For an informed, pragmatic approach to this issue, check out Mira Hartford. For something rambling, keep reading.
This week I’ve read about how a local columnist is moving out of Hartford, and how he partly does not feel so bad about this decision because of the crime rate. I’ve also read about how people believe the role of the police officer is to waste allocate resources to discerning residents’ status. It’s strange to me that nobody questions the right for one person to move across city/town lines or from state-to-state, but that nation borders become an issue. I mention the columnist/radio host because he is employed, somewhat involved in the community, and seems family-centered. Most people–I think–would describe that as being respectable. How different would it be if moving to West Hartford or Canton required more legal issues than selling and buying a house (or renting an apartment)? Why don’t our in-country relocations require much more paperwork than they do? If the issue, as some contend, is that undocumented residents are receiving social services that they should not, then why is the same not an issue when moving to cities or states with vastly different property tax rates? These newcomers haven’t been paying taxes in that area for a long time. Why should their children get to attend better schools? What right would they have to use sports fields?
Making life more complicated is not something that I would get behind, but I think it is worth considering the absence of logic behind the anti-immigrant arguments.
Meanwhile, here in Hartford, some of the people who were elected to take on roles of both leadership and representation are cowering instead of performing either task. The post at Mira Hartford indicates the language of the proposed ordinance as well as what Hartford residents can do to confirm with our City Council that all people be treated with dignity and respect.
