{"id":10748,"date":"2015-08-29T01:41:36","date_gmt":"2015-08-29T01:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=10748"},"modified":"2015-08-29T01:41:58","modified_gmt":"2015-08-29T01:41:58","slug":"immigrants-or-criminals-which-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=10748","title":{"rendered":"Refugees or criminals? Which is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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One of my very best friends in the whole, wide world is a lawyer who lives in California.<\/p>\n

I’ve known Tim Lundell since I was in high school. He was my best man and we’ve shared a lot of emotions over many years.<\/p>\n

Tim\u00a0posted this comment\u00a0today on Facebook.<\/p>\n

“Isn’t it funny? In Europe they have ‘desperate migrants, embarking on a perilous journey in search of a better life.’ Here, according to certain politicians, we have ‘illegal immigrants who rape and murder.’ I guess it’s just a matter of humanitarian perspective.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The target of Tim’s barb, I’m certain, is Donald Trump, who’s gained considerable mileage over his rants about illegal immigrants who come to the United States from points south … meaning Mexico and beyond. Republican primary voters are eating this stuff up, giving Trump a tremendous boost in the current public opinion polling<\/p>\n

I do not dispute the notion that some<\/em> of those who come into this country without the proper documentation come here to do harm, just as Trump has said.<\/p>\n

But many others do come here to seek a better life, just as those who are fleeing the Middle East and heading for places such as Greece, Italy, France and Germany are doing.<\/p>\n

I’ll also acknowledge that the influx of immigrants into Europe has spawned a considerable backlash from right-wing extremists, who contend that the refugees present a considerable danger to the European way of life.<\/p>\n

However, as we keep debating the issue of whether to deport all 11 million illegal immigrants from the United States, shouldn’t\u00a0we keep in mind that many of them are here for the right<\/em> reasons and are not here to commit crimes?<\/p>\n

The blanket condemnation of illegal immigrants does not square with the reality of why many of them are here in the first place. They are here to make a better life for their families.<\/p>\n

I am not suggesting they all should be granted amnesty, or that they shouldn’t be required to start the process of obtaining legal<\/em> immigrant status.<\/p>\n

Let us just try to understand that people come here for a lot of reasons — and many of them have no intention of committing crimes against the country they want to call home.<\/p>\n

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One of my very best friends in the whole, wide world is a lawyer who lives in California. I’ve known Tim Lundell since I was in high school. He was my best man and we’ve shared a lot of emotions over many years. Tim\u00a0posted this comment\u00a0today on Facebook. “Isn’t it funny? In Europe they have … Continue reading Refugees or criminals? Which is it?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,14],"tags":[1424,5401,2240,3050],"class_list":["post-10748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-european-refugees","tag-illegal-immigration","tag-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10748"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10751,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10748\/revisions\/10751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}