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Immigration: Examining The Positions of Grace Meng and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Mistaking The Word ‘Immigrants’ for ‘Illegals’

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Two congresswomen representing Queens and the Bronx congressional districts, Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez (right) representing the 14th congressional district in Queens and the Bronx, and Grace Meng (left) representing the 6th congressional district in Queens, mistake the word ‘immigrants’ for ‘illegals’.  While I respect both of these public servants, they’re mistaken in their definitions. Photo credit: C-SPAN.

NEW YORK, NY – There is an issue in this country of who in fact is an immigrant. Some confuse the issue and say those illegally here, gaining the benefit of our medical services, jobs, and educational system have some sort of right as ‘immigrants’ in that respect when in fact they are not immigrants but law breakers and law violators and to understand their status and situation otherwise is to be manipulated and fooled. As we know, corporate America loves low wage and no benefit labor, as it serves to edge out our vulnerable and poor legal citizens desperately in need of employment to support their families

Two congresswomen representing Queens and the Bronx congressional districts, Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez representing the 14th congressional district in Queens and the Bronx, and Grace Meng representing the 6th congressional district in Queens, mistake the word ‘immigrants’ for ‘illegals’.  While I respect both of these public servants, they’re mistaken in their definitions.

Grace Meng was born in 1975 and is an American lawyer serving as a democratic member of the House of Representatives. Ms. Meng was previously a member of the NY state assembly, is of Taiwanese descent and is the daughter of assemblymen Jimmy Meng. She attended Stuyvesant High School, received a BA from the University of Michigan, and a Juris Doctor from Cardozo Law School. Ms. Meng states that America has always been a country of immigrants and says American culture owes its richness and complexity to the cultural contribution of immigrants. Meng says she has witnessed the hard work and dedication of our immigrant communities and their struggle for a better life and suggests a pathway to citizenship; reuniting children with their detained parents; and legal counsel for vulnerable immigrant populations. These are some of her suggestions.

Ms. Meng fails in her thinking and in her proposals. The issue she fails to address is that these persons she speaks of are not immigrants but persons who are here without legal basis, displacing and competing with our hardworking legal immigrants who have struggled to go through the legal processes to obtain citizenship. She lauds the contributions of immigrants to our system and society but fails to make the distinction between those who go and have gone through our legal system and obtained legal citizenship and those who have not and who seek to fool and manipulate us into thinking that they are immigrants when they are lying their way into our system which they have no right to be in at all. Compassion, I suggest to Ms. Meng, should be reserved for those who obey the law, not those who disobey and defy it. Meng’s suggestion of reuniting children seems to involve the idea that the children should be detained with their parents, something the president and ICE and Homeland Security rightly wish to avoid. I find it unacceptable that those who have come here defying our system should be given counsel when they have come here as it were slapping our system in the face. I ask Ms. Meng to address the significant issue of law violation and law breaking and address her compassion and concern and reforms to our citizens that have come here obeying the law not defying and disregarding it.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also mistakes the word ‘immigrants’ for ‘illegals’.  Ms. Cortez was born in 1989. She defeated Joe Crowley, a 10-term incumbent in the primary and defeated her republican opponent in the November 2018 election. Taking office at the age of 29, she is the youngest woman to serve in Congress, received her AB degree from Boston University and advocates a platform of Medicare for all; a federal jobs guarantee; abolishing ICE; and free public college and trade school.

I have nothing but utmost regard for Ms. Cortez, although I disagree with her platform as somewhat unworkable and unrealistic. I do not in this article address her platform as stated and defined but her position on illegal immigrants and immigration. In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow following President Trump’s address in the oval office, she stated that those attempting to enter the U.S. illegally are more American than any person who seeks to keep them out ever will be. She says that women and children on the border are seeking refuge and opportunity with nothing but the shirts on their backs are acting more American than any person who seeks to keep them out ever will be.

Ms. Cortez fails in her reasoning and does not address the fact and issue that those seeking to come her illegally are breaking the law and defying our legal system. They are not acting ‘more American’ since our nation is a nation of laws and based on laws and to say that those who come here with the intention and goal of coming here illegally are not ‘more American’ and certainly people who we want here kicking our system in the face and making fools of us all.

Rethink, Ms. Cortez, your reasoning on this basis; if you are intellectually honest please reach an entirely different concussion. I ask you not to praise and laud those who have no respect for our laws and our constitution; instead, reserve your compassion and love for those who have come here obeying the law and our system and bear in mind the graves of American soldiers in the Pacific and Europe who defended our freedoms and our legal and constitutional system.

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