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Response to Jackson's Scenario

Dear Source:
The only people that have the right to vote are legal U.S. citizens. Illegal citizens don't have the right to vote. The legality of citizenship is an issue different than made in my letter. I do agree on the legalities of citizenship.
Illegals do not run our government where many problems currently lay. It is our legal citizens that run this government. We have to blame our own people who are not doing their jobs to the best they can. For the people who are legally here, caring about where you live and what's going on where you live, standing up for betterment of where you live are all parts of exactly what is needed to make a difference. When people care enough to do good for the place they were either born in or chose to live, their efforts can not be considered as just mere deeds of good. They do good things because they want to see our islands become a better place. It is the people who really care and do something to help that do really make a difference for the better.
Many people can gain legal citizenship, follow the laws, and never do anything else to improve a situation but just go about their daily lives. I do not feel that in itself signifies compassion for these islands.
The wealthy business man (in your non-US scenario) could not legally hire all his countrymen unless each one of them applied to legally work here. Even if his countrymen are not us, our islands are us. All his countrymen would have to first become legal.
The scenario is a Catch 22 according to your previous statement and I quote, "When you establish legal citizenship you make the commitment to honor and up hold the laws and principles of the United States and it territories, and that in itself is an act that signifies your compassion for the islands."
If all the countrymen became the legal U.S. citizens in order to get those jobs, then they would have fulfilled exactly what you said proved compassion in being a Virgin Islander. If they "hypothetically" got away with it somehow, it would mean one of our own government officials allowed it to happen by turning the other cheek and into the face of corruption.
Just because a person becomes a legal citizen by itself will not make these islands a better place. People have to really care about these islands and make the effort to make good changes happen here.
I am a native born Virgin Islander (one of 5 generations), legal and a resident Virgin Islander. What good does it do, if I (and every other like me) sit back and do nothing to help make a better Virgin Islands? Does that make us all true Virgin Islanders just because we can claim "we bawn here" yet do nothing but continue to allow our own demise?
Carol Berry
St. Thomas

Editor's note: We welcome and encourage readers to keep the dialogue going by responding to Source commentary. Letters should be e-mailed with name and place of residence to source@viaccess.net.

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