Why Immigrants Should be Seen As People

Watching the massive debate of the status of some 12 million illegal and undocumented immigrats (who are actually two different things) I have become somewhat upset over how the debate has progressed. It's not that I'm mad that all of these people are trying to get out of their lousy countries and make a halfway decent living for themselves and their families on this side of our precious God-given (sarcasm) border that...um, if I remember correctly we kind of forcefully drew in the 1800's...nor am I upset about potentially losing (this is assuming that we could actually force 12 million people back across) the God-given (see first reference) economic benifits that they provide to the child of manifest destiny. Nope...I'm simply concerned about the fact that the humanity of these millions of people...many of which have taken to the streets lately to protest their systematic exploitation...has been replaced and they are now look at by many of us with green dollar figure obsessed lenses. At every point in the imigration debate...the central question is not the status of their families, their livelyhood...their economic well being...it's ours. The debate has changed to being a question of human rights and morality clashing with the rule of law...it's become "which answer to the immigrant question provides the most benifit to the American Economy".

As this point in conversations about the issue I get that feeling one gets when they hold for expected appluase and all they here as murmuring and a cough or two. You see...the economy is everything to us. I agree that it is important...but I also agree that human rights and the well being of the people in question is also importiant. Some people think nothing about our Government spending hundreds of billions of dollars to blow up and rebuild another country on the other side of the World...but God forbid we allow doctors to give emergency care to the sick child of some illegal immigrant who's freeloading off the society that our tax dollars support (of course I don't believe this, I'm not that ignorant...by the way their sales tax rate is the same as ours). Is the economy more importiant than people. I'm going to be Anti-American here and say no. Damn the Economy if it's going to continue to be built on a foundation of exploitation. I'm all about having a good economy...but only if it's built on respect for human rights of everyone living here and around the World.
But why should these immigrants be seen as people? Well, for one thing they all have beating hearts...human brains, for the most part two eyes, ears, arms...and they all have a soul. They all have basic fundemental human rights. The right to exist. If the immigration debate would be framed with this in mind, instead of simply being about the economy...then mabye many of us would be convicted to think a little more compassionately about our neighbors instead of hypocritically denying them the rights that we think we were destined to recieve...when really 98% of us were born in this country because one of our ancestors came to this country the same way that they did.
I'm not writing this to enter the debate between the fence building and the "let them all in" crowds...I just want to remind anyone who reads this that we're talking about people, not dollar signs.