Immigration: America is moving away from its own core ideals

An Analysis by António Massa

Immigration Reform is one of the most divisive issues in our nation today and xenophobic sentiment, fueled by an ailing economy, is at an all-time high. But the backlash against immigrants, in legal status or not, is not new in our nation’s history and its causes are not economical, as people today may claim.
    In truth, the only underlying cause for this behavior is the same that led us to ravage our Native American tribes; the same that led us to condone the enslavement of people based on the color of their skin; the same that led to the condition of women as a sub-citizen for centuries. The cause is the same which still reprimands sexual feelings or orientation, which pitches neighbor against neighbor because of their different creeds, nation against nation because, somehow, one’s successes have become incomprehensively associated with someone else’s failure. This underlying cause is fear and because of fear, this nation is turning its back on itself.
    America is moving away from its own core ideals which affirm that all men are created equal and are endowed by the Creator with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These same values have brought immigrants to our shores in centuries past and keep bringing them in today. But how do we reconcile this ideal of equality amongst ourselves with the state of millions of undocumented living in our society today? Our leaders today are choosing to ignore this problem, resembling the signers of the Declaration of Independence who did not reconcile the substance of that document with the reality of slavery.
    In the absence of a coherent rule of law, human passions will undoubtedly find refuge in fear. People who aren’t lead in the right direction, may steer in the wrong direction. How many undocumented women in labor will we tie to hospital beds before we understand that this is not the right path for America? How many American born children will be left in schools because their parents were arrested during an immigration raid? How many immigrants will have to fear, or become a victim of a hate crime, before we address this issue? Are we waiting for a new generation of “strange fruits” hanging from trees before we decide to act?
    Fear brought about the Nineteenth Century Chinese Exclusion Act and fear created an Immigration law that allowed only for “free white persons” to become citizens until very recently in our nation’s history.  It was fear that allowed for a provision in the law banning immigration of individuals who are HIV-positive and fear is keeping us from reforming a system that is crippling this nation’s heritage and future. The times of ‘Irish Need Not Apply’ deserve no place in modern American society. Neither do laws like Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 - which will surely lead to the violation of American citizen’s civil rights -, nor the amendments nearly approved by the Massachusetts Legislature, which serve only to demonize undocumented workers.
    Many will argue that once a person broke the law by being in the country illegally, he or she warrants punishment in the form of automatic deportation, regardless of having established roots in this society. But can we conclusively say that the Jews aboard the ‘Exodus 1947’ were wrong when they tried to “illegally” enter British-controlled Palestine? Would someone argue today that the system that kept married women as property under common law, their rights relinquished to that of their husbands, was a sound one? Can one affirm that blacks pursuing their liberty on Northern States were acting illegally or that the Fugitive Act, which required citizens to assist in the capture of slaves in order to return them to their slave owners, was morally correct?
    In America, we are not taught to assume that the laws on the books are always morally correct. Our revered Constitution was amended several times because we should be able to revisit unsound policy. That is why a legislature and a judicial system were put in place. That is why we need to turn fear and prejudice aside and muster the courage to debate this issue and enact meaningful reform which will regularize the status of millions of Americans-in-waiting and create an immigration system that benefits this nation and its citizens.
    Today, opponents of immigration reform argue that the country should be addressing issues like the suffering economy before deciding to give jobs to foreigners. This is a false choice, for the millions of immigrant undocumented workers are already currently working in the country. They state that immigrants depress wages and flood the marketplace with cheap labor. If true, isn’t this a great argument for reform? To bring people out of the shadows so that employers may not take advantage of them and so that employees are all playing by the same rules? Furthermore, the presence of immigrants is a true economic boost. After all, people here eat, commute, pay for shelter and clothing, all activities that benefit some industry and the country overall. The fact is that, for opponents of reform, there will never be a good time for reforming our immigration system, not in a bad economy, not in a good one.
    Anti-reform advocates have pushed their agenda, by stating that they are only against what they call “illegals,” perpetuating the idea that America has a well-regulated immigration system where anyone can enter legally if they fill the right forms and wait a reasonable period in line. The reality is that the laws on the book are outdated and do not reflect the needs of our economic engine present and future. Arbitrary quotas in the employment-based system made it impossible for employers to fill the positions they needed with legal workers during the boom years. This created a black market of workers that kept coming in to fill the ranks of the American labor force, with many employers willing to look the other way. Long and unreasonable waiting periods of a decade or more also plague the family-based system, making its goal of family unification completely useless. What does it say about our immigration policy when a foreign-born adult son of an American citizen has to wait over ten years to receive a permanent resident card, on top of an additional five years if he is pursuing citizenship?
    There is also the myth that immigrants come here illegally because they want to exploit our resources. This myth states that undocumented immigrants have no commitment to our laws and thus no commitment to our society. Immigrants are portrayed living in ghettos, looking and dressing differently, making no effort to learn English or to integrate into American culture. Stereotypes abound. There are indeed people who could not care less about American society, have no regards whatsoever for their neighbors and this nation. Some of them did cross the Mexican border; others flew in and overstayed their visa. But, as the examples of Tim McVeigh and David Koresh show, nationality is not a determinant of character.
    Most unauthorized migrants are our neighbors, people who wake up early in the morning and kiss their families goodbye to work. They are sitting at our side on buses and trains, they are taking communion with us at our churches, they are coaching our kid’s soccer teams, they are active in our schools, they are serving our meals; they are helping us build this country, brick by brick, like every immigrant generation before them. And most don’t take America for granted. They know this is the place that has given them the opportunity they did not find in the land they left behind. They work extra hard every morning because they have a sense of duty to their families and to this nation. Nobody will travel this far to settle for failure. The immigrant story, throughout our history, is one of greatness and overachievement.
    We carved it into our main symbol as to always remember where we come from. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. Through American history, this same issue has been challenging our social structure; it has been generating the fear of losing privilege, the fear of the unknown that comes with embracing new cultures. But as James Baldwin once said, the rise of my brother does not mean the fall of another. Let’s fear not abolishing these divisions for we are all human beings filled with the desire to create a better world for our children. This nation was built under the ideal of greatness and America will only rise stronger if we contemplate and solve this challenge like we solved others before.
    Reforming our system means recognizing we failed to implement an immigration policy that reflects the needs and values of our nation. It means recognizing that we will only benefit from fully welcoming the migrants who have established themselves in our communities and are an indelible and vital part of our society. It means recognizing that we can’t solve the problem by building walls and creating further division and fear. The system is broken and there is nothing more American for us to do than to fix this problem in a smart and sensible way.

António Massa is part of the Brazilian Immigrant Center