What cruel irony in the week we celebrate our independence. On Tuesday, a Maryland soldier, Kendell Frederick, who died in a convoy attack in Iraq in 2005, was named a U.S. citizen. The day before, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 46 illegal immigrants who worked for a painting company in Anne Arundel. Supporters of the 46 accused officials of “terrorist action” and carried signs saying “cease celebrating the division of families” and “painting is not a crime” Tuesday at a rally. These are people whom taxpayers support by subsidizing organizations including CASA de Maryland.
It?s one thing to disagree with immigration law. But to label officials charged with enforcing it terrorists is not just offensive, it?s dead wrong. It also reveals a complete disregard for the laws of the country generations of citizens fought and died for to protect, and who cherish its freedoms and opportunity.
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Besides, who is the real victim here? Those who broke the law by choice or the man who sacrificed his life for a country that refused to adopt him because of illogical rules and bureaucratic bungling? Immigration authorities rejected
Frederick?s fingerprints and background check ? the same ones the Army used and accepted. He was on his way to get re-fingerprinted
when murderers attacked his convoy.
Where were all the protesters when Frederick, a native of Trinidad who moved to Randallstown as a teenager, died? He is the man who did everything the right way to become a citizen, who volunteered to serve our country before it officially was his country, and was killed at 21 in the process. Where is the outrage for him?
It is a tragedy Frederick could not live to see U.S. law changed to prevent this from happening to others. But thanks to his mother, who lobbied Congress on his behalf, fingerprints and background checks performed by the armed services will be counted in the immigration process.
Frederick should not have had to pay with his life to become a citizen. But as those who fought for our independence and all those who have died in service to our country know, becoming an American is not just something you can demand, along with subsidies to support your cause from the same people you mock. It is something that must be earned. Instead of maligning those who enforce this nation?s laws, immigrant groups would serve themselves well by singling out for praise those like Frederick who do not demand that this country do for them, but ask what they can do for their adopted country.
