Immigrants

 

How Have You Been 

How have you been my darling children,
While I have been away in the west?
Though you are strangers,
I feel that I know you.
By the way that you treat me
 and offer to feed me
 and eagerly ask if I'll stay for a rest. 

How should you treat strangers? 

The United States has citizens and wards.   (Monarchies and other forms of government may have subjects and wards). Before the 14^th Amendment, slaves were wards of the United States and the property of a slave owner.  The apportionment value of a slave was only 3/5 of a person (citizens plus wards).  Before the 19^th Amendment, women did not have the right to vote ( it took 42 years to certify this Amendment). Even after this Amendment, married women were considered to be property of their husbands, a situation agreed to by the state, so arguably women were still wards of the state.  The Equal Rights Amendment, ERA, would have changed this status (but opponents of the ERA had learned from the 19^th Amendment, so while the ERA was  originally passed by Congress in 1972, it had a deadline for ratification by March 1979.)  Children are wards of the state and while there is no formal age in which they are granted full rights as citizens, various rights are granted at various ages 16, 18, 21, etc.  There is considerable disagreement from parents who consider children to be their property whose  interest overrides any authority by the state.  The state considers children to be wards of the parents and the state has a secondary claim which is not excised unless the rights of the parent are terminated.   In no cases are children ever considered to be property of the state, nor does the state acknowledge that they are property of their parents. 

I would be remiss if I did not mention that non viable fetuses  are NOT considered to be wards of the state by the Constitution.  They might be viewed by many as persons, but that is an ethical opinion, not a legal opinion. In the same fashion, Corporations are neither citizens nor wards of the state. 

Prisoners who are incarcerated, and those with mental or physical disabilities can be wards of the state, even after they have passed the normal age of full citizenship.  People who are not born in the United States can be granted citizenship if they have lived in the United States a certain number of years, but  meanwhile they are wards of the state ( e.g. Resident Aliens). 

If individuals are citizens, subjects, or wards of other states, they can be visitors to the United States.  Only in rare cases, such as diplomatic immunity, would a visitor not be treated as a ward, subject of, the United States.  If they have evil intentions, visitors are considered to be intruders to the United States.  Those who are strangers may be treated as visitors or intruders.  Most major religions and cultures have an admonition to treat strangers as visitors.  Those who cross the border into the United States are strangers, but are they visitors or intruders? Gov. DeSantis flying asylum seekers to Martha’s Vineyard was treating them as intruders, but the residents of Martha’s Vineyard treated them as visitors. If we treat strangers only as intruders, then not only are we failing to act as major religions and cultures want us to act, but we are exercising a poor strategy. 

The opening move in any game with three or more players should to first be nice, e.g. assume that the stranger is a visitor not an intruder .  Only in a two-player game would always treating the stranger as an intruder be a winning strategy. The last I looked, there were a lot more than two of us.