The authorities do nothing.

Every legal citizen is resentful of the situation: whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Norwegians … and then the whole issue gets confusing. People begin to claim that anyone who stands against illegal immigrants is really prejudiced against Mexicans. How convenient it is to use ethnicity as a way of ignoring the problem.

This is where we are now with illegal immigration. It began by providing free services to people from other countries who come here illegally. Whenever we do this, we do no more than encourage even more illegal immigration. We offered amnesty to illegal aliens in 1986 —and what was the result of that?

We have to solve this problem, but it is completely illogical to think we can send out law enforcement officers to arrest 20 million illegal aliens. I think we can fix this problem by convincing them it is time to go home. We can do that by denying them “human services.” Cut off any opportunity for jobs for illegal aliens. Prohibit them from renting houses or apartments. Deny them drivers licenses. Deny them the right to attend schools they aren’t paying for. If they show up at food kitchens or hospitals seeking help, feed them, treat them, and then send them back to their country of origin. Whenever a criminal has completed his prison sentence, release them at the US/Mexican border and watch them go back to where they came from. In other words, remove the birdfeeder, remove the bath.

While we are doing this, we need to secure our borders. I don’t mean half-secured. I mean secured against illegal entry. If we will not secure our borders, then all the other efforts simply won’t matter.

And by the way, this is how we treat people who arrive illegally from China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Why are we treating people from Central and South America any different? Why are some of us portrayed as hateful to Hispanics when legal Hispanics often complain about the birdfeeders, too?

—Mustang Sends