“A Uniform Rule of Naturalization”

By Josimar Salum

“The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”(Psalm 24:1)

My wife, my son and I are Americans today, because I believe that God established and determined that our family would inhabit the North America and because we had the privilege of fitting in the requirements of a specific Law of Immigration.

I also believe that God Himself sent us here the same way Abraham was sent to the promise land.

For each of us the day we took the Oath will be remembered for the rest of our lives. That was a quite special day!

My daughter, as I call her - my son’s wife – gave birth our grand son, Nathan, gift of God, natural born in America. And she herself is on her way to citizenship thanks to another of the many just laws of the land.

By our Constitution I am American, granted with rights and duties, as my grand child is, he who was born here.

Natural children have the same rights of the adopted children before God.

Before the Constitution I have all rights, but one, I can not be elected President of the United States of America. I maybe be kidding, but Nathan one day can and he has all chances to become one, as much as President Obama, George W. Bush and any other President of our history. And I guarantee there will be no doubt about his citizenship. He is a native born, born in Boston, Massachusetts.

I am against illegal stuff, any kind of disturbance of the Order and disobedience of the Law. I am against crossing the borders illegally, breaking of criminal and civil laws, any illegal behaviors, any crime and especially against terrorism…

I am also against injustice of all kinds, oppression, slavery and anything and anybody that hinder any people the Pursuit of Happiness and Freedom.

I believe that those who break the Law should be prosecuted through a Due Process as much as I believed anyone can find mercy at the Courtroom.

I have saw Honorable Judges and Prosecutors acquainting defendants, especially young people, for civil violations and for minor criminal acts.

I have saw Justice in all the instances and cases I served along, as a pastor, a father, a friend, a juror and even as defendant or a plaintiff.

Even when once I thought my case was not treated justly as soon as I finally realized the balance of the decision of the Judge it took awe from my heart.

The Justice is not relied in the severity of the application of the Law because there are Laws that are simply not right.

The Justice is that each of us, in the United States Justice System is judged individually.

The Justice is not relied on the possibility of an error or a mistake, they may happen, but it is relied on the power of the Democracy of this Nation.

The right to pursuing happiness is relied of individual freedoms that we still enjoy as any other place in this planet: The Freedom of Expression, the Freedom of Speech, the Freedom of Press, the Freedom to Worship, the Freedom to Gathering, and the Freedom to be an individual, etc.

The tyranny of Government and even from the Courtrooms never prevail because individuals with those kind of freedoms cannot be manipulated, all of them at the same time, never.

As our Nation was founded upon Principles of Life, Freedom, Justice even the most wicked criminals, Americans or not, should not and are not charged and prosecuted without been served by a Just Process.

I have learnt while reading, watching movies, researching, chatting hours with friends about our history that what we enjoy today is the result of brave men and women of the past and in this very present who serves and served and died here and abroad for this precious jewel called Freedom.

The concept of “Libertas quae sera tamen” – Freedom even at last does not fit our American Conscience. We want freedom now, never for tomorrow.

Even though people from other nations criticizes our mistakes and injustices around the world as a imperfect people like we are, the sum of everything is what makes us enjoy the prosperity, the good systems, the good structures of this nation and the assurance that there is always hope to start again even after the worse crises, economically or socially, we went through on our history, even after natural destruction and even after war.

Originally from Brazil, I worked there in many sectors of the society. I had the privilege to be part of great movements in influencing that Nation. I worked in the mountains of Government, Business, Education, Media, Arts and Entertainment, Religion and Family.

As much as Brazil has a Supreme Law in the Land called “the Constitution of the Citizens” it is not as quite for the Citizens indeed.

The Constitution was positioned for the welfare of the whole society and not for the individuals as it should be. By the way this 1986 Constitution had substituted many others and has so many amendments that are far away to end.

The general welfare in societies is only possible if each individual can pursue his own welfare and of his family. It is the right to pursue happiness that makes the individual responsible for each other.

I don’t know about you, but when I read just the Preamble of the American Constitution I always realize that I am touching serious fabrics of civilization.

And I imagine those men voting those words as they were in a Chamber not of human beings alone, but under God Himself, the Supreme of Universe.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

It is in the Constitution Article 1 Section 8 that says that among many powers the Congress has the power to “establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization.”

Our history is filled of migration movements, good and bad, righteous and unrighteous.

The United of States has been a beacon and a refuge of hope from generation to generation that has draw more people from other nations than any other country in the world has done.

We are a blessed nation indeed, one Nation under God with Justice and Liberty for all.

Migration has been related to the US economy since the time of its foundation.

From Africans brought without their will to the Chinese who built railroads to Mexicans who farmed our produce to be served in our tables…

To Europeans, Asians, Latinos, Brazilians who built our structures. They have been cleaning our houses and market places. They have been serving our donuts and coffees, and entrepreneur our industries…

To Vietnamese, Afghans and Iraqis who migrated to flee from the war we also raged… They have found here the dreams they never had and the abundance they never imagined.

And as much as know we are all them and they are becoming us all, just Americans.

There is a cry in the land from all its inhabitants for a “Uniform Rule of Naturalization” that symbolizes our kindness, materializes our need for security and brings Justice to millions who entered here lawful and unlawful; lawful but have to go back though willing to stay, lawful but became unlawful because they stayed and unlawful by all means for lack of right laws and our broken system.

There many on waiting lines on our Consulates around the world who are willing to come even now, but there is no Law to fit them; not that the Law should fit them all, but I would not like to be one of them.

We are guilty as charged for all of these.

Our propaganda around the world about our prosperity and our freedom would for sure attract anybody who dared to dream to come to a place called the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free.

We sold out millions of movies and have showed our youth well dressed and well fed on the hinge of extreme knowledge and progress for the world to see.

We collected technology and produced so many that put together inebriated young and old, even kids far way and at the most diverse places dreamed to grow old just to move to America.

We championed in almost everything and the youth from other nations saw the brilliance of our schools and desired to come.

And they all came. Without our legal permission or not, they all came. And they stayed. So what?

We wrote broken Laws, illegally do not enforce they way they should be enforced and didn’t take care of our borders.

We have allowed our corporations to hire anyone for decades and our farms to absorb any help. We liked because we needed.

In the history of our migration in times of abundance we demanded and welcomed migrants.

In times of economic distress and depression we blame them, persecute them and want them deported.

Individually we may be not responsible. Individually the migrants should be responsible. But as a nation of individuals we should consider this.

The British came and killed the Native American. What an ignorance and cruelty! They did what they taught was right! They were wrong. And it costed a long effort of reconciliation and a long time of restoration. And even today there is no total and complete healing yet on this matter.

But the British also loved the Native American girls. And among themselves they had children. British and British… British and Native Americans… They came… the Dutch, the Swedish, and Italians, and all others… They got married, girls and boys…

Their children grew up. The natives born and they married each other.

They constructed houses, farmed the land… Built institutions, churches, schools, universities, a huge civilization…

In the beginning started with a commonwealth that did not end until this day…

They built a nation as if they were building a Kingdom, a Kingdom for God to bless the people, any of them, all of them.

America was a tower of refuge and a stronghold for security, a fortress for the persecuted and a fort of peace. And still is.

They developed the whole land. They united with each other and along with values, cultures, traditions, wealth, from different backgrounds and they became and came to be known as Americans.

Here we are, native born and from other nations, a society based in the gathering of principles never saw in any other nation, a melting pot as any other nation in this planet.

Here we are, hundreds of years later, facing a challenge of huge proportions of having to decide what we will do with our inheritance.

More than 12 million of so called illegal, they can remain illegal or not only until the Congress decides to act.

Maybe this time we will do it right and promote an amnesty not just for them but for all of us, once for all.