Foreigners with more freedoms?

America was founded on certain unalienable rights. The Constitution and Bill of Rights states this message bluntly. Yet 200 years later I am watching foreigners, legal and illegal, take away freedoms from people who have been here for decades. Although I am not against foreigners or immigration, I expect to have access to the same freedoms that they have.

Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, was given the floor to voice his opinion only a little bit ago at Columbia University. An argument that Bollinger, President of Columbia University, presented was the need of our country to "practice what we preach". And although I agree that we should not practice hypocrisy, Bollinger's argument is proven invalid when the situation is analyzed a little further. The same university denied a high ranking Republican to speak earlier this year. Even Bollinger mentioned that he knew what a vile man Ahmadinejad was but thought it to be necessary to let him speak. Should we have handed Ahmadinejad the microphone over a representative from our own country?

Illegal immigration has been a controversial topic in the news for a long time now. Illegal Hispanic immigrants are crossing the border almost daily. It has been estimated that the numbers of illegal aliens in our country is around 7 to 20 million. Illegal immigrants are coming into our country and taking jobs from U.S. citizens, working under the table. This means that they do not put any of their wages into taxes or social security funds. When they get hurt, we, taxpaying citizens, are the paying for their care. Our hospitals have to help them whether the aliens are legal or not. Some politicians are even trying to pass bills to provide these illegal foreigners free health care, social security benefits and welfare. Legal American citizens do not have such luxuries. Why should people who did not go through the legalization process be cut any slack?

Preferential affirmative action is also causing controversy. Affirmative action is trying to prevent unequal treatment for minority groups. In the process, some of the majority groups are suffering through preferential affirmative action—which is different. Through preferential affirmative action, when it comes to things like college admission, someone with an Asian or African race will be picked over a Caucasian with the same abilities and grades. Statistics show that this type of affirmative action is helping foreigners get into our universities. Out of the 6,496 doctorates awarded by American Universities in physical sciences in 1993, 2,818 (nearly 43 percent) went to foreign students. Is it fair for foreigners to be able to get into our universities over us only because schools are trying to create an atmosphere of diversity?

Foreigners seem to have more freedom in our country than we do. I am not against giving freedom to those of another country, race or religion. I just ask for the same freedom. Do not tell me America is not practicing what we preach when we are giving more freedoms to foreigners than those of our country. We need to stand up and fight for what we lost. Foreigners should not have more freedoms than us any longer.