Hitting the wrong chord

The immigrant community's campaign against congressional moves to punish illegal immigrants as criminals and their insistence that they deserve equality, fairness and civil rights has turned off many Americans. What part of "illegal'' don't these immigrants understand, they ask. Play by the rules, they add. The protests with immigrants wrapped in Mexican flags provided visuals to spark the opposition. The work boycott planned Monday to demonstrate how important immigrants are to the U.S. economy will no doubt aggravate the situation. But that's nothing compared to the reaction they'll get to the release of a Spanish version of "The Star-Spangled Banner.''

The producer of the recording sees it as an ode to the millions of immigrants seeking a better life here. But the foreign language version will just remind so many Americans of their many contacts with "Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Spanish.'' Plus, there's something sacred about our National Anthem. It's written in English and should be sung in English. And when the remix of the song comes out with several lines in English that condemn U.S. immigration policy, the furor will boil over.

Yes, they're all very constitutional exercises of the freedoms of speech and assembly. But members of the immigrant community don't seem to understand how this in-your-face approach is hardening the opposition. It's probably too late to call off the work stoppage. But messing with the National Anthem should be stopped in its tracks.