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East Oregonian
Saturday, January 26, 2019
CHRISTOPHER RUSH
Publisher
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
WYATT HAUPT JR.
News Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
A wall doesn’t solve the illegal immigration issue
I
f you believe the headlines, the par-
tial shutdown of the federal gov-
ernment has been the result of a
dispute between President Trump and
congressional Democrats over money to
build a wall on the border with Mexico.
The actual reason the government is
shut down is because Congress failed in
its constitutional duty to pass an annual
budget and the necessary appropriations
for the fiscal year that began last Oct. 1.
Instead, as it has repeatedly done since
the George W. Bush administration,
Congress has passed a series of con-
tinuing resolutions to extend previous
spending for a specific period of time.
Each time those resolutions expire
without being replaced, the govern-
ment faces a shutdown. And the can is
kicked, as it was again Friday.
But we digress.
Trump wants $5 billion or so in the
next continuing resolution to build a
wall on the southern border. Democrats
don’t want to build a wall.
Building a wall, or not building
a wall, is not the central issue in the
debate over illegal immigration. It’s not
that simple.
The real question is who do we let
into this country?
The Constitution gives Congress sole
authority to regulate immigration and
there are numerous laws already on the
AP Photo/Eric Gay
A line of migrants recently released by U.S. immigration authorities waits to check in at the
Catholic Charities shelter in McAllen, Texas.
books addressing the topic.
Congress could liberalize those rules
and expand the number of legal immi-
grants it allows from Latin America,
whether they be refugees or traditional
immigrants.
Though it seems to us that despite all
the chest thumping and hand wringing
that has passed in official Washington
over this issue going back to the Rea-
gan administration, precious little has
changed.
It is almost as if it is preferred that
new arrivals creep over the border at
some desolate desert crossing rather
than be welcomed at the front door.
And what of those who have so
entered?
There are perhaps 12 million ille-
gal immigrants in the country. The
majority are economic refugees, drawn
here by the promise of opportunities
unavailable in their home countries.
The agriculture, construction and hos-
pitality industries have come to depend
on these workers, despite their status.
Congress must offer illegal immi-
grants temporary legal status and a path
to permanent residency, but not citizen-
ship, after 10 years if they can be prop-
erly vetted and meet strict requirements
— no prior felony convictions, no viola-
tions while awaiting residency, learning
to speak English and assimilate, and
pay a fine and back taxes.
The border should be secured. A
viable agricultural guestworker pro-
gram must be established, and employ-
ers must verify the work status of their
employees.
We respect the rule of law, and do
not lightly suggest rewarding those who
have flouted it. But we are reluctant to
disrupt the lives of otherwise harmless
people who have done what we would
do — whatever it takes to ensure the
safety and welfare of our families.
If Congress wants to make it eas-
ier for refugees and others to enter the
country legally, it should make it so.
Only Congress can change the laws.
Let more foreign nationals enter
legally, or keep them out. Let illegal
immigrants that are here stay, or make
them go.
Keeping them forever in the shadows
does not serve the rule of law.
OTHER VIEWS
Your loyalties are your life
YOUR VIEWS
City tackles transient invasion
Fueled by the variety of available sleep-
ing accommodations both indoors and out,
a seemingly endless supply of empty cans
and bottles, and limited interference per-
mitted from police by state and federal
judicial officials, Pendleton has become a
new destination of choice for transients.
Local agencies vary on their approach
to what some refer to as a crisis. Fed up
with the attempted takeover of the post
office, the U.S. Postal Service has taken
the tough love approach and eliminated
overnight guest accommodations. City
Hall, on the other hand, has taken a more
enabling approach, providing the cityhall
lobby and library for daytime use, while
the city Parks and Recreation Department
has apparently donated the Stillman Park
shelter with 24-hour lights, electricity, and
a covered smoking/sleeping area.
The addition of free bus service is also
an added bonus. I was hoping this would
reduce the sidewalk bike traffic, but it
seems to have had little impact.
At the request of Neighbor 2 Neighbor,
operators of the warming center, City Hall
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of
the East Oregonian editorial board. Other
columns, letters and cartoons on this page
express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
has waived the rental fee for use of the rec-
reation center cafeteria to provide a free
Sunday breakfast program previously held
at the Methodist Church. However, lack
of an adequate volunteer force is currently
a stumbling block in getting the program
back in operation, even with the city bear-
ing the cost of utilities.
This is where the Pendleton Enhance-
ment Project and North Bank Umatilla
Advisory Committee people come into
play. Since they seem so anxious to get
involved in civic and social projects, this
is a chance to shine by getting involved
in something constructive. These groups
should find this new opportunity to serve
the community a much more rewarding
experience than repurposing a bridge or
creating a wildlife refuge.
City Hall’s focus on the “enabling”
approach hasn’t had much success, judg-
ing from the vandalism in city parks and
the increase in temporary guests at the
local crossbar hotel. Help from this host of
new eager volunteers could really make a
difference.
Rick Rohde
Pendleton
In 1900, there were two great philosophers yourself away to it realizing that the cause is
working side by side at Harvard, William more important than your individual pleasure
James and Josiah Royce. James was from an or pain.
You’re never going to find a cause if you are
eminent Boston family and had all the grace,
brilliance and sophistication that his class working in a bland office; you have to go out
aspired to. Royce, as historian Allen Guelzo to where the problems are. Loyalty is not just
points out, was the first major American phi- emotion. It is action.
losopher born west of the Mississippi. His par-
“The loyal man serves. That is, he does not
ents were Forty-Niners who moved to Cali- merely follow his own impulses. He looks to
fornia but failed to find gold. He grew up in his cause for guidance. This cause tells him
squalor, was stocky, lonely and probably knew what to do,” Royce wrote in “The Philosophy
more about despair and the brooding shadows of Loyalty.”
The cause gives unity and consistency to
that can come in life.
James and Royce admired and learned from life. The cause gives fellowship, because there
each other, but their philosophies were differ- are always others serving the same cause. Loy-
ent, too. James was pragmatic and
alty is the cure for hesitancy.
Of course, there can be good
tough-minded, looking for empirical
causes and bad causes. So Royce
truth. Royce was more idealistic and
argued that if loyalty is the center of
tender-minded, more spiritual and
the good life, then we should admire
abstract.
those causes, based on mutual affec-
They differed on the individual’s
tion, that value and enhance other
role in society. As David Lamberth
people’s loyalty.
of Harvard notes, James’ emphasis
We should despise those causes,
was on tolerance. We live in a plural-
D aviD
istic society and we each know only a
based on a shared animosity, that
B rooks
fragment of the truth. People should
destroy other people’s loyalty. If my
COMMENT
give one another enough social space
loyalty to America does not allow
so they can be themselves. For Royce
your community’s story to be told,
the good life meant tightly binding yourself or does not allow your community’s story to be
to others — giving yourself away with others part of the larger American story, then my loy-
for the sake of a noble cause. Tolerance is not alty is a domineering, predatory loyalty. It is
making it harder for you to be loyal. We should
enough.
James’ influence is now enormous — instead be encouraging of other loyalties. We
deservedly so. Royce is almost entirely forgot- should, Royce argued, be loyal to loyalty.
Before Martin Luther King Jr. used it,
ten. And yet I would say that Royce is the phi-
losopher we need today. In an age of division, Royce popularized the phrase “the beloved
fragmentation and isolation, Royce is the phi- community.” In the beloved community, polit-
losopher we don’t know we have. He is the phi- ical opponents honor the loyalty the rival has
for a cause, and learn from it.
losopher of binding and connection.
In such a community, people submit them-
Royce argued that meaningful lives are
marked, above all, by loyalty. Out on the fron- selves to their institution, say to a university.
tier, he had seen the chaos and anarchy that They discover how good it is by serving it,
ensues when it’s every man for himself, when and they allow themselves to be formed by it.
society is just a bunch of individuals search- According to Royce, communities find their
ing for gain. He concluded that people make voice when they own their own betrayals; evil
themselves miserable when they pursue noth- exists so we can struggle to overcome it.
Royce took his philosophy one more crucial
ing more than their “fleeting, capricious and
step: Though we have our different communi-
insatiable” desires.
So for him the good human life meant loy- ties, underneath there is an absolute unity to
alty, “the willing and practical and thorough- life. He believed that all separate individuals
going devotion of a person to a cause.”
and all separate loyalties are mere fragments
A person doesn’t have to invent a cause, or of a spiritual unity — an Absolute Knower, a
find it deep within herself. You are born into moral truth.
———
a world of causes, which existed before you
David Brooks is a columnist for the New
were born and will be there after you die. You
just have to become gripped by one, to give York Times.
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies
for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold
letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights
of private citizens. Letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime
phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published.
Send letters to managing
editor Daniel Wattenburger,
211 S.E. Byers Ave.
Pendleton, OR 9780, or email
editor@eastoregonian.com.