This is how immigration is supposed to work....

I read this story in the Plain Dealer yesterday during my lunch break. As I read it I began to get a big smile, then a feeling of warmth and then a proud sense to be an American.

I thought how this was such a wonderful, feel good story. A story, that some time ago, could be told about the millions of immigrants on whose backs this country was built as they tried to make a better life for themselves and their family.

This is how immigration is supposed to work.....

"They've done wonders," said Tom Mrosko, director of the Office of Migration and Refugee Services of Cleveland Catholic Charities, which helped the Bantu move to Cleveland over the last three years. "They're working. They're supporting their families. They've relied on their own strength and will to survive."

Life remains an anxious effort for a refugee community of about 300 people in 42 families. They came on an airlift of 12,000 Bantu plucked from desperate straits in Africa beginning in 2003. The U.S. State Department contracted with groups like Catholic Charities in dozens of cities to welcome a rural, illiterate farming people into American life.

In Cleveland, most Bantu adults are struggling with English while working low-wage jobs. The refugee odyssey left scars that will last a lifetime. Yet a stable, nurturing community rooted in African traditions is emerging on the city's West Side.

Devout Muslims, the Bantu support their own mosque. They started a soccer team to unite their young men and launched a tutoring program to fathom school. When challenged, they tend to innovate, rally around a plan, and pursue it like a mission. More....

No requests for special provisions, no screaming of special status, no special classes for their children, they don't want us to change our language for them, etc... In fact these Bantu refugees want nothing more than an opportunity for a better life in America.

Now I ask - If these Bantu refugee's are able to do this, why can't all the thousands of ILLEGAL immigrants do the same?