By The Editors

As immigrants across the country threw down their aprons, their shovels and their punch cards and raised up flags and banners at mass rallies, immigrant workers on campus could only watch from a distance.

While roughly 90 percent of workers for Lackmann were born in a different country, most will remember May Day like any other day on campus, flipping burgers, cleaning kitchens and waiting on spoiled college kids.

Although a small group of the employees, approximately 15, joined students in a protest in the Student Center to support immigrants’ rights, they were deterred when public safety arrived and were urged to resume work. According to the director of Lackmann services, a clause in the employees contracts barred them from walking out on the job. So for the rest of the employees, a fear of losing their job motivated them to stay in line and stay quiet as the rest of the country cried out.

Fear is a dominating force in the lives of most foreigners who flee to the ‘land of opportunity.”

The inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty reads:”Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

These words greeted the 12 million immigrants who pulled into New York Harbor during the first half of the 20th century who hoped to pass through this “golden door.”

From 1892 to 1954 men and women from Germany, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Poland and Great Britain, to name a few, poured into the immigration depot at Ellis Island. Those who were let in entered the country legally.

More than 50 years later this is not the case for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who have slipped into the country’s breached borders. These illegal immigrants are living in the United States, many holding down jobs and raising families, but without the rights accompanied with citizenship. Instead, they live from paycheck to paycheck, one day job to the next and always with the fear they could be caught and deported back to the impoverished or oppressive place they fled.

Are these people criminals or refugees? Those who believe the law knows no mercy (or compassion) for those who violate it, label these illegal immigrants as infidels who must be caught, penalized and put on a plane back to their native country. However, look at the profiles of most of these illegal immigrants – hardworking, family-oriented and law-abiding; their only crime was slipping across the U.S. border. It’s difficult to group them with other social deviants.

Even as many of these immigrants walked out of their jobs this week to urge Congressmen to vote for a bill that would grant them amnesty and rights as Americans, most asked for permission from their employers first. They conducted themselves peacefully and waved American flags and signs, showing a level of patriotism that only became evident among most American citizens immediately following 9/11.

The majority of immigrants, who work long hours at undesirable jobs for meager wages as they struggle to make a better life for themselves and their families, are not a threat to this country. Therefore, rather than trying to reverse the product of years of politicians looking the other way for the sake of big business as millions of immigrants crept across the country’s borders, government should cut its losses and look ahead to preventing future problems.

Continuing to allow people to enter the country undocumented is a threat to national security. Congress should boost its border control and provide incentives for all illegal immigrants to come forth and identify themselves by offering amnesty. This is the only way for the government to heighten security, by compiling an accurate record of who is living in this country, without persecuting hardworking, decent human beings. While Big Brother shouldn’t be able to track every move of its citizens, to have over 10 million people living in the country under the government’s radar is dangerous. The government should not pretend these people don’t exist and at this point they should embrace them as citizens and focus their energies on preventing more illegal immigrants from entering. Let the ones that are already here be.

The government also has a vested interest in keeping this large group of cheap labor in the country, which protestors attempted to prove to all Americans by walking out of jobs and schools this week. In major cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, stores and restaurants were closed on May Day, either as a show of support for employees and demonstrators or because most of their workers did not show up.

Analysts are still crunching the numbers to see what impact, if any, Monday’s mass walkout will have on the economy.

However, once again, the campus community appears to be trapped in a bubble, unaffected by the troubles and toils of outside its gates. While the student Hispanic and Latino group, HOLA, were able to throw together a demonstration at the last minute, May Day had little meaning for the rest of the University. Life went on, students got their Mongolian Chop-Chop, their sushi and their quesadillas, with little thought or concern about the person dishing out their delicious treats.