COMMENTARY: About those "anchor babies..."

Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the past several weeks at the hospital, dealing with an infant with a cardiac problem.

Or, it could be because I like being a father.

Or maybe it’s because my wife is a public school teacher.

Whatever the reason, I’m sick and tired of a human child being referred to as an “anchor baby.”

Anchor baby.

The very phrase is a grating, cynical term meant to dehumanize the child of non-resident.

Anchor baby.

A political catch phrase used by those “round ’em up and ship ’em out” politicians.

Anchor baby.

A racist phrase that needs to go away.

Whether a child is a blond haired, blue eyed Christian, a Muslim, Jew or Hispanic the fact is they are simply, a child.

A human with a soul.

And they, too, have the right to a spot on this earth.

But some would change their status.

State Rep. Randy Terrill’s latest proposal to deny children born on U.S. soil American citizenship is an affront to human dignity and our country’s Constitution.

Now, I’m sure the ink won’t be dry on this paper before I hear from Rep. Terrill and the rest of the American First crowd.

Heck, I get blasted by those guys all the time. Big deal.

Because I stand with Tulsa Catholic Bishop Edward J. Slattery.

Slattery recently issued a pastoral letter — only the second in his tenure — in which he said Mr. Terrill’s anti-immigration legislation, HB 1804, “creates an atmosphere of repression and terror designed to make it impossible for those illegal immigrants who have settled here to find a stable, secure life for themselves and their children, many of whom are native born citizens with civil rights equal to our own.”

Now for the record this isn’t some wild-eyed, tree-hugging liberal (which is what those who have opposed HB 1804 are usually called) writing. This is the Catholic Bishop of Tulsa.

And the good Bishop Slattery is right.

Oklahoma’s new immigration law — and Rep. Terrill’s newly announced changes for the next session — are morally wrong.

I find it ironic that Rep. Terrill and some of his GOP cronies will gladly wave the banner of Christianity when it’s important to one of their pet ideas, then without pausing for a breath, run the other way when Christian leaders dare to disagree.

Further, Terrill’s statements that Oklahoma Catholics were just trying to protect their growing Hispanic base — language only a politician would use — by complaining about HB 1804 are disingenuous and show a deep misunderstanding of the Christian faith, at best.

But, remember, we were talking about anchor babies.

And a baby — whether its parents are here legally or not — born on U.S. soil is an American citizen, end of story.

Sorry, you cannot change that fact.

By dehumanizing the children of immigrants, Rep. Terrill is hoping that he can sell some modern day snake oil to a crowd frightened that another 9/11 type incident will occur here in Oklahoma.

I understand their fear.

But focusing it on babies is, quite possibly, one of the lamest ideas to come down the pike since Jim Crow laws.

By making immigrants the cause of all our problems — they are draining our resources, stealing our jobs, keeping our kids from going to college, responsible for the Seven Deadly Sins, the primary reason for global warming, and the reason there isn’t prayer in school — Rep. Terrill and his buddies are simply exploiting the politics of fear.

Don’t buy it.

All this group has done is to distill fear down into a single, caustic phrase: anchor baby.

Randy Terrill — and here, I include Gov. Brad Henry, because I hold him responsible for signing this stupid immigration law to begin with — should have to spend an afternoon volunteering in the pediatric ward of the OU Children’s Hospital.

Maybe there, after they sat with the parents of an infant struggling to survive, or helped the nurses in the intensive care unit, would they begin to understand.

I wonder if after such a visit we’d see the term “anchor baby” any more.

I wonder if both men would step out of their political skin long enough to understand the human side of the immigration issue.

I hope they would.

But then again, maybe not.