I Wouldn't Exist

Amidst all the rancorous debate over immigration, I can't help but think that if the current regulations had been in force in the late 1800s and early 1900s, I, and an enormous portion of this nation's population would not exist.  My paternal grandfather from Poland would have never met my paternal grandmother from Slovakia.  My maternal grandmother, whose parents were from England, would have never met my maternal grandfather, whose mother immigrated from Switzerland when she was a child and whose father was the son of German-born farmer who never learned to speak English in all the years that he lived here.  All those blood lines that make up the person that I am would have never met up here in Ohio.  

Even if they had managed to enter the country, they would have not been able to afford a green card to live and work here legally.  (A green card currently costs between 300 and 500 dollars, and the subsequent processing fees run between 200 and 400 dollars.)  My English ancestors were listed in the British census as "agricultural laborers"... a nice way of saying "peasants".  My Swiss great grandparents loaded their five children on a cart and headed to France to take a boat to America.  Switzerland was not always the wealthy nation it is today.  There were frequent periods of economic depression and famine. 

Steven Miller, the chief architect of the current administration's immigration policies, would certainly not be here.  His great grandparents escaped the anti-Jewish pogroms of czarist Russia and arrived here with eight dollars in their pockets.

(image taken from the web)