Letters to the Editor
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I'm trying to put my finger on it
Is it that Jordan is a comparatively poor country and we should pity the people here illegally when they have to go back to Jordan, or, through some cruel twist of fate, to a Jordan they've never actually been to before? Or is the problem that if you manage to fly under the radar and make it to the middle class we should, as a matter of law and policy just ignore it? I know when I went to grad school at St. John's in NYC back in the '80's about 10% of the graduating class decided to never go back to Ireland and instead live here illegally. At the time unemployment in Ireland was 20%. So if they were caught, at what point should they have been deported? When unemployment in Ireland fell by half? When they could achieve the same standard of living there as here? If they managed to hide for a decade? Or is the problem that Jordanians don't easily 'blend in' in America like Mexicans or Russians so their illegal status is somewhat more precarious, moreso because of their middle class lifestyle? Is immigration only for the poor or can the middle class get on too? These are hard questions because they incorporate all sorts of things that people don't like to dwell on.