My Editorial in 12/12/12 Herald Palladium which Editors entitled: "This one's for all the young dreamers"

As a young boy, I loved baseball.  Growing up near Saginaw, the Detroit Tigers were my team.  I vividly remember when my father took me to my first game at Tiger Stadium.  I must have been seven or eight years old.  We sat in right field with another 10,000 fans,  Kaline's corner so that I could see my hero close-up.  Detroit lost that game.  I don't remember the final score or who they played, but I remember another legendary Tiger, Gates Brown,  pinch hitting for the final out.

Other than the Tigers, my favorite baseball team has to be the New York Mets.  Growing up in the 1960s, the Mets were horrible.  They were cellar dwellers.  That's why I loved them.  Their 1962 record of 40 – 120 remains the worst record in baseball since the 1935 Boston Braves.  Gil Hodges, a famous LA Dodger, was the biggest name on the team, but by 1962 Hodges was washed up.  By the end of the decade, the year after the Tigers won the series, the Miracle Mets did the impossible and beat Brooks Robinson and the Baltimore Orioles to win the World Series. 

I love rooting for the underdog.  I'm not alone.  One famous passage in the Bible is Matthew 25:40, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

A couple weeks back in this newspaper, syndicated columnist Byron York wrote a column entitled “GOP shouldn't pander to Latino voters.”  The title speaks for itself.  The main point of his article appears to be that Republicans should not be for immigration reform because in his opinion Latino votes did not make a difference in the election.  He never says what Republicans should be for, just that being for immigration reform won't help them win in the future.   Mr. York seems to believe like a former presidential candidate that the problem of undocumented immigrants will just go away and that all “illegals” should self-deport.  I believe that this is wrong and in direct opposition to Matthew 25:40 and words engraved on the Statue of Liberty:

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...

A recent AP news report estimates that there are about 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country.  11 million human beings.  Some are young, the Dreamers.  Some are older.  Not all undocumented immigrants are Hispanic, but apparently most are.   According to the AP report “Demographers say...80 percent of all illegal immigration comes from Mexico and Latin America.”

I'm not sure why President Obama before the election placed a halt on the deportation of certain young immigrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.  Maybe he was pandering to the Latino vote.  Personally, I don't think it was why he issued the presidential order, but if it really was the reason shame on him. 

I'm also not sure why Michigan's Secretary of State Ruth Johnson immediately issued a policy which denied driver's licenses to all these young people.  Was she pandering to a portion of the Republican base who tend to be anti-immigrant?   Many of the Dreamers have broken no laws in Michigan.  What they have done is that they were brought here as children by their elders.  They grew up in this country and learned the American dream of going to school and hoping to get into college or to enroll in the military.  What I do believe is that Ruth Johnson's actions seem to me to be spiteful and vindictive against innocent young people who have done no wrong.

Contrast Michigan with Illinois, this month the Illinois Senate with bipartisan support passed a bill 41-14 that would allow undocumented immigrants, not just the youthful Dreamers but all undocumented immigrants, to obtain driver's licenses.  While Illinois puts outs the red carpet for immigrants, Ruth Johnson's Michigan would slam the car door in their faces.

As a boy who attended parochial school through 8^th grade, I am proud to see that Catholic Bishops have called for fair and just immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for those who have not been convicted of any serious offenses.  I wish more religious and political leaders would join their lead.

In 1969, I believed in the Miracle Mets.  In the 2012 Christmas season, I believe in a miracle for 11 million young and old residents who have a Dream.