“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith, becomes an American, and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American … There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

These famous words from one of President Theodore Roosevelt’s final letters seem more pertinent now than ever before.

With the immigration debate roaring through the country and state governments putting pressure on the federal government to take action, it is important for us to use wisdom from the past to create answers for tomorrow.

Unfortunately, this is hard to do when misinformation is so shamelessly spread through our media.

We are fortunate in that most of our nation’s media sources honestly try to uphold their ethical responsibility to provide fair, balanced and accurate information to its readers – especially when it is a school newspaper funded by the student body at large.

Unfortunately, the Daily Barometer has not been upholding these standards. In a blatantly biased and inaccurate “news” article, Daily Barometer writer Yadira Gutierrez made statements that were misleading at best, and simply lies at worst.

And, sadly, the only way people will know this is if they do their own research, or if they read this column in the back of the same newspaper where her article was highlighted, front and center.

A few weeks ago, protesters on campus performed a skit in which an American citizen was stopped by police “for being colored,” and then detained because she did not have identification.

Meanwhile, it was suggested that her daughter, who was sick, would not make it to the hospital. This, says Gutierrez, would be “perfectly legal under Arizona immigration laws.”

Then Gutierrez addressed another Arizona bill, HB 2281, which she said “makes it against the law to teach any course or materials related to a specific ethnic group in the public school system in Arizona, thus banning all ethnic studies courses.”

Shocked and appalled these types of things could happen legally, I decided to do some digging into the legitimacy of the claims, and, thankfully, after making some phone calls and reading the bills, I found out that neither of these things would legally happen in Arizona.

Fortunately, Arizona’s new immigration bill, SB 1070, quite simply does not allow police to pull people over because of the color of their skin. What it does is enable police to inquire about someone’s citizenship status if they have what is called “reasonable cause” to think they are not citizens.

“Reasonable cause” is a legal concept that has been defined hundreds of times in courtrooms around the country, and is by no means new. This bill creates no new immigration law, it merely enforces federal immigration law – something our federal government refuses to do.

People in Arizona – foreign citizens included – need not worry about the status of their citizenship being checked unless they are committing crimes or not driving safely, in which case you must have a driver’s license in your possession.

Every country I have been to has required me to carry my passport on me at all times, and I was asked to present it frequently while living and travelling abroad (and you can guess what would have happened if I tried to protest about it in Tunisia).

Also, after making just one phone call, I found that “(HB 2281) does not ban ethnic studies programs – it only bans those programs that promote sedition and racial prejudice and are designed to segregate students of different ethnicities from each other.”

According to Arizona State Representative Steve Montenegro, who is himself Hispanic, this is why he, along with the majority of the Arizona State Legislature, supported the bill; they want to keep taxpayer dollars from paying for lectures that promote the overthrow of our government or that promote hate.

Some of the textbooks that have been used in the Tucson Unified School District, for example, herald extremists who encourage the murder of “gringos” as heroes, and even teach children that “Aztlán” – much of the southwestern United States – does not legally belong to Americans.

According to Messrs. Ayala and Ward, both Hispanics who taught in the TUSD, the directors of Raza (“race”) Studies frequently intimidated teachers by calling them racists and “the white man’s agent.” This, they say, would happen if any teacher would question the directors’ decisions.

Clearly, race baiting and accusations of racism have gotten out of control. People are automatically pinned as racists if they challenge ethnic studies policy or if they support cracking down on illegal immigration.

Even Ms. Gutierrez, who is obviously on the side of the protesters, was labeled a racist on the Daily Barometer website because she forgot to include the second part of someone’s name.

I can confidently say the vast majority of the 70 percent of Americans who support the new Arizona immigration bill are not racists.

In reality, that number is mostly comprised of individuals who either care about the sanctity of the rule of law or who have been negatively affected by illegal immigration.

This includes a large number of people. For example, Los Angeles County, where I was raised, spent an estimated $1 billion on illegal immigrants in 2008 alone, according to Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

Citizens and police in Arizona and other border states have been killed, have had their property destroyed, and have had their livelihoods threatened because of our border problem. And our federal government has failed to provide solutions, forcing individual states to attempt to fix their problems on their own.

Federal lawmakers have failed us – and this is not restricted to any one party. Remember, it was the Republicans who pushed reasonable and comprehensive immigration reform just a few years ago.

Most Americans, myself included, are pro-immigrant. How could we not be? If you take out a coin you will probably see the saying, “E pluribus unum,” meaning one made out of many.

This, of course, refers to America and the people in it, made from other countries and their citizens. We are a nation of immigrants, and have a long tradition of accepting new citizens from all around the world and are better off for it.

But being pro-immigrant does not mean I am pro-illegal immigrant. Those who have come to this country illegally have broken our laws – laws that we respect and need to uphold.

It is very important to distinguish not only between those who come here legally and those who do not, but also, as President Roosevelt pointed out, to distinguish between those who come here to be American versus those whose loyalties remain elsewhere.

President Obama agrees. According to him, he would require illegals to learn English, go through background checks, pay a fine and go to the back of the immigration line: thus having to take all the proper tests, before being granted citizenship. President Bush’s plan was nearly identical. If this process doesn’t show someone’s commitment to being an American, I don’t know what does.

In closing, I have a few words of advice for the protesters, which, if followed, may result in their being taken more seriously.

First, read the bills that you are protesting. This may seem like a given, yet even influential people like Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who have both made it a point to criticize the Arizona bills, have admitted that they have not read them. The bills are not that long, and are easily located on the Arizona State Legislature’s website.

Secondly, if I were in a country that provided my family and me with more opportunity than the country I came from, I would not aggravate its citizens by flying the flags of other countries in protest, as protesters did a few weeks ago.

Personally, I think that doing this is counterproductive to your cause, and I bet I am not alone in saying that this action immediately tarnishes your image and removes credibility.

Mahatma Ghandi, an expert on non-violent protest, expressed the importance of not insulting the group that you are trying to influence while protesting. This is something that I am admittedly guilty of, but any hurt feelings I have caused by “RJ-ing” people (read, fact-checking) pales in comparison to the insult of flying another flag while standing arrogantly behind the rights provided by the one you offend.

I realize that you have the right to fly other flags, and I would never in a million years seek to take that right from you. Just remember that if you pulled these stunts in Mexico, you would be deported. If you did it in Venezuela, you would be jailed. You would be lucky if anyone heard from you again if you tried it in North Korea or Iran.

But you, protesters across America, foreign citizens and otherwise, are able to spit on our soil, make demands of our government, and tarnish our flag, all the while demanding respect – and I am proud to say that you are able to do so with absolute impunity.

And that, my friends, is why no other country’s flag has ever, or will ever, be as respected or revered as the flag of the United States of America, and why this country will continue to be a beacon of hope for “the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free” around the world.

– RJ Friedman is an Oregon State U. senior in political science.