You Are an Illegal

Either all of us are illegal or none of us are illegal.

[UPDATED 3/10/26]

When I was a teenager, my friends used to shock me. Some of my white and Asian classmates would occasionally show me items they had shoplifted from stores. I heard them joke about a phenomenon called “dining and dashing.”

I was horrified!

I have a Nigerian mother and father, so there was no one to induct me into the world of “petty crime” that many white youths committed. Apparently it's so common that as a middle-aged adult, I sometimes hear phrases like, “When I used to shoplift….”

“Back when I was shoplifting….”

“I used to shoplift as a kid….”

Excuse me!

In the United States, when we think about theft, too many of us imagine Brown or Black youth. Yet right under our noses are scores of friends and neighbors who committed crimes in their youth yet rarely suffered consequences for it. They also have children who might be committing them right now. Nevertheless, we do not go around calling them illegal because they did one act that was against the law.

In 1965, we stopped our “Good Neighbor” policy that had allowed people from Latin America and the Caribbean to migrate here for work for decades. We created a huge border enforcement organization that made a lot of companies wealthy, from building contractors all the way down to uniform makers. Our leaders also destabilized governments in the region (sound familiar?) and forced economic policies like the North Atlantic Free Trade Alliance (NAFTA) that robbed many to the South of us of their livelihoods.

Jesus said, “Let he without sin cast the first stone.” He was talking to a group of men who were ready to stone a woman because they did not like her sexual proclivities. This is how I feel about shoplifting and entering the United States without authorization. I do not like it when people who are former lawbreakers themselves turn around and point out other people who they say broke the law. There is a saying that is something like “When you point your finger at someone, three are pointing back at you.” Perhaps we should start calling shoplifters and people who do not wear seatbelts “illegals” as well. They are breaking the law too. The way things are politically, we are all criminals depending on flights of fancy or whether the winds are blowing east or west that day.

Honestly, though, let's just end all this talk of "illegals.” Just like we did under Ronald Reagan, we need to provide a legitimate pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants. Just like with any misdemeanor charges, just have them pay a fine for their misdemeanor charges and move on with their lives. While it would make less money for the billionaires and millionaires, at least we can stop worrying about our friends and neighbors disappearing in the middle of the night. Outside of the First Nations people who lived here before colonization, either all of us are illegal or none of us are illegal.