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There are lots of reasons to pass the Dream Act in the lame duck session before the new (more irrational and belligerent) Congress is sworn in (see http://www.economist.com/node/17575113). The Dream Act provides a path to citizenship for those undocumented young people in America who have been here at least five years, arrived before the age of 16, have not had problems with the law, and have completed some years of college or military service.  It serves the interests of humanity, of America, and of the Democratic Party. The opposition to it is blindly punitive, convinced that any gesture of humanity to the millions who migrated illegally toward opportunity would be an affront to all that is good and true, and so determined to punish such a heinous crime as fleeing destitution that they are eager to do so not just at the expense of those poor souls who were evil enough to be born on the wrong side of our southern border, but also at the expense of the American economy and American people. It is one more chapter in the epic story of the ongoing battle between humane reason and belligerent irrationality, a story in which the United States is now front and center.

I’ve already written A comprehensive overview of the immigration issue. Massive, orderly immigration is good for America, good for those who are immigrating, and good for the world. One major real challenge involves providing improved educational opportunities for those already living in the United States, so that they can occupy higher paying, more specialized positions in the economy rather than compete (to the marginal extent that they do) with new immigrants for unskilled jobs. The main obstacle, as has become the central theme of current American political discourse, is the robust force of Organized Ignorance vigilantly obstructing the implementation of intelligent and humane public policies.

It’s time for all reasonable people of goodwill to organize, communicate, and strive mightily to prevent our continuing slide into the belligerent “Fortress America” that some are insisting we become, and to enable us to be a force for reason and humanity in the world. It is, and continues to be, “A Choice Between Our Hopes and Our Fears”

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