03
May
Immigration: The Sincerest Form of Flattery…
Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
–Franklin D. Roosevelt
I happened to be in LA on Monday for the demonstrations—in fact one of my meetings was canceled because it was close to the downtown courthouse (near the demonstrations)and I wouldn’t have been able to get through them to make my flight to San Francisco at 5:00 PM in time for my next series of meetings there. The demonstrations have been remarkable. Hundreds of thousands of marched, peacefully, no major incidents, with American flags, demonstrating a love and yearning for America and what it has traditionally represented that I wish more of those of us born here would show. Hell, we can’t even have a St. Patrick’s day parade in New York without dozens of arrests and hundreds of fights, but here, hundreds of thousands can demonstrate peacefully, respectfully, and show not only respect, but veneration for traditional American values and the result is a polarizing change ranging from outright bigotry to claptrap about the language in which our national anthem is sung—from the President. I find that both offensive and ironic given that that same President made speaking in Spanish a staple from his podium in his elections campaigns.
The truth is that anti-immigration sentiment has always been little more than a thin veneer, a poor cover, for bigotry and racism. I happen to have a French last name, but my father married an Italian woman, the daughter of immigrants just a generation before, who grew up in the face of bigotry in the 1940s and I identify far more closely with that warm open family. Growing up in the 40s, my mother suffered the prejudices of racism as have most people in this country who can go far back enough in their family history to recall when their families came here in search of a better life and faced down the prejudices and bigotry of those who came before. Growing up, I would occasionally have friends who would make anti-Italian slurs, not recognizing my last name or knowing my mother’s, and so I learned of the closeted nature of bigotry. I recall a group of my father’s colleagues talking about ‘the wops’ in the 60s when after a few moments he quietly states, you’re talking about me, my wife and my children—goodbye gentlemen: I think you’ve said quite enough. Today, they’re easier to spot.
The bigots are easier to spot because they try to frame the immigration debate. They focus on the word ‘illegal’ pointing to their own ancestors as if we had never in 1965 passed an immigration act limiting legal immigration to 170,000 from the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 from the Western, as if today’s immigrants have the same opportunity their ancestors did coming in to Ellis Island, or as if we had never in 1986, passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, to stop the flow of illegal immigrants from Latin America by imposing sanctions against employers who them, or in then in 1990 passed the Immigration Act that increased the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States by nearly 40 percent only in 1996 to pass three bills, including the 1996 Immigration Act, that will affected not only immigration control, but also immigrants’ rights in the United States today. They act as if the Mexicans today could happily stroll into a modern Ellis Island if they but wished and had the will to come in legally, as if we hadn’t changed the rules.
If the US government were really serious about immigration reform it would target the employers, not the workers. News flash: they won’t do that. They are won’t because politicians recognize there is no advantage here—there are supporters on both sides. They can’t realistically deport 11-12 million people and bring the economy screeching to a halt, nor can they deal with the vast web of familial and sympathetic connections to immigrants that would produce a solidified voting base that (as the demonstrations underscore) are a far more serious threat to the Republican majority, perceived as harsher on immigration than the democrats. No, despite Fox news’ hopeful ramblings of a backlash, this issue is unwelcome to them, and rightly so—it illuminates far more of the isolationism and lack of charity and plain old fashioned bigotry that exists underneath the patina of the neo-conservative movement, and that is just a scratch below the surface of the appropriation of terms like ‘boarder security’ and ‘minute men’ (many of the original of whom—immigrants themselves, are I suspect spinning in their graves at the use of that term!)
That bait and switch—the juxtaposition of ‘national security’ and boarder control’ followed by the attacks on Latin Americans as if somehow Mexicans flew planes into the World Trade Centers, or Al Qaeda and El Conquistador are interchangeable. What nonsense. We have attracted these immigrants because we offer a better life, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating—we need them; they mow our lawns, cook and serve our food, allow us to get to work and they do it at poverty level wages hoping to provide a better life for their families—much as our parents and grandparents did.
It is unsurprising and heartening that in a time when we have strayed so far from our own ideals, that these immigrants embrace them—peaceful demonstrations, love for America and what it represents, willingness to do the hard jobs, and a desire to enrich our nation with their culture and heritage. A translated national anthem is the objection? Are you kidding me? At a time when we abandon tolerance for torture, the rule of law for limbo, watch our own citizens and retreat into fear let them sing it in every language, in every nation.
I’m struck by the fact that our leaders say we want to be a beacon of freedom to the world, the shining lamp of liberty, the city on the hill. Except when it comes to living up to our heritage.
Let them sing it—sing it in Spanish, sing it in Russian, sing it in Darfur and sing it in North Korea. Sing it in Farsi and sing it in every language and every location on the globe and thank God that to some people we still inspire the kind of hope and still represent the values of freedom, integrity, generosity of spirit and justice that we have strayed so far from under our current leadership, and let us pray fervently that the damage of recent years is not irreversible and that there will always be people who yearn to sing the words to The Star Spangled Banner in whatever tongue in whatever place because they share those values that are our true and best selves, because my fear is that we stray further and further from what we used to represent and who we used to be.
We’ve been down this road before—the road of isolationism, and immigration quotas of persecuting the poor for trying to eek out a living and always we later recognize it doesn’t work and we always look back upon such episodes as nation with burning shame.
So, let them rant and let them argue for exclusion and let them drive the politicians to action who blanche in the face of such numbers and peaceful demonstration and organization. The politicians know there’s nothing to be won in fighting them. I wonder how long it will take those who would cast this as us versus them to see the same.
The answer is a sane path to citizenship for those here and for those, who like our ancestors before us, come in search of a better life and are committed to working towards that—in every language.
Because immigration really is the sincerest form of flattery—let us pray we are worthy of the compliment and live up to our historic traditions in the future.
Remember that when you say “I will have non of this exile and this stranger for his face is not like my face and his speech is strange,” you have denied America with that word.
–Stephen Vincent Benet
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What part of ILLEGAL do you not understand and what part of THEY COST MORE THAN THEY SAVE do you not understand?
While I struggle to pay my health care Juan comes here illegally , joins a gang, commits crimes, and I pay his health care.
Send Them HOME
May 4th, 2006 at 3:58 amAssuming “Susan Robbins” exists, I’m curious — how did someone with such diminished intelligence and a disgracefully crude nature find BTC News? If she came from my place, please accept my apologies.
Texas02, on the other hand, is correct. The “one of”, however, is unwarranted.
May 4th, 2006 at 8:30 amThose are nice sentiments to be sure. This debate is not new; see, for example, the movie The Gangs of New York. In the end, we will continue to admit immigrants and they will continue to be assimilated. In the meantime, a lot of politicians will try to figure out how to take advantage of the influx to obtain or retain power; see, for example, the movie The Gangs of New York. By the way, I did not know that “Crow” was a French surname?!
May 4th, 2006 at 12:15 pmThank you for taking the time to write this.
May 4th, 2006 at 12:19 pmwhy must every reference to immigration bring out the crazies with their emphasis on ‘illegal’, like no one has ever gone above the speed limit and tried to (and succeeded in) talking their way out of it?
why doesn’t anyone ever rant about amnesty for speeders? or adulterers in states where adultery is still illegal?
May 4th, 2006 at 4:43 pmcalvin has known throughout his multiple lives that illegals would not be in this country if the rich didn’t make a lot of money off them. That’s the only reason we have so many. It started relatively small (sorta like fixing a few local elections) and, like Topsy, just grew from there. (sorta like to fixing the Preznit elections)
calvin cannot imagine how many officers it will take to round up 12-14 million people and return them to their countries of origin. Nor can calvin imagine the cost. For all involved.
calvin would also like to raise the issue of whether or not the political will to do it actually exists. Because, in addition to the monetary costs (which include a huge hole in our economy from missing workers paid sh*t wages) the loss of economic production might well be fatal. Many unanticipated consequences. Oh, yes, and did calvin mention the votes of the Hispanic community in the upcoming elections?
Folks, it ain’t gonna happen. The only thing that will happen is lot more political posturing. Don’t be fooled by the man behind the curtain.
May 5th, 2006 at 5:38 am“They focus on the word ‘illegal’ pointing to their own ancestors as if we had never in 1965 passed an immigration act limiting legal immigration to 170,000 from the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 from the Western, as if
today’s immigrants have the same opportunity their ancestors did coming in to Ellis Island […”
Nice try there.
69 869 450 immigrants total have entered the US between 1820 and 2004.
Between 1820 and 1965, 43 282 888 immigrants entered the US.
In the years since the 1965 immigration Act,
26 586 562 immigrants have entered the US, meaning that in 39 years America has taken in 61.4% of the total number of immigrants that the nation accepted in the previous 145 years.
Also, the highest number of immigrants taken in during a decade period pre-1965 was 8 795 386 between 1901 and 1910.
America took in 7 338 062 immigrants between 1981 and 1990 and an additional 9 095 417 immigrants from 1991 to 2000.
All figures from 2004 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics found here-
http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/Yearbook2004.pdf
So please don’t tell me that “immigrants” aren’t getting an opportunity to come to America because that is a patently ridiculous assertion.
Also, I don’t recall Ellis Island immigrants being able to access welfare, Social Security, et al because those programs did not exist until the third decade of the previous century with the passage of FDR’s New Deal.
All post-1965 immigrants are able to access those programs.
(And illegal immigrants also access welfare using the same forged documents they used to get hired.
Example-
“Welfare applications rife with mistakes
Audit: Some noncitizens got improper benefits”
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/politics/capitol/14328739.htm
Illegal immigrants also get free emergency room medical care; another luxury Ellis Island LEGAL immigrants did not receive.
Example-
“Medicaid audit questions nearly $1 billion in spending”
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420AP_WA_Medicaid_Audit.html)
Affirmative action also applies to all post-1965 immigrants. I don’t recall Ellis Island immigrants getting preferential hiring treatment as mandated by law.
Lastly, there are dozens (if not hundreds) of programs that give money to immigrants in the form of small business loans, development monies, etc.
No pre-1965 immigrants got any such treatment and no American-born citizen of ANY race can access these programs.
Examples-
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/SS/oas1.html
http://www.sba.gov/espanol/
All immigrants also qualify under this-
http://www.sba.gov/sdb/indexaboutsdb.html
“like no one has ever gone above the speed limit and tried to (and succeeded in) talking their way out of it?
why doesn’t anyone ever rant about amnesty for speeders? or adulterers in states where adultery is still illegal?”
What a ludicrous and conveniently specious argument.
First off, I believe if you look in driver training literature it will explain that one is supposed to abide by the speed limit when possible but it is important to move with the flow of the traffic around you (i.e. you sometimes may have to surpass the speed limit).
Secondly, your argument appears to be that some people break some laws so breaking other laws is now ok. Some people commit heinous murders. Is that an open invitation for me to sexually assault a woman by grabbing her breast? I think most people would agree that coping a feel isn’t nearly as bad as a grisly homicide, ergo, it must be okay for me to sexually assault women, right?
C’mon.
May 5th, 2006 at 6:40 amUnfortunately we always screened immigrants for diseases, diseased “white” people were turned down or at least quarintined.
Todays immigrants bring in AIDS, Bubonic Plague, Leperocy, Cholera, Scarlet Fever, Mumps, Chicken Pox, HPV, all those diseases nearly “wiped out” in America as of a few years ago. It’s racism to quarintine, racism to prevent a diseases spread, hampering someones lifestyle to say anything, and Bush is on the side of the immigrants/ “human diginity” assholes.
Whites have to take physicals before they come to America, non-whites do not, it’s racism to require them to do so.
What this system is is in complete controll of the jews, they hate Europeankind, judeoBushites are a different kind of racist.
May 5th, 2006 at 7:59 amBush works for Israel.
I’ve noticed these days that the current Natvists imply or say that these immagrants are different not the upright hardworking types of yesteryear.
Uh-huh. Obviously they have never read the rantings of the need to protect the Anglo-Saxon race from these hordes of Aliens.
And oh yes they bitched about how they were taking up space in the charities like soup kitchens and the like and crowding out decent people.
makes you sad to see that not much changes – folks on the bottom are getting blamed. And there is the timing thing: this issue shows up just as the powers that be in the White House and congress are feeling heat for the direction the nation is going
Look shiny things! It’s the fault of brown people!
May 5th, 2006 at 8:01 amSusan, three words: “national health care.”
General Tso, you’re the first honest to gosh frothing racist we’ve had the honor to host. Welcome, sir.
May 5th, 2006 at 8:38 am“Susan, three words: ‘national health care.’”
Two words: Milton Friedman.
As in, the Nobel Prize winning economist who pointed out that you can’t have continued mass immigration and a welfare state (of which a national healthcare program would be an extension).
Q & A session with Milton Friedman at the 18th Annual Institute for Liberty and Policy Analysis (ISIL) World Libertarian Conference, August 20-22, 1999, in San Jose, Costa Rica. Co-sponsors: The Mackinac Center for Public Policy; the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.
Q: Dr. Friedman should the U.S.A. open its borders to all immigrants? What is your opinion on that?
A: Unfortunately no. You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.
Q: Do you oppose a unilateral reduction of tariffs and if not how can you oppose open immigration until the welfare state is eliminated?
A: I am in favor of the unilateral reduction of tariffs, but the movement of goods is a substitute for the movement of people. As long as you have a welfare state, I do not believe you can have a unilateral open immigration. I would like to see a world in which you could have open immigration, but stop kidding yourselves. On the other hand, the welfare state does not prevent unilateral free trade. I believe that they are in different categories.
Q: Instead of a green card [resident alien status], can the USA issue a blue card which does not give welfare?
A: If you could do that, that would be fine. But I don’t believe you can do that. It’s not only that it is not politically feasible, I don’t think that it is desirable to have two classes of citizens in a society. We want a free society. We want a society in which every individual is treated as an end in themselves. We don’t want a society in which some people are in there under blue conditions, others are in there under red conditions, others are in there under black conditions. We want a free society. So I don’t believe such ….
I haven’t really ever thought of that system. It’s a new question. I very rarely get a new question, but I must admit that’s a new question for me. And I haven’t really thought about it a great deal, but my initial reaction is that it’s a very undesirable proposal.
May 5th, 2006 at 9:03 amGT, that was just a response to Susan’s complaint about her struggles to pay for health care. It’s absurd that she should have to worry about it. Obviously there are other immigration-related issues requiring remedial action — lots and lots of them — but there’s quite an overlap between groups at once virulently opposed to national health care and either enthusiastically embracing the wage advantages provided by illegal immigration or seriously beholden to the enthusiasts.
May 5th, 2006 at 9:26 amHi Weldon–yeah, that one was something. Apparently, somebody thinks I’m you–or you’re me. Good to see you. (Who knew this one would get this kinda traffic?)
May 5th, 2006 at 10:15 amI came over on the boat at the tender age of six in the days when the US had those quotas the commenter above mentioned. I watched my university-educated mother struggle through the years of paperwork to get her (and my) green cards. My mind boggles at the thought of farmworkers trying to deal with that. This is not like going to the DMV for your driver’s license. It’s a simpler process to get citizenship in Britain than it is here, and at this point Britain has arguably more to offer.
Re the blathering about all them goddamn moochers spongeing off our great free health care. News flash: we don’t have free health care. Keeping people from dying in the street used to be considered an irreducible minimum of civilization. Illegal immigrants sometimes die because they’re too afraid to go to an emergency room even when at death’s door. I knew one who died of gangrene from an untreated cut. The median lifespan of farmworkers is (or was?) something like 47. They are not over-using emergency rooms. They are not the reason for soaring health care costs. (Look at those nice, All-American insurance companies for that.)
A significant number of illegals pay into Social Security. There must be a few who get payouts, but I’ve never heard of anyone. Social Security is sitting on many hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal worker contributions that can’t be claimed. I gather that’s used to help reduce the shortfall for the rest of us. Kind of makes us the moochers, doesn’t it?
I could go on. (I did, as a matter of fact, on my blog in Immigrants in these United States.) One last point I do want to make here: what part of illegal don’t YOU understand? Last I heard, Columbus landed without a visa from the locals. The Pilgrims settled without visas. We’re all illegal, by that reasoning. Some of us have just been at it longer.
May 5th, 2006 at 5:53 pmFirst off, I believe if you look in driver training literature it will explain that one is supposed to abide by the speed limit when possible but it is important to move with the flow of the traffic around you (i.e. you sometimes may have to surpass the speed limit).
Hi there. I work at the FHP. The speed limit is not the speed suggestion — it is the speed limit. You may drive slower than the speed limit if conditions warrant, but it is never legal to exceed the speed limit (with the obvious exceptions for official vehicles).
May 5th, 2006 at 6:58 pmPeople, WAKE UP!!!
The root of the problem isn’t illegal immigrants and how we should deal with them; the problem is the PEOPLE WHO HIRE THEM.
Stop hiring, and they’ll stop coming.
But the people who exploit immigrants — like the farmers in California and Walmart — want to keep that cheap labor force. And they’re rich enough to buy the congressmen to do it.
It isn’t the immigrants who are “taking our jobs”; it’s the employers who are giving them away! So stop blaming the victims and start blaming the victimizers. Stop drinking the conservative kool-aid! This is classic misdirection. Break out of it.
May 6th, 2006 at 3:01 amAbsolutely. The one job Americans won’t do is hire workers who can stand up for themselves. It’s Walmart and agribusiness who want the illegals–and who want the rest of us to carry the social costs of their underpaid workers, legal and illegal.
BottleofBlog put it well:
“That’s the ugly hilarity of Republicans proposing an immigration bill. It’s that simple. … These are people who get their jobs from scaring the bejesus out of you about open borders, when what they really want to do is pave a giant highway across the border. And these are people who earn a living by whipping up your ugliest emotions at people who are getting something on your dime, when really, you’re getting something on their dime–cheap food, cheap service, cheap whatever.
And the cost is spread out to all of us.”
May 6th, 2006 at 8:23 am