I try to discourage discussions of controversial topics in the bar, but with the current news station's coverage of current events being what it is today, where else can a person hear reasonable and intelligent commentary? I don't know if the "talking heads" that bring us our news were born mentally impaired or are just the result of our failing public education system.

It was early afternoon on a Tuesday. The lunch crowd had left and only the regulars and a few others remained leisurely nursing their beers and for want of a ball game were watching the twenty-four-hour news channels. The guys had me flipping back and forth between the channels in the hope we might find a ball game we didn't know about or god forbid find some actual news. As usual, both MSNBC and FOX were having their one-sided debates on the administration's current immigration policies. I finally gave up and turned the sets off, but unfortunately the debate continued among the bar's patrons.

The bar's customers are far more open minded and civil than the commentators we had been watching so I didn't try to interfere with the discussions. Red who is always trying to stir things up decided to rope Jose into the conversation. He called back to the kitchen, "Jose!"

Jose stuck his head through the pass-through. "What do you want, Red?"

"You're a legal immigrant. Came into this country the right way. I'd think you would resent the way all these illegals are circumventing the system taking the easy way rather than the right way."

"Red, I'm not sure what you mean by the 'right' way and I'm not sure there is an 'easy' way. I am sure every case is unique and needs to be considered individually on its own merits."

"The way you did it. That was probably the right way," Red insisted. "By the way, how did you do it?" Red admitted his ignorance of Jose's origins and the whole process of getting citizenship.

"My way was hardly typical." Jose had come out of the kitchen and was pouring himself a beer.

"You know the rules, Jose, that beer will cost you a story," I encouraged him to finish his origin story. Everyone in the bar was curious now.

"Sure, why not?" he acquiesced and took his beer and sat at the bar stool next to Red. "I was born and raised in a part of El Salvador where you only had two options if you wanted to survive." He paused to sip his beer and, like any good story teller, to give his audience a moment to puzzle over what he had just said. "You either went into a gang or into the church. I was hardly gang material; so, although I really didn't feel like I'd been called by God, I decided on the priesthood.

"For the most part, priests and other clergy are immune to gang violence. Although the churches are natural enemies of the maras, as the gangs there are known, the gangs also demonstrate remarkable respect for the churches. Members say there are really only two ways to leave a gang - death, or a genuine decision to change your life that almost always involves religion. My intent to pursue a religious calling protected me in my youth.

"The church sent me to seminary here in the states. I was a good student and was eventually ordained and sent back to El Salvador. Two years of sincerely trying to reach people, and I began to burn out. You have no idea what it is like there.

"Then, I made a mistake. A friend of mine was in prison and for reasons I can't tell you, sanctity of confessional and all, his own gang was threatening his family and the only way he could protect them was to get a cell phone smuggled into the prison. I was charged with criminal association for allegedly smuggling cell phones to gang kingpins in prison and was forced to leave the country. I came back to the states, became disenchanted with the church, got American citizenship, and now I'm a cook telling my life's story to a bunch of rednecks." Jose closed with a chuckle.

"That sounds like a right way to do it," Red concluded.

Jose hadn't finished his beer so he continued. "For fun, let me tell you a hypothetical story of another immigrant and you tell me if his way is also a 'right' way. Or if you think he should be deported?" Jose asked playfully.

"Go for it," Red accepted the challenge.

"This guy was but a baby, and his home country was in even more dire straits than El Salvador when his parents arranged for him to be taken to this country. However, as is often the case, things did not go as planned.  Ultimately, he was found abandoned in a field by an elderly couple who always wanted a child of their own; so, instead of taking him to social services as they should have, they defied the laws of the land and raised him as their own. So, he grew up with a fraudulent identity in a family with blatant disrespect for the law. He never applied for citizenship and was never naturalized. As an adult, he took a job under his fake identity and we must assume using a social security number also obtained fraudulently. Is it any wonder he was always seen with the criminal elements of society? Although one could argue that he did make efforts to bring some criminals to justice, his activities were basically those of a vigilante clearly seeing himself as being above the law.

"The question, Red, is should this flagrant law breaker, with the fraudulent identity and known criminal associates be deported?" Jose waited for Red's response.

"Well, his illegal activities were not completely his own fault," Red reasoned. "That elderly couple should have done the right thing when they first found him and gotten him into the system legally. Still, when he became an adult, he could have gone to the authorities and made some effort to legalize his identity. The law is the law. Anyone with such obvious disrespect for the law should be deported."

Jose smiled and said, "Just like the TV news, it is all in how you present the facts. Red, you just deported Clark Kent."

"It is the American way now, Jose. No truth or justice anymore, just the American way," I sighed.

"Look what is that?" Freddy chimed in. "A bird? A plane? No, it's just Red's mind blown away and flying out the door."