Immigrant Scapegoating Doesn't Solve Problem
August 25, 2003 - Tucson Citizen - by John F. Kerry

My wife Teresa grew up under a dictatorship. She didn't get to cast a vote until she was 24 years old when she became a naturalized American.

She reminds me constantly that you can love your heritage even as you fulfill the full measure of your love of our country and your loyalty as a United States citizen. Immigrants have demonstrated their loyalty time and again. At least 10 of the U.S. soldiers in our armed forces who lost their lives in Iraq were not citizens. Their service and sacrifice speak volumes about the character and contribution of immigrants today and across the generations.

Immigrants add more than $10 billion each year to the American economy without even counting the contributions of immigrant-owned business. We need the energy and enterprise of immigrants - and that means we need root and branch reform of our nation's immigration policy. Our policy should not just harness the future flow of immigrants, but it should be based on a program of earned legalization for undocumented workers who are already here.

Those who have been in the United States for a significant amount of time, who have held a job, and who can pass a background security check should be eligible to earn full citizenship.

This proposal makes sense for the economy; it is not only fair to people who have worked long and hard and paid their taxes. This approach is the only way to strengthen our homeland security by bringing undocumented workers out of the shadows and into the light of greater accountability.

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