An Immigration Lawyer Asks, What Would Martin Luther King Do?

Happy Martin Luther King Day America. I hope you are enjoying your day off. I also hope you take a moment to think about why we have a day named after Dr. King, the only American who was not a president honored with a holiday.

Dr. King consistently sacrificed his freedom and ultimately his life for his “dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of it’s creed: ‘We hold these truths self-evident that all men are created equal.’”

Dr. King said, his dream is deeply rooted in the American Dream.

On this day we should remember that the tenets our great country is founded on are freedom and equality. I am extremely proud that unlike other nations that are based upon shared race, language or culture we are something more, something better. Americans are Americans based upon a shared philosophy.

Dr. King reminded us with his words, and moreover his assassination, that we are better as a whole than the individuals among us who would kill a man for standing up for his and an oppressed peoples’ rights.

Although Dr. King would have surely beamed with pride seeing the election of an African-American president, the end to legalized segregation and the rise of the black middle and upper class, what would he think or do about the hate bases laws that target and diminish the equality of our Hispanic US citizens.

Much has been written on Arizona’s immigration law directing officials to inquire into the legality of those that appeared to been Hispanic. Now Mississippi, ground zero for the civil rights battles culminating in the early sixties is engaged in a heated debate to pass Arizona style immigration legislation. The proponents of these bills also support amending the US Constitution to remove birthright citizenship.

Why? Is your American dream to remove it from others?

So while Dr. King’s dream may have come true for some Americans, we should give thanks and appreciation for these victories.  We should remember the fight for equality for all never ends.  Dr. King, even during Mississippi’s infamous stance against equality, had hope with the words, “I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

Dr. King “dreamed that we could together hew a stone of hope out of a mountain of despair and transform the jangling of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood… This will be the day when all God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, ‘My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing, land where my fathers died, land of pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring. And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.”

So take a second America on this day to honor the person who made us remember that the American Dream is not for the few but for us all, and think about how his words and actions apply today.

The test of a great nation and a great person is how they handle the hard times. While we are trying to dig out of a recession and still come to grips with 911, remember our ethnic citizens are not to blame. They just want what we all want, to live, work and reside in the greatest nation on earth.  It doesn’t help any of us to remove the word greatest.  We are better than this.