Is This Our America?
As the Senate begins its debate on immigration and DACA there is a dark underside to America’s actions against illegal immigrants. There is a basic question on the table: what is America, and how should we see those who have come here from other countries?
No one would argue against removing those who have come to the United States illegally to commit crimes. Drug dealers and gang members obviously have no place here; we’ve got enough troubles with home grown ones. But the Trump Administration and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) have now taken the view that EVERY illegal immigrant is a criminal. They argue that the fact that since they have not followed the immigration laws they have committed a crime, and therefore should be thrown out.
There IS a basic logic to this, and when General Kelly was the Secretary of Homeland Security he made the point that if we want to change the law, we have a Congress that is capable of doing it. His view was until the law was changed, it was the Administration’s job to blindly enforce it The problem with that simple logic is that it is NOT a simple problem. Most immigrants, legal and illegal, come to the United States for opportunity, to improve their lives. Most work hard, live hard, and do the best they can to support their families, both here in the United States and those they left behind. We have developed an economy that DEPENDS on the work of those immigrants, including those here illegally, and we are not prepared to deal with the economic consequences of removing them.
So what the Trump administration has done is set quotas on how many “illegals” ICE must remove. If they can’t find enough MS-13 gang members, then they must reach it some other way. This number proves to “the base” that they are getting “rid” of undesirables, with all of the dark racial undertones that implies; but the result is capricious: the long established view that United States’ law should be enforced in an evenhanded manner with due process is lost.
Instead we have a “secret police,” snatching otherwise law abiding folks and hustling them out of the country before anyone has a chance to react. They deny due process by claiming that the status of illegal immigrant absolves authorities of guaranteeing protection. A university professor, currently on a legal work visa, was taken from his home in Lawrence, Kansas and thrust on a plane to Bangladesh, a country he left thirty years ago. The charge: he had twice overstayed visas during his thirty years in Kansas. His wife and children, US citizens, were threatened with arrest if they tried to hug him goodbye. He was not a member of MS-13. He was not a potential terrorist. He was a taxpayer, benefiting his community, and legally registered.
A man in Tukwila, Washington saw a trespasser in his yard, after a series of car break-ins. He called the police, who were unable to arrest the suspect without probable cause. But they did arrest the caller, who they found had an administrative (not court approved) warrant filed by ICE for his detention. He is a carpenter, who fled brutal gang violence in Honduras. The Tukwila police now say they should not have executed such an administrative warrant, but in the meantime the caller is in ICE custody.
Is this our America? In a country that was created by immigrants, is this how we want it to be? In a nation that uses over eleven million illegally entered immigrants for all kinds of labor, do we want to drive them into the shadows; unable to call the police, unable to pay taxes? Is this what we are about?
General Kelly is right about one thing. Congress needs to step up and deal with the issue. But in the meantime, the United States should not be a nation where there is the shadow of a police state, where you need to have “your papers” ready to prove your citizenship at any moment. The term “WOP” was a pejorative of the early twentieth century for Italian immigrants, it originated from an abbreviation of Without Papers. Are we to equal the prejudice and racism of the 1920’s? Is that our America?
I park in a private lot, and along with another 20 or so people, pay $25 per month for the spot. But random folks often slip in and out of empty spots, gambling they can finish their business before the tow truck gets there. And one busy day one of those gamblers parked in an empty spot next to me. Pulling out when his business was done, his van contacted my little car – and basically pulled the bumper off. Being a very busy day, a few people witnessed this and got the drivers attention. He stopped, got out to see what had happened, got back in, and took off. One of the witnesses took a picture of the back of the van as it drove off. Turns out the driver was an illegal immigrant.
The good news is the van was actually a church van, and the church insurance took care of my repairs. But that was a lucky circumstance. Unlike the former football player killed in a car accident last week by someone who had been deported twice before. These things happen .. every day.
So I’m conflicted about this. Dreamers .. I get that. Not their fault. But illegals .. they’re not here legally. Period.
Laxity in enforcement for the last half-century has created this problem. We have only ourselves to blame for letting it get this far. It’s hugely uncomfortable, but it must be done. Humanely, yes; legally, absolutely! And any attempts to get this done otherwise is contrary to the precepts of the United States. But the time has come to at least recognise and deal with this problem of our own creation.
Ask yourself – do you have pest control service at your house? If so, your house is being managed. If not, and you discover an infestation (and I know that’s a harsh word and I hate to use it, but what else can it be called?), you call out the big guys to take care of it as quickly and effectively as possible. I humbly submit that, unfortunately, we are at that point.
MK Crews—I can understand (to some degree) what you are saying and also find immigration a complicated and confusing issue. In fact, it is one of the few issues on which I find myself standing consistently to the right of my usually left-leaning political views. However, I disagree strongly with your characterization of this situation as an “infestation” and I think Dahlman’s point in this post was this issue centers on how we, as Americans, decide to deal with other people on which we often depend. If immigrants are the termites infesting the house in your example, then these are termites that help maintain your home and keep your home’s food costs down to reasonable levels by accepting crappy jobs for wages that you and I wouldn’t. If we were serious about dealing with the immigration issue (and I do support serious debate on how we should deal with it), then ICE should focus on punishing those companies and independent farmers that incentivize immigration by offering work without checking immigration status. Do this, and we can watch the price of ham, bacon, strawberries, etc… skyrocket as these slaughterhouses and farmers are forced to pay legitimate wages and insurance costs for their hard-working employees. But we need to decide democratically what kind of country we want to be—one that limits immigration in a serious way but has expensive strawberries or the status quo. Simply deporting hard-working individual immigrants is capricious and will be ineffectual as long as the incentive to come here remains in place. But yeah, gang members and other violent criminals? Round them up and remove them of course.
David, I tried to make it clear that my use of the “i” word was unfortunate. If you could suggest another word to my tired old brain, I’d gladly use it, thank you.
Another thing i find unfortunate is your premise that the quest for cheap produce is enabling this. Really? The farmers around my state use migrant labor, their housing is routinely inspected for standards, and they are here legally, w/ visas, and earn a required minimum wage which I believe is currently around $11/hr, so I’m not really seeing the chrap produce sife of this. But then again, we are on the East Coast. States closest to the border with Mexico probably have different ways of dealing with migrant laborers.
But you have brought up an interesting point – illegal immigrants come to the US for work. The people, firms, or organizations who hire these people (and likely pay them less than they pay legal employees) are a very large portion of this problem, much as drug users are a very large driver of drug trafficking. It’s important that any immigration legislation that comes in addresses the wage payer aspect of this problem. MHO.
MK – my view is that we have multiple industries dependent on legal and illegal immigrants. Construction, many agricultural areas, and housekeeping (office, hotel and private) have a high level of illegal immigrants. The United States has provided the opportunity, of course people have come here!! So until we change the first, it’s not right to put all the blame on one side.
That I can get behind. TY
I can get behind that as well. MK I meant no offense in my reply to your original comment, but do feel that the language we use to characterize the immigration phenomenon is an important shaping force to our mindset on this. I do feel that as a sovereign nation we have the right to control our borders and that there shouldn’t be anyone in our country that is undocumented and therefore illegal. This is in small part a security issue but, most importantly, everyone who have decided should be here must be entitled to the legal protections that we all enjoy. I live in Illinois where we have a considerably large slice of the illegals that are currently in the US. In my neighborhood there is an ugly story about how one of our residents physically assaulted an undocumented housekeeper and caused her considerable injury. As an undocumented person, she felt she had no ability to report the incident to the police and did not even go to the hospital out of fear of legal repercussion (I did not personally witness this event but several of my neighbors claim this to be true). This should not happen in America.
I think Dahlman put it very well—if we provide an opportunity for companies/farmers/individuals to offer dangerous or otherwise hard jobs at low pay without real benefits then it is unfair to place the blame mostly on the hard-working individuals that decide to come here. Focusing on deporting these people seems capricious, ineffective, and politically self-defeating. We must address the industries that employ these workers first, and in a serious manner. In my opinon, a national conversation followed by democratic decision-making needs to revolve around how we depend on these workers (to some degree), what benefits and drawbacks their presence bring, and how we want to define our immigration policy.
For the very small subset of these immigrants that bring violence or other kinds of gang-related crime, I totally agree with your characterization of them as an infestation and think they should be “exterminated” through deportation and/or imprisonment.
TIEW, we be cool. 🙂
Observation (wrinkle?): Our national discussion on this is also going to have to include the overlapping issue of sanctuary cities.
I would make the argument that immigration status is “administrative law” versus “criminal law.” Much as we don’t want the local police arresting folks for failure to pay income tax, we shouldn’t have them arresting folks simply for their immigration status. It puts them in an impossible law enforcement situation. Now – a criminal warrant is issued for an illegal immigrant who has committed a crime – then – it’s a criminal matter.