I have been a stranger in a strange land (Exodus 2:22)

I know, I know, I can't believe I haven't used this title yet. But until now, I hadn't really felt out of place in Israel, well at least more than expected. Recently, though, I had an experience that makes me feel like an unwanted immigrant. In general, I'm pretty liberal on immigration to the United States. When Americans represent only 4 percent of the world's population, but use more than 30 percent of the world's energy resources, for example, I feel the country is somewhat obligated to open its doors. Yet I also sympathize with those people who feel that new immigrants should make attempts to integrate, even in terms of language. But we could be more accommodating during this transition. Consider my recent experience trying to fix my car embellished as a little fable, with the following roles:
Me = Recent immigrant
English = Spanish (native language)
Hebrew = English (new language)

So a young Mexican woman immigrates to the States, and one day her car is hit while parked on the street, leaving damage to the front driver side of the car. After calling her insurance company numerous times and never hearing back, possibly because it's too hard to find someone to speak to her in Spanish, she just decides to take it to the shop anyway. Upon arriving at the garage, the employees are nice enough to act as translators in dealing with the insurance claim, which must be filed in English. This takes almost half a day to negotiate, causing her to get reprimanded by her employer for taking too much time off.

A few days later, the shop calls to say the claim has been refused. So the woman goes to the shop to see if she can find out why. The employees there are not nearly as helpful this time because it seems she wasted so much of their time before, but they still help her get in contact with the insurance company. A representative there tells her in Spanish that her policy covers only "body damage." This woman, who has taken enough English to buy groceries, get gas, and pay bills, clearly does not know enough to understand her insurance policy; apparently, she didn't really understand her insurance policy in Spanish either. Although her car is merely dented, requiring no repairs beyond structural, this does not qualify as "body damage."

Now the garage and insurance employees are both frustrated with her. Her claim isn't going to be covered, but the parts have already been ordered. Luckily, the woman has enough savings to pay for the repairs, which is a good thing because now that she has missed another day of work to deal with the problem, she will probably lose her job. After feeling like a burden to everybody and an idiot to herself because she was ignorant of how bureaucracy works in her new country, she just wants a cigarette and a stiff drink.

So the woman is now out of a job and out of money, so she just keeps coping by smoking and drinking, which eventually puts a strain on her new country's social services: She has to draw unemployment because of her poor work record, and she has to apply for Medicaid to cover her tobacco- and alcohol-related ailments. You see where this slippery slope is going, right? The open-door immigration policy is now hurting every honest taxpayer.

And so the critics have some validity to their claims. But all of this could've been mitigated and perhaps even avoided if someone, anyone would've helped the young woman negotiate a system that even native Americans oftentimes have trouble navigating. It would've taken only one person -- from the insurance company, from the car title office, from her job -- to tell her that her insurance policy was not complete, and she would've fixed the mistake before she had to face the consequences. And this is only one of many bureaucratic nightmares she will have to endure. Changing the initial cause of the effect -- refusing immigrants, period -- certainly takes care of the issue, but addressing some other causes -- like new-immigrant assistance -- might achieve fairer results.