Nelson Mandela and Illegal Aliens in America

Nelson Mandela has passed away. Mr. Mandela led an interesting life and after taking over South Africa managed to prevent it from sliding into what could have been a horrendous civil war. Not an easy thing to do. Prior to the end of apartheid in South Africa many westerners made a lot of claims against apartheid; but, rarely was the whole story told and part of it has some relevance for the United States.

South Africa, like many other countries, allowed people from neighboring countries to come there on work visas for decades. These people were not considered citizens. One of them was a young Indian attorney named Gandhi. He later left and return to India where he was the primary force behind freeing India from English control. While in South Africa, Gandhi set out to give Indians the vote; but, they were not citizens. In fact many were indentured servants who had come there with no expectation of citizenship. Here is the hypocrisy, today many are applauding Mr. Mandela's life, as they should; but, many of these same people are outraged that the United States has illegal aliens here from Mexico.

Some may argue that these people are here illegally and they are; but, many of them have been here for decades working in the fields. How is it that we allow so many people to come here to work as undocumented workers picking our fruit and being given so few rights? You cannot have it both ways. There is a discussion going on right now about giving citizenship to "illegal aliens" in America and I think we need to see how we had called for the same in South Africa.

Part of the reason that we don't see the similarity is because many viewed the situation in South Africa as being the same as it was here; but, there were some real differences. You might be interested to know that South Africa abolished slavery before the United States did. Most people don't know that. It should also be noted that South Africa had a lot less slaves than we did.

I am not arguing for open borders, I am questioning our claim on moral superiority over what went on in South Africa. We have whole families that were born here to parents who came here illegally. If caught, the parents can be sent back to Mexico and the families ripped apart as their children have no right to Mexican citizenship. Over the next few days we are going to hear a lot about how great Mr. Mandela was for ending apartheid, my question is, how much sympathy and compassion can we find for people who come here without permission that work the most menial jobs in our country?