Let’s assume we really manage to deport all undocumented immigrants from our country. Will we have solved this problem once and for all? The historical record as well as global trends show this will not happen. Resorting to politics of raw emotions and fear, as we do now, cannot provide sustainable solutions. I am afraid the means used to curb unlawful immigration are more damaging to our personal and national soul and values than the relief we are promised from ridding this country from its millions of undocumented immigrants.
First, let me say that a state of open borders and the presence of large numbers of undocumented immigrants are legitimate concerns. But as in all other cases of law enforcement, undocumented immigrants should be treated with the due process mandated by the Constitution and in the spirit of the origin story of this country as a nation of immigrants. Neither of this is now happening. In a democratic country the means of enforcing law and order count as much as the objectives.
To begin with, the festering immigration problem is the result of timidity and political calculations on part of the Congress which has repeatedly abrogated its responsibility to adjust our immigration laws to contemporary realities. This failure of the political system has removed the immigration issue from the realm of reasoned deliberation to the realm of raw emotions. Thus, what should be debated as an opportunity and a resource is debated under the emotional fear of Us versus Them. We know very well that the distance between considering others as We to considering them as They is littered with hateful and dehumanizing language. It is only when we debase immigrants as human beings and reduce them to an amorphous threat to the nation that we feel justified to deprive them of the protection of the law and due process.
History shows this is not new in America. At various times Americans have turned against their compatriots and potential immigrants out of irrational fears. Thus, we had the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1885 that banned the immigration of Chinese workers, the National Origins Quota System of 1924 that placed restrictions on the immigration of people from Eastern and Southern Europe, and the Japanese American internment during World War II. Ironically and irrationally, once a group is safely entrenched in this country it tends to view new comers with the same suspicion they faced upon their own arrival here. The serial spasms of hostile reaction have been directed against Catholics, Jews, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, and other ethnic and religious groups that over time have made their way to America.
In all cases, however, and after we have been consumed by ethnic and racial fear and debasing language, we discover that each new wave of immigrants brings revitalization and talents as well as new cultural elements – music, dance, and foods – that become part of our national tapestry. Which shows our loss of faith in new immigrants is unwarranted and, worse, embarrassing in its shortsightedness.
It is out of this mosaic of peoples from around the world that we have woven our national narrative of this country as a new experiment in human coexistence and a multi-cultural democracy. The central piece of this narrative is that people come to America in the pursuit of three basic freedoms. The freedom to dissent, the freedom to shape a new future, and the freedom to move. That’s what motivated the Puritans to sail across the Atlantic and that’s what still brings foreigners to our doorstep. Which suggests that those who come to America flee from countries where these freedoms are in short supply. Unfortunately, even now there are lots of places around the globe that fit this description thus generating new waves of immigrants headed our way. That’s why every time we think we have solved our immigration problem we are soon faced with a new one.
The last successful attempt to address immigration was during the administration of Ronald Reagan in 1986 with the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act. This law legalized 2.6 million undocumented residents living in the U.S. With no laws enacted since then and no further legalization of immigrants – even those who have proven their contributions to this country – the undocumented immigrants now number over 12 million. In forty years, this nation moved from being pragmatic about immigrants to treating them like miasma.
Right now, we have two problems and we are failing in both. First, we have failed to take a pragmatic approach and start addressing the immigration issue as a resource for our economy and a way of reversing our demographic decline as our population keeps getting older. Second, we are walking away from initiatives that can improve economic, health, and public safety conditions in the parts of the world that generate the waves of immigrants. These areas include our continental neighbors to the south and most importantly Africa.
Africa, in particular, is projected to experience the biggest population growth, doubling its size to about two billion people by the end of the century. If economic and human development conditions do not keep pace with population growth where do we think Africa’s poor, unsafe, and destitute people will go? They will head for Europe and the US. Which means, it is in the interest of the developed West to assist Africa to create jobs, improve security, and settle into a continent of stable countries. Regrettably, the Trump administration has chosen to go the opposite way. The closing of the USAID programs and other helpful engagement with Africa will neither help with its development nor with stanching the flows of outward migration. The same applies to our southern neighbors. We should be doing a lot more to help them escape poverty, joblessness, and lack of public safety.
So, the real costs of how we handle immigration can be summed up like this. By criminalizing and debasing all undocumented immigrants we scar our humanity and betray our origin story. By militarizing law enforcement to handle immigrants and their supporters we risk staining our democratic credentials. By choosing to act with emotion and no reason we lose sight of immigration as part of the solution to important domestic issues, like labor shortages and an aging population. And finally, by choosing short-term solutions we lose sight of the longer-term prospects and the need to handle the immigration problem at its roots through engagement and a development agenda in the countries most likely to be the origins of new immigrants.
This post marks the end of seven seasons for the blog. I want to thank everybody for reading my posts or for just opening my emails. After the customary summer break, I look forward to returning to the blog in September. Have a nice summer.
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