Kaback: Have a DREAM? Republicans don’t

Pathetic. Next to Congress’ failure to pass the DREAM Act last year, only Pitt’s recent… Pathetic. Next to Congress’ failure to pass the DREAM Act last year, only Pitt’s recent struggle to find a head coach could compare in embarrassment.

When it became evident that the DREAM Act, which would have allowed immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors a chance to become citizens over time with military service or educational training,  would slip through the cracks of rhetoric and ignorance, I felt that our representatives had failed. I don’t mean failed like when our football team renamed the Backyard Brawl the Backyard Give Up at Halftime — I mean failed like Ralph Nader running for president.

The DREAM Act would have served as one of the first steps toward a logical solution to the immigration problems this country faces. Instead our Senate was almost as bad as the stream of sequels to “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Maybe they were just trying to preserve America? After all, if you follow conservative pundits, you’ll know that the DREAM Act’s potential beneficiaries are drug-running criminals who don’t even know how to speak English. Other than Canada, Belgium, India, China, Israel and some other no-namers, how can a country ever have more than one language widely spoken? Outside of California, Massachusetts and the other centers of sin that now have decriminalized marijuana, no respectable  worthy Americans could have anything to do with drugs.

But I’ll buy it. I will. As disgusting as it is that partisanship allowed sensibility to be thrown by the wayside, I will give a break to those filibustering senators. I will refrain from calling them out as spineless fear-mongerers and traitors to the American dream … OK, maybe I didn’t refrain. Maybe we weren’t ready for the DREAM Act and maybe it needed to be symbolically defeated.

And if that wasn’t enough, the people in charge of our country went ahead and tried this. Seriously? It’s like they wanted to upstage a Klan rally. On Jan. 5, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, introduced a bill known as the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011 into the House of Representatives. The basic point of this bill is to nullify the right of anyone born in the United States to be a citizen of this country. It says that if your parents weren’t citizens when you were born here, you can’t be a citizen.

The Republican Party has been hijacked by a group of people who cannot represent the interests of this country. I’m supposed to believe that these are the people who care about protecting the Constitution? I guess they only glance at the Constitution when they have to wait two days to buy their semi-automatic rifle. This is despicable. Weren’t we all taught about the great melting pot that is America?

The sad part of this act is that it truly highlights the bigotry which has infused itself into certain parts of the GOP. Of course it’s the party of small government that shouldn’t intrude into our personal lives. According to that logic, I guess that it’s also fine for it to occur if you look Hispanic and happen to be walking through Arizona. I guess that it’s also fine for you to be detained and delayed when boarding flights if you have a name that sounds sort of Arabic.

Unfortunately, the current extremists in our government have failed. They have let down the people of this country through their relentless effort to push people into fearing others. No, claiming that Bobby Jindal is great does not make up for the endless attempts to portray President Barack Obama as a Muslim — which shouldn’t matter anyway — or to claim that he was going to lash out against all of the white people because of a speech he heard at church.

It’s time to remember that we are all immigrants. Somehow, in some way, we all came to this land from somewhere else. Some came through bravery and others through bondage. Some came to escape and others to profit. Some came to pray and some came because of what happens when a government starts singling out ethnic groups — like the Republicans are starting to do with immigrants. It’s a story that has been told over and over again. With the Irish, the Italians and the Jews, new immigrant groups were ostracized and claimed to be of a different race. The only race there that really exists is human. We better start embracing each other before we destroy everything that this country stands for.

Write Andrew at aak47@pitt.edu.