Immigration Reform

In case you've been hiding under a rock for a couple of decades, you know that illegal immigration has been a growing issue, sowing dissension and dissatisfaction wherever it goes. On the one hand you have the illegals, who are so-called because they are here illegally. We do have legal options for people to come over (which are usually difficult to navigate and not always guaranteed of a positive outcome). It is a serious problem for so many people to feel that they can flaunt our laws so easily(not that born U.S. citizens take them any more seriously). On the other hand, you have those who are so outraged by illegals that they want to build the Great Wall of America. These folks want to treat illegals as second-class humans, and certainly do not want any of the privileges of citizenship extended to them. Furthermore, they also do not want to extend legal citizenship status to these folks either. Nor temporary work passes.

I'm not sure either side has it right. It is hypocritical to keep Mexican people out simply because we don't want them here. The whites of this country certainly didn't come from here, and their ancestors took advantage of the opportunity they were given to come here and make a better life. What right do their descendants have to deny that opportunity to other immigrants? But then, people certainly don't have the right to come over here and take advantage of the economy and government services that American money has paid for. If a thirty-year old man comes over, he owes us income taxes (and/or sales taxes) in order to pay for the privileges he receives (such as paved roads nearly everywhere, clean water, an energy infrastructure second to none, etc.) As a matter of fact, he'd be getting off lightly by only paying current costs when it was our ancestors' and our own past taxes that built the system we have today. I don't know the answer to the problem, but neither does anybody else, evidently.

In the past week, new legislation being proposed at the federal level has sparked demonstrations all across the country (including here in Dallas and surrounding cities). While the bill in its current form is favorable to immigrants, it has a long way to go before becoming law and will probably change before it does so.

Committee chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania was one of four Republicans to support the bill, but he signaled strongly that some of the more controversial provisions could well be changed when the measure reaches the Senate floor. That is "very frequently" the case when efforts to reach a broad bipartisan compromise falter, he noted.

I don't doubt it. This bill is not going to find much favor with red border states, especially Arizona and Texas. If you go to the main page of the Dallas Morning News and follow the link to the Tell Us section, you'll see plenty of disapproving comments already. Texans are against the demonstrations, against illegal immigrants, and against any "guest worker" program. To tell the truth, I think it smacks of racism. Living here, I know for a fact that the problem with many people is not that people are immigrating illegally, it is that they are "damn Mexicans". That is not to say illegal immigration is not a legitimate concern, but neither side has a lot of people coming up with coherent arguments on the local level. That's part of the reason why this is such a tense issue here.

People on both sides care, but the demonstrations have been surprisingly strong by those who are in favor of de-criminalizing the immigrants' status. From the AP article:

More than 500,000 people gathered in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, and tens of thousands rallied in Phoenix and Milwaukee last week.

On Monday, California's Cesar Chavez Day, 36,000 students marched out of Los Angeles-area schools, officials said.

Some people have been severely disapproving of the school walk-outs. They assume that the kids don't know the issue or are just skipping school to skip school (which begs the question of why they'd be at school in the first place). I think a lot of the kids actually do care and this is an important issue to them. They're demanding that their people be treated with equal respect, which is, in my humble opinion, their right. I did find a quote that I have a serious problem with though, and it demonstrates some of the ignorance that you can find on either side of the issue. From the DMN article:

"Maybe George Bush will know that he's hurting us and let us have equal rights,” he said. "Christopher Columbus discovered America and he was from Spain, so it was our home first."

The first sentence tells you what this is about to this kid. He perceives that his people are being treated unfairly and that maybe the government just doesn't know that it's hurting his community. He's hoping to change that, which is admirable. The second sentence tells you that his grasp of history is a bit wobbly. Ol' Columbus was probably Italian (and many historians agree Genoese), whose mission was funded by the royalty of Spain. The Americas were already populated with many tens of millions of people when he got here, which the Spaniards proceeded to enslave and exterminate. Of course, this is not worse than the belief of many people of European descent that this is their land because they were here first. I mean, they stole the entire American Southwest from Mexico, who stole it from Spain, who stole it from the Indians (and yes, I know this is a great simplification, but people just can't seem to grasp that history is not in favor of any "side" of the argument).

Anyway, to get back to the proposed law.

In general, the bill is designed to strengthen enforcement of U.S. borders, regulate the flow into the country of so-called guest workers and determine the legal future of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.

The bill would double the Border Patrol and authorizes a "virtual wall" of unmanned vehicles, cameras and censors to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border.

It also allows more visas for nurses and agriculture workers, and shelters humanitarian organizations from prosecution if they provide non-emergency assistance to illegal residents.

The most controversial provision would permit illegal aliens currently in the country to apply for citizenship without first having to return home.

Now this would be a great step forward for illegal immigrants (kind of a great step forward again, given that our policies used to be much more lenient than now). It would also do something to appease the anti-illegal crowd by strengthening border enforcement. Like I said though, that's probably not going to make either party very happy. After all, I'm sure those who are here would like to bring more of their families over, a process which, as I said before, is pretty difficult and which this law does not seem to address changing. Also, many US citizens do not approve of letting illegals stay in the country.

Now one more item of note.

LOS ANGELES - A majority of people who described themselves as legal immigrants for a poll released Tuesday said they believe anti-immigration sentiment is growing and are alarmed by the tone of the debate over reform.

Just under one-third of them said Congress and President Bush are doing a good job on the issue.

Lawmakers are also considering legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegals and build more fences along the U.S.-Mexican border.

This is the other legislation being proposed. Instead of working with illegals to fix the problem the answer would be to shut them out, deport them, and make sure they never get back in. Sounds untenable to me, but when they can work with the entire country's money, what's a few billion dollars?

This is one of those cases where there are two mutually inompatible solutions and no solution that's going to please everyone. That's because the parties involved want exactly opposite results. Either we let everyone come over who wants to and make it possible for them to become citizens, or we shut the gates completely. Perhaps a "guest worker" program could be a compromise, but I don't think either side actually wants to compromise, so we have this problem. Anyway, it's a big deal to a lot of people, and that makes it fodder for TWM. We'll keep you updated.