"Ever'body might be just one big soul
Well it looks that a way to me.
Everywhere that you look in the day or night
That's where I'm gonna be, Ma,
That's where I'm gonna be.

Wherever little children are hungry and cry
Wherever people ain't free.
Wherever men are fightin' for their rights
That's where I'm gonna be, Ma.
That's where I'm a gonna be.

"Tom Joad", Woody Guthrie

The illegal immigration debate is nothing new. In fact, the debate about illegals destabilizing the country is one of the oldest debates on record. The Chinese built a wall to prevent it from happening. The Jews embarked on one of the most historic treks in response to the oppression in the country where they were regarded as illegals. And "no Irish need apply" is a phrase that only needs casual mention for even the most remedial historian to recognize a time when red hair and a name that had a certain phonetic sound to it would get you hateful looks and barred from employment.

And there are still some alive among us today who can remember a time when citizens of our own nation were treated as illegals.

During the infamous "Dust Bowl", thousands of Okies and Arkies trekked their way west, primarily along Route 66, to California, which was regarded by many as a "Garden of Eden". California was where they expected to find jobs, a new life, and opportunity for their families, who were suffering under dust, drought, and the prospect of losing their homes, many of which had been obtained, ironically, only a generation earlier through a land grab that was one of the most egregious treaty violations in American history.

These Okies and Arkies loaded up vehicles that were barely worthy of a trip to town, much less a 1500 mile trek to the coast. Loaded to the gills with everything they owned (one particularly memorable picture I have seen on the subject even showed a crated GOAT strapped to the side of the car and supported from below by the running board), these families headed out on roads that were, in places, little more than sophisticated versions of the trails of the wagons that had passed that way only a few decades before, the ruts covered with sand, caliche, asphalt, gravel or concrete, whatever building material was the most economically feasible for that area.

When these families reached th California, many were turned back. Those who made it through were ridiculed, ostracized, refused entry to California schools, and often treated as less than human. The word "Okie" became the white equivalent of the word "nigger", and rather than experience the life of luxury they had envisioned, most Okies experienced the hard life of government camps, where a day's work might be had, at whatever wage the boss saw fit to pay, often too little, as the boss knew he could readily replace any hands that didn't like their wages for that day with an entirely new crew at that price, or even lower, the next.

I believe that we will one day be judged by how we treat "the least of these". Unfortunately, our historical record is pretty abyssmal. While we have a need for security, a need to protect our country, we cannot and must not do it using "illegals" as political pawns and barring them from the opportunities that made this country great. But at the same time, we must not ignore the problem altogether, as along with the families that have come seeking opportunity, there are a number who have come with FAR LESS than honorable intent. And unless we control our borders, we'll never have a way of knowing who's who.

So come, Mexicans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, Asians, to the land of opportunity. We'll take your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But your child molestors, your gang bangers, your drug dealers, you keep. We're having a hard enough time incarcerating our own.