Dear Editor,
I refer to the article titled, ‘ICE arrests illegal Guyanese man in NY’ (SN, May 31). The reactions of those in the vicinity tell of so much of what is upside down and plain wrong; of how far minds and matters have travelled in homage to the self-serving and individual arbitrariness.
As an immigrant, I can identify with, and relate to, the journey of all immigrants: the hopes and dreams; the fears and traumas; and the gambling and losing, too. Now that there is losing, a country’s laws and its leader (not an endearing figure) are vilified as monstrous and worse. I, for one, must distance myself from the shaky resistance and specious rationalizations of those who seek to defend those who violate applicable rules, standing regulations, and the laws of lands, any land. The emotional must be purged from the legal; the controversial from hard reality. Accountability is accountability.
As an example, Guyana’s own borders are long and porous; how open should they be for suffering neighbours? Some leader, sometime or the other, is going to have to be a trump(eteer) sounding harsh discordant notes. It is simple reality, but for the preservation of the Guyanese culture and way, whatever that is, there is going to have to be some control, some management, and some limit, in so far as these can be applied.
Now I return to the core issue at hand of illegal immigration. Today, (in truth, it has been a long growing day) ‒ there is this sense, sturdy and unequivocal, baneful and misplaced ‒ of entitlement. Borders or laws are violated illegally, but there should be the entitlement of welcome and waiver. This is a right. Citizens squat illegally on public lands, and they are entitled to a piece of earth for so doing. Individuals evade tax laws, and that, too, is viewed as a right, perhaps a constitutional one. When the GRA’s Godfrey Statia (or the troubled City Hall) moves to enforce and to demand the setting right of the situation, there is outcry. Implemen-tation brings damnation; local figures assume Trump-like configurations and malevolence.
Send senior officials home to facilitate investigations, and there is the reflexive cry of “witchhunt” in public and highly likely “ethnic discrimination” in private. When these randomly selected issues and developments, of which there is so much more, are held up against the glare of honesty and conscience, the alternative of no stand, no decision, no action, and no movement can only signify in toto the dissolution of real rights, and a shackling of the operation of law. The law is there for the convenience, whim, and caprices of those who speak powerfully about its application, but only when directed at others and elsewhere.
Now this is dangerous, but I must dare to ask: whither a constitution? When many citizens view the law and its application, be it immigration or investigation, local or foreign, as dough to be kneaded to a desired flaccidity, or a witch’s brew to be mixed and experimented with until a self-satisfying end is attained, then there might as well be no such governing apparatus as the law, no such guiding mechanism.
I think that this is a reflection of the hard disintegration of individual, community, and nation that urges those so diseased and depleted that anything goes, and that everything must give to their unending machinations. Illegal immigration is but one of the self-serving, sensitive areas now seized to justify breaking the law, to demonize upholders of the law, and to demand that the law be abrogated to cure their transgressions.
I submit one more area to drive this point home about character dissipation. Many Guyanese are familiar with the acquisitive nature of prescriptive rights as practised in this society. It has been used may times craftily and secretly against absentees. The thinking of the ones once trusted is simple: the lottery has been followed and played for long years, therefore, they are entitled to the big prize; they deserve it; and they must do anything to get it. And others must cooperate and support efforts to do so.
The willingness to accept personal responsibility, having wagered and come up empty, is simply not around any more. In the minds of violators, there should be no consequences and no application of the law. In this instance, illegal immigration is yet one more manifestation of the individual disregard for that which is believed should have no bearing, no relevance, and no penalty. And damn those who think differently.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
