It was written during consideration of the comprehensive bill, but deserves reconsideration now:

June 6, 2007

Dear Senator Kennedy,

Your efforts to solve the immigration issue through your currently sponsored legislation have inspired me to take a stance for which I would have previously lacked courage: I would like to vacation this summer with you at your home in Hyannis Port.

Your familiarity with the warm waters gently lapping the southern coast of the Cape may leave you unaware of the desperate situation of beachgoers on the South Shore of Boston.  Denied benefit of the Gulf Stream’s tropical warming through mere geological accident, the waters of our coast are cold, the waves merciless, and the undertow inhuman. It is most heartbreaking of all to observe the little children who brave the waist-deep wade into frigidity, only to scramble ashore with blue in their lips, chattering in their teeth, and hopelessness in their eyes.  We yearn to escape this spiraling cycle of immersion and desiccation, and I know that you feel our pain.

You know that this is a nation of vacationers, built by and for vacationers.  You know that from the gentle beaches of Martha’s Vineyard to the rugged slopes of Malibu, the spirit of tourism has built a dream in this place called America that is the hope of mankind. You know that this hope, the yearning of the human spirit for free and unfettered recreation, is universal, and cannot be constrained to one country, one city, or one family compound.

Since I know how busy you are, particularly at this moment with the serious and sober consideration of amendments to your bill, there is no need for you to respond with a formal invitation.  My family and I can simply arrive at your property and obtain access to it through any means necessary.   Knowing that you recognize the ineffectiveness of border enforcement through fences, guards, and guns, I assume that only minimal effort and damage will be necessary for our entry. And, knowing that you understand the futility of incarceration and deportation, I am confident that our trespass will receive swift forgiveness once you perceive our sincere desire to respect all the laws that we hadn’t already broken.

While individuals of lesser enlightenment may think that the rule of law was established to protect property rights, and thereby the stability and integrity of a civilized society, you know better that it exists to protect the weak from the strong, the poor from the rich, and the underprivileged from the privileged.  While it would be completely appropriate for me to employ the law to bar you from my property (as Mexico does with its illegal immigrants), I know that you would consider it immoral to seek such an enforcement against a relatively weak, poor, and underprivileged person, as I am in comparison to you. It would be a betrayal of all for which you believe that this country stands.

In addition to leisure activities, I look forward to enjoying the fulfillment of all basic human needs to which my sojourn with you will entitle me, such as food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, top shelf liquor, and cable television with premium channels.  I also eagerly anticipate our discussion of other means by which your wealth and prosperity can benefit the less fortunate members of (what will become) our household.  Thank you very much for allowing me, as you have so many others, this opportunity to be brought (quite literally) “out of the shadow and into the sunlight.”