One occasion was at the Detroit airport when a couple of border patrol officers found it very amusing to give me misguided directions and then used abusive language to make themselves feeling better for earning minimal wage. When I challenged their abuse of power, they simply reminded me that I was a guest and it was a privilege but not a right to enter the United States. True, it is a privilege. However, such privilege was earned by me through hard work and dedication, as well as superior intelligence, which these glorified security guards were apparently lack of. Actually, this reminded me a scene from a movie, where the actress got angry at a border patrol officer and commented that the officer was one step away from flipping burgers.

Of course, the recent events have triggered similar feelings that I had at Detroit airport. This time, it is not the border patrol but the radio, TV, newspaper commentators and anonymous racists who are expressing similar comments that we are guests and we are not grateful for the given privilege of staying in United States.

But then again, I don’t feel like a guest. If I were a guest, why should I pay taxes? Especially the social security tax and medicare/medicaid taxes that I might never get to enjoy if I return to my home country. Now that I have become permanent resident. Am I still a guest? Maybe not. Afterall, the ID card says permanent stay. On the other hand, no matter how successful I might ever be, when I cross the airport check point, the border patrol still has the power to turn me away for any stupid reason or just for his/her amusement.

So it becomes clear that a guest in United States is someone who has to work to feed him/herself and at the same time, pay just as much or more taxes than the host. Yes, foreigners don’t always enjoy the same tax break as locals. And yet, the guest faces the everyday reality that he/she may be sent back for any stupid reasons. Locals may not know that a guest including green card holders may be deported for petty offences that most people only needs to pay fines.

Indeed this is exactly how the politicians view guests in this country. Some geniuses in Washington had proposed legistlation called guest worker program that allows Mexicans to come to work in United States when there is need for them and send them back when such needs are gone. So the United States enjoys the best of both worlds: cheap labor and pure white society.

Before you think that you are not Mexicans, please pay attention to how this Guest worker program is so similar to the H-1B program. True, H-1B visa holders can apply for Green card but with the current shortage of visa numbers, do you think all H-1B holders will be able to stick to his/her job for so long to eventually get one? The US congress can easily solve this problem by recapturing the tens of thousands of precious visa numbers wasted by the beauracracy everyone hates — USCIS. However, very few of these politicans care to take action. Is this simply neglect or just by design?

So you can see that many guests are not really guests in this country. We work, we pay taxes, even more so than the locals, we don’t enjoy less benefits than the locals, we suffer severe restrictions in traveling and in job placement, in education, now in getting drivers licenses. We are more immigrants than guests. Before you locals start to bash immigrants, please think that this is an immigrant country. Everyone here except the Native Americans are immigrants. Yes, we are grateful and yes we want our voices heard. So please don’t remind us how to be grateful. We are being plenty of that already.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0108-09.htm