An article in the Times Free Press told of a forum on immigration at which a 13-year-old girl tearfully recounted the arrest of her mother. Police had caught the woman driving without a license.
“It’s been a month since I’ve seen my mom,” the girl said at the meeting with city and law enforcement officials in Dalton, Ga.
I don’t know whether her mother is in the United States legally. I do know that I feel sorry for the girl. But it would be unjust if our pity stopped there. So for a change, let’s extend sympathy to the unheralded victims of illegal immigration, too.
Imagine a similar forum near Texas’ border with Mexico. Only this time, suppose those harmed by illegal immigration were the ones encouraged to share their stories. A U.S. citizen might step to the microphone to say something like this:
“Our local hospital closed its maternity ward last year because it lost so much money on all the uninsured illegal aliens who came in for care. In a couple of months, my wife is having a baby. The next closest maternity ward is a lot farther away than the one that closed. I hope when the time for the delivery comes, we can get there fast enough so my wife and our baby will be OK.” (This has happened repeatedly, and some border hospitals have closed outright.)