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Feb 18, 2007
There is No Illegal Person
Last fall, just prior to the November elections, there was an effort among Republicans in the Ohio Legislature to get an immigration bill before the house. One piece of the bill required local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law. At the ACTION Public Meeting held in October, Mahoning County Sheriff Randall Wellington and Youngstown Police Chief Jimmy Hughes stood up with ACTION to oppose this bill. Sheriff Wellington and Chief Hughes told the crowd the bill was a bad idea because local law enforcement are already strapped and besides immigrants are not the ones contributing to crime in this area.
Ohio was an ideal state to try this type of political maneuvering. The plan was get legislatures on the record on this poor piece of legislation to paint candidates as tough on immigration and national security, or as weak and favoring “amnesty.” Since only 3% of Ohio’s population is Hispanic, there would be little backlash or political cost to passing this bill, unlike in states like Texas or California where Hispanics have significant political power. It is also ironic that unlike Western States that are really struggling with a huge population of undocumented citizens, Ohio is not one of these states. The bill was merely a tool to stir up people’s fears and galvanize voters around a wedge issue rather than address serious issues that effect the lives of Ohioans. Just another example of politics inaction.
At the ACTION meeting, immigrants gave testimony of their experiences as Immigrants to America. Each echoed the importance of remembering--there is no illegal person. Just as in the Woody Guthrie song where the men and women who died in that plane crash were only given the name deportees, now we use the world illegal, not to describe a persons action, but as a substitute for a name. The word is no longer an adjective, but a noun. The use of this term wipes away the identities of these people, their stories--and most importantly--their humanity. They are no longer men and women, parents and children, human beings with families--they are simply illegals. And this name--illegals-- as others have in the past, segregates, dehumanizes and inspires fear.
It is critical that we develop a new way of speaking about immigration. Currently the debate holds us ahistorical and racist and classist assumptions. This is not surprising since the history of immigration law in this country has been mediated by racial fears and classist preferences. The first immigration laws in this country in 1875, were intended to slow the influx of Irish and German Catholics into our Protestant nation. And the first really restrictive immigration law, The Chinese Exclusion Act, is pretty self-explanatory in just who it wanted to keep out. While there is no question that illegal immigration is a serious problem in the U.S, shallow and politically motivated discourse will only foster more racial division and fear that will prevent us from adequately addressing the problem, especially in the context of a citizenry that is increasingly diverse.
The alternative to legislation that favors deporting all undocumented people and building a huge wall along the southern border is Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
Comprehensive Reform would account for the human lives at stake and the serious problems our country faces as a result of having millions of undocumented immigrants living in and entering our country. These dangers include overwhelming social service agencies, dangers to national security, and potentially serious health and humanitarian dangers associated with the close and unsanitary living quarters and working conditions that undocumented people are forced to endure because there are no legal protections for them. Without any protection, without any rights, labor abuses, child labor and slavery continue. And finally, it is simply a problem that we have an estimated 12 million people living in the shadows, outside the laws, protections and services of our country.
For example, Woody Guthrie wrote in his poem “Deportees”:
We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Now we must add, we died in your wars and we died in your towers, we died in the waters that flood New Orleans. One of the serious humanitarian problems of not knowing how many or who lives in our country is we have no way of knowing how many people died in these recent tragedies. We had no way of knowing how many people were living in poorer parts of New Orleans that needed help evacuating.
Tightening up security on our borders is an important piece of any comprehensive immigration reform. An article published in the Christian Science Monitor on Thursday reported that since President Bush deployed National Guard troops to our border with Mexico, overall apprehensions of people crossing is down almost 30% percent. In the biggest problem areas apprehensions are down over 60% from this time last year. This is a great indication of the effectiveness of the President’s plan (this is one of the few times you will hear me say this). Increasing security at the border and the intimidation the National Guard provides is proving to be a great deterrent to people trying to enter illegally. It is also hurting the drug trade across the border. The key will be finding a way to keep this pressure up.
According a National Guardsman stationed on the border, in the four months that he and the other men at his station have been on the border, they have only seen 2 families, maybe 4 or 5 people in each family, attempting to cross the border. And even he acknowledges that while they have done their job, it is not easy to report these people to the border control. “I wonder what would make me do that --climb into that icy cold river holding my child above my head?”
An undocumented illegal immigrant I met in California told me what made her do it. She was a mother of three small children living in Mexico when her husband died. She tried to support her family on her own, but she could not make enough to take care of her kids. She was poor and desperate when she made the difficult choice to leave her home for the states.
Many of us can empathize with that desperation. Even if we have not known it ourselves, we can imagine doing anything to protect and provide for our children. In fact, that is why many of us our here-our families immigrated for opportunity, safety, to create a better life for their children. One Ohio senator has said when my relatives came here, they came here legally. Why is that hard to expect now? Yes of course, so did my ancestors, but there were not any immigration laws in place when they arrived. For many European Americans their ancestors arrived when America was wanted “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free.” That is not where we are today.
Where we are today is a young woman who is just about to turn 20 years old. Her parents crossed the border illegally 18 years ago, holding her above the waters. They came and joined her grandfather living in Chicago. For many years her grandfather worked to become a citizen. Then just weeks before his naturalization ceremony, which would have paved the way for her to apply for citizenship, he died. Here is a motivated, articulate, inspiring young woman whose foremost goal now is to become a citizen. She has other dreams, yes, college, a professional degree, a strong future--but first she must become a citizen for any of that to happen. And she is risking everything to achieve her dream. She is not in hiding, but actually visiting her Congressional representative to seek help. While her story is not unique, her bravery and determination is a example for all young people.
Many undocumented people in this country are children, or were children when their parents brought them here. They are the innocents in this mess. They are the ones with the most to lose if from mass deportations. They are culturally Americans. They have known no other home. Deporting them back to Mexico would displace them from the only country they’ve ever known. Mass deportation also threatens to take parents away from their children, who if born in this country may be citizens. Comprehensive Immigration Reform takes into account the importance of keeping families together, and thoughtful discussion on how to handle the thousands of young adults wanting to attend college, wanting to contribute to this nation, if we would only grant them some form of status.
For our postlude, Marcellene will play “God Bless America” a song which has experienced a revival since September 11th and has become a galvanizing song of patriotic love, sung now at all major professional sports games. This song was written by one of Americas most prolific and generous immigrants, Irving Berlin. His classics are known to all of us, such as “White Christmas” and “Always”, and he contributed generously to the patriotic causes of his day. He loved his adopted country, “his home sweet home.” His story reminds me of the beggar king, whose generosity to the king is repaid by becoming the king's adopted son.
The truth is the current situation and as it has been for the past generation is not good for the United States or for Mexico. For Mexico, every year they loose tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people to the states. Their young people are leaving, their people with hopes and dreams for a better life are leaving their country. Many leave out of desperation, and with heavy hearts knowing they may not see their families again. It is a terrible drain.
Globalization is changing the face of the U.S. economy. Immigrants are an easy target to blame for loss of jobs and declining wages, but it is always easier to blame the most powerless for conditions that are actually brought about by decisions that are made at the highest levels of business and government. The United States is struggling to compete with Mexico and China, who are able to produce the things we need and want at far cheaper costs. But it is also fair to say that China has become adept at understanding and improving on what Americans wants. Free trade agreements, a hallmark of the current approach to globalization, reduce tariffs and provide little protection for our nation’s manufacturers. The result is market forces are looking for ways to lower labor costs in order to compete, and immigrants serve this purpose. If there were not jobs, if there were not employers looking to hire undocumented people for low wages and no benefits, we would not have the influx of immigration we do.
Low tariffs and free trade are hurting Mexico as well. At a Universal Cafe event 3 years ago, then Congressman and now Governor Ted Strickland talked about visiting Mexico and seeing the devastating results of NAFTA (the North America Free Trade Agreement). NAFTA lowered tariffs between our countries and this has devastated Mexican agriculture. Next month, Mexican tariffs on corn which have already been reduced will be eliminated completely. The influx of cheap corn has put thousand of small Mexican farmers out of business. Cheap American beef and pork (raised in huge feedlots on a diet of cheap American corn) has ruined Mexican ranchers. As a result, farmers and their children flood into the cities which cannot sustain this growth or provide jobs for the new people. While our manufacturing plants move south so does Wal-Mart, and both threaten the livelihood of smaller businesses in Mexico. It is a story we know well. l Average Mexicans attest to the fact that things these days seem much worse than they did 10 years ago. To work in the factories or compete with the larger businesses people work many more hours for less pay. The lower wages then necessitate the demand for cheaper food which further hurts Mexican farmers and the nation as a whole. And increasingly Mexico is flooded with goods from China which can be produced and shipped from China cheaper than they can be produced in Mexico. Their situation is not so different from ours.
To be perfectly honest, it is cheap and easy to blame immigrants for the problems we are having in the job market and for undercutting wages. And just as with the racial divisions in labor between whites and blacks, this effort to convince working class people to blame the immigrants is just a distraction from the real issues at hand. While working people are busy attacking one another, and the congress debates immigration issues, corporations are focused on increasing profits by reducing wages, undercutting union contracts, and removing tariffs to flood foreign markets with cheap goods. Follow the money and there is will you will find the culprit.
Unfortunately for us, this method of undercutting wages while stockpiling corporate profits will only go so far. The world is changing and the race to the bottom ultimately ends at the bottom--in other words no where we want to be. In order to compete in the global economy, we must be looking toward educating our young people whether birthright or immigrant and providing opportunities for advancement for all people who want it in areas of creativity and innovation.
After the most recent census, population projections suggest that by the year 2050 our nation will not be majority white. I have heard this fact repeated in many different places--and I have to be honest, every time I hear it, I feel both celebration and fear. I feel enthusiastic for the day when white privilege will give way to shared power and a truly diverse and integrated nation. But then, just as quickly I feel afraid. And there are two sources of my fear. The first I am not proud of. It originates in the reality of white privilege and the fear of of the unknown of what a world without it will look like. I do not approve of white privilege, but I cannot deny that I have benefitted from it, even as I have paid the consequences of segregation and the pain associated with living in a divided world. It is also a known quantity-impoverished though it may be. So, imagining a world where this privilege does not exist, or one where debts for generations of oppression will come due is personally scary to me. But what invokes the most fear is the knowledge that I am not alone in my fears and that this knowledge rather than signaling a change in the status quo, will motivate those with power to act out of this fear and consolidate power and resources and actually lead to a more racially and economically segregated society than we currently live in. I fear it will fuel the flames of white supremacy. This is certainly the trend right now--that our schools and our neighborhoods are growing increasingly segregated. Even while a more minorities make it to high ranking places of privilege and power, more and more are isolated in high poverty areas with few if any opportunities. At least with the first fear, I know enough to acknowledge it but not respond out of it. For living and acting out of fear only breeds division, hatred and violence. The second is far worse, for turning the tide on that course is much more difficult--it is a life-long work and will be the work of the generations to come to turn that fear into celebration and wholeness.
I speak to you today about immigration because of the ease with which prejudice and fear are being used in public discourse around how to deal with the problem of illegal immigration. Knowing the changing world we live in--the rate at which it is growing smaller, there are different possible outcomes. Times of incredible change invoke fear of the unknown and fear of change. Acting from fear though will only lead to a tightening of power, a restrictive and uncreative use of talent and intelligence and will ultimately lead to violence and abuse in a competition over what appears to be shrinking resources. Alternatively, approaching change with hope, with an appreciation and desire for real inclusivity and creative energy can make this changing world ripe with opportunities to work together to solve the world wide problems we face, including the environment, poverty, population growth and nuclear proliferation. Relying on fear will only make these problems worse as we fail to see the larger picture.
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