If you watched Lou Dobbs last night, you may have come away with the impression that the sky is falling.

But I assure you, here in Philadelphia, everything is as it should be.  The proposed protests were a bit of a bust, as Dobbs did report.  I witnessed a march down Race Street, right through the heart of Chinatown yesterday.  It was maybe a thousand or so people; it was very peaceful.  American flags outnumbered Mexican ones by about 10 to 1.  The resounding chant was "Si se puedo"— yes we can.

Unlike Dobbs, who portrays these people as making demands that are unreasonable, I am willing to overlook the illegal way many of these people arrived in the US.  Immigration, to me, is immigration.   Laws can be, and frequently are, wrong or unfair.

I don't think taking the stance that we were all once immigrants is attacking all immigrants, as Dobbs' show implied.  Rather, it turns the focus where it should be: on the nature of this country, which didn't grow from an indigenous population but from many peoples coming here from around the globe, and on the laws that allow or prevent people from entering a space.

Why are we trying to keep these people out, anyway?