Holding America to its ideals

The imagery of immigration makes it seem so simple: People are said to come to the United States in waves, in flows, and, literally, in boatloads, as if carried along by the tide and deposited on the shores of freedom. Each immigrant's story is, of course, not simple. It's a tangle of sacrifice, hardship, and, finally, hope that life will be better in a land where freedom and self-government are the principles that bind a disparate people - a nation of immigrants.

Since Sept. 11, though, their adopted homeland has struggled to find the right balance between safety and civil liberties, openness and caution. In this time of threat alerts and war and falling US standing in the world, are immigrants seeing their hopes deflated? Or is their resolve to help America embody its ideals now stronger?

Perhaps one answer can be found in the fact that immigrants continue to flock to the US - both legally and illegally. Indeed, the number of new arrivals permitted into the country has not abated during the two-year "war on terror." The persecuted still seek asylum here, although the flow has slowed now that background checks are more extensive. And 8,000 immigrants serving in the US military are on an expedited path to American citizenship, an opportunity afforded by a presidential order.

Still, for some "the new normal" has brought uncomfortable change - harassment on the streets or long delays for clearance to visit relatives living abroad.

In a way, recent immigrants hold up a mirror to America in which all can see it through fresh eyes: what it's like to be a Muslim in terror-scarred New York, or why US policy toward other countries is of vital importance. On the eve of America's 228th year of independence, several immigrants share their views about how these turbulent times have - and haven't - changed the US.

Martine SongaSonga was shocked to see the images of Iraqi detainees being abused. It wasn't so much the specific tortures; she knew of worse acts in her own country, the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was that Americans were the ones responsible.

"I saw America as democracy, and peace, and human rights. They stood for human rights no matter what," says Ms. SongaSonga, now a refugee caseworker at the Heartland Alliance, a human rights organization in Chicago. "I thought they were the ones who knew better. Maybe I can say in my country they don't care, but here they care about it."

SongaSonga came to the United States in 1998 to attend a peace-studies program at Notre Dame University. She gained political asylum when the situation deteriorated back home and she feared that, as a former human rights volunteer, she would be targeted if she returned.

Living in America hasn't always been easy - her family and friends are all back in the Congo, and her fiancé lives in Greece - but SongaSonga has appreciated the freedoms here.

She doesn't agree with all the American government's policies, particularly in Iraq, but she says it's often the implementation, not the values themselves, that she dislikes. "The Americans want to bring democracy and peace to Iraq, but they cannot justify the violence or the force. It's very contradictory. The official declaration is different from the practice."

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