Is there a right and wrong?

Not to open a Pandora's Box, but immigration issues are rising again...and this time, largely because of people who are either A) dead for over a century or B) born in the U.S. and not immigrants at all for centuries...but not natural born, either...or are they?

Confused? Good, then you understand the situation perfectly. Let's go back, way back...say, to when the Spaniards were "colonizing" the Americas. The Pope decided they could follow a certain theory and therefore gain the right to rule peoples whom neither were asked nor wanted the "benevolent" (read cruel and murderous where the word benevolent was and you will be getting pretty close to the real meaning) rulership of the Spaniards.

Hundreds of years of torture, slavery, and murder later the Native American tribes, both North and South American, found they were ruled by newcomers to the continent. That in and of itself is nothing new...it happened with Russia, Germany, France, Britain, etc. History is a series of new tribes moving in on old tribes and taking over rule by virtue of superior technology and/or numbers. See also Greece, early history of, Rome, early history of, and...well, you get the point.

However, each time it happens there arise certain questions. Will the natives of whatever land was conquered assimilate or will they, as many tribes in Vietnam do even now, remain separate entities?

In the U.S. that was decided in the 19th century when the Native American tribes became, legally speaking, Dependent Sovereign Nations. It was then and continues to be now a confusing legal verdict that leaves unclear the rights and responsibilities of the U.S. government and the various tribal governments. Their status is quite unclear...well, not when it comes to taxes and conscription, in those cases they are clearly (eye roll) United States citizens...and in fishing rights they rise above the level of U.S. citizens to (rightfully) claim their treaty rights...but where they stand on land use rights varies, etc.

But wait...didn't I say this was about immigration? Well...yes. And all of that ties in.

You see, many tribes have this crazy idea that they belong on the land that is theirs. This does not work well when part of their land is in the United States and part in Canada or when part is in the United States and part in Mexico. Oddly, their ancestral lands and sacred locations do not correspond to the borders of those three countries. How could they not know they should fit all their lands in what would later become the future borders of those nations? What, they let little things like trying to survive, stay warm and sheltered, and keep their land prevent them from scrying the future and selecting more convenient homes for the convenience of their conquerors?

All sarcasm aside, the dual nation nature of their homelands is causing problems. You see, many Native Americans do not have birth certificates. Sometimes it is by choice, others by necessity. If they are born in say...the 50s and 60s in a lightly traveled portion of the travesties given them for reservations, who is there to get a birth certificate for them? They might not even realize such things exist until they are 15 or 20 years old or more. And they more or less don't need them. Who needs a piece of paper to prove they are alive?

Well, nobody...if you are breathing and talking, pretty much everyone agrees you are alive.

BUT...if you should leave the United States...while remaining on your tribal home land...and want to return, under today's immigration restrictions, you might have problems. Sure, you were issued a card by your tribe...you know, the sovereigns of your life, so to speak...but not by the United States government.

So on the one hand, you have lands taken by force...probably wrongfully, though certainly that has been the preferred method throughout history and it is not the first...and, like it or not, probably not the last...time a parcel of land, big or small, is taken from the residents through force, though certainly this was on a larger scale than normal....from a people who wish to continue living on their ancestral homeland. On the other hand you have a government ostensibly concerned with security for the citizens. Caught in the middle are all the citizens who deal with not is, not what was or will be or even should be.

How do you resolve this issue? Things like this are a troubling aspect of life in the world today. There is no easy answer. I am not even sure there is a right answer. It certainly seems like there should be an easy, commons sense solution...since tribe members theoretically know their own, maybe that is one step. Maybe another would be helping the members of those tribes move into the 21st century. If they wish to. And maybe...just maybe...this would be a good opportunity for some creative thinking to move us all forward together.