Legal
Civil rights aren’t something we get to vote on. That is why they are called RIGHTS.

Simply BEING isn’t something that should ever be illegal. Opponents of the present undocumented folks, say things like: They are not legal. They are breaking the law. We’ve got to fully respect the law. Calling someone illegal is short hand for being too lazy to think about a real solution.

Curiously, the people who are making the accusation of illegality, are frequently the same people who say the government is intruding into our lives with too many regulations, except when those regulations apply to other people. I had one guy explaining to me how respect for the law must be absolute, or it amounts to nothing. This same individual routinely drives his car on road trips while nursing an open container of beer. The capacity to disconnect ones own behavior from the sins of others is astounding and does suggest that bigotry is an operating subtext.

Prior to WWII, good folks in Germany, by popular opinion, made being Jewish illegal. In retrospect, many of those people recognized their error. But, not at the time. My personal physician is Jewish. He told me of going to Germany to visit ancestral homes. To find where his ancestors lived, he would go to the police department to look up the addresses. Jews frequently were listed as “having departed for parts unknown.”

In another example of fear based bigotry, The USA confined American citizens of Japanese descent during WWII. It was an evil thing to do to our fellow citizens.

I tried to buy a renter’s license in Fremont. They wouldn’t sell me one without having a landlord and address picked out. In other words, Fremont treats all renters the same way other communities in the USA treat sex offenders.