SAN FRANCISCO--Recently, in front a packed crowd at Duke University, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice regretted the failure of passing the comprehensive immigration reform act and the shift in Americans' attitude toward immigrants.
Accepting and welcoming immigrants "has been at the core of our strength," she said. "I don't know when immigrants became the enemy."
These days it is refreshing, if rare, to hear someone of Rice's stature to speak on behalf of immigrants. Over the last few years the public discourse has been shrill and, if anything, media coverage seems to stoke anxiety to an unprecedented level.
Instead of a larger narrative on immigration--from culture to economics, from identity to history-- what we have now is a public mindset of us versus them, and an overall anti immigrant climate that is both troubling and morally reprehensible.
America's Difficult Love Story
Yet I often see the story of immigration in America as a kind of difficult love story.
Take the scandal involving Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Arizona. Running for Congress, the sheriff is tough on undocumented immigration--but he had a secret: a love affair with Jose Orozco, an immigrant whose legal status remains in question.
The romance went sour, alas, and the immigrant lover alleged that the sheriff threatened to deport him if he came out with their story. Babeu vehemently denied the deportation threat. Orozco promptly filed a lawsuit.
What struck me most about this story is the contradictory nature of the relationship and how emblematic it is to the larger American narrative. We want and benefit from immigrants' cheap labor, but we don't want to acknowledge our relationship with them. We need them; we don't want to be associated with them.
Meg Whitman, the billionaire who ran for governor in California in 2010, wanted to "hold employers accountable for hiring only documented workers." But she didn't include herself.
The year before Whitman's campaign, she'd fired Nicky Diaz Santillan, who in a spectacular press conference revealed that she was undocumented. She had been taking care of the Whitman's household for nearly a decade.
When Santillan reportedly asked Whitman for help finding an immigration attorney after she was fired, Whitman allegedly told her, "You don't know me and I don't know you."
In the war on terrorism, the immigrant is often the scapegoat. He becomes a kind of insurance policy against the effects of recession. By blaming him, the pressure valve is regulated in time of crisis. The master narrative regarding immigration seems to require those it vilifies to obey the rule of silence. Their tongues are often kept in check through the threat of imprisonment and deportation.
God forbid if they become articulate, organize, participate in union politics and demand better wages and fair treatment. God forbid if they hold a press conference or get together to make an updated movie version of The Help.
Immigrants: Canaries in the Coal Mine
Yet, in the context of a free and open society, the immigrant is often the canary in the coalmine. The horror stories from detention centers are just too many:
*Pregnant women shackled to a hospital bed while giving birth;
*Inmates shackled and paraded in pink underwear on the streets of Arizona, a scene reminiscent of Abu Ghraib;
*Rape incidents uninvestigated;
*Healthcare dangerously lacking in immigrant detention facilities where the suicide levels are alarming;
*Deportees forced to take psychotropic drugs so they act docile in their long journey back to their countries of origin.
Human-rights abuse by law enforcement in America's Southwest is so notorious that organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are ringing alarm bells for the lack of accountability. This terrible treatment reflects a legal system that's gone so badly wrong that America's very humanity is now put in question.
"You don't know me and I don't know you."
Perhaps we don't want to know about the tragedy and psychological and economic impact on tens of thousands of American-born children whose parents have been taken away by the authorities. But it is a fact that we are in the process of creating a whole generation of Americans who are becoming permanent outsiders, a vast second class of citizens.
When a society hides behind the apparatus of draconian policies, allowing the authorities almost unchecked power to detain and deport, the only logical outcome is injustice and cruelty.
Missing Voices
Missing from the national conversation are voices like that of the former secretary of state's, of pro-immigration reformers and civil rights leaders, who can speak on behalf of those who have no voice. Where are the leaders who can speak to the idea that it is not alien to American interests, but very much in our socioeconomic interest--not to mention our spiritual health--to integrate immigrants, that our nation functions best when we welcome newcomers and help them participate fully in our society?
What's missing is compassion.
If I am sympathetic to the plight of immigrants of all kinds, I have good reason: I was once a Vietnamese refugee. Like millions who left Vietnam, my family and I fled that country illegally, without passports. We entered another country without visas. That I am a writer and journalist today is due to the American generosity, my Americanization story is a love story, a success story.
But that generosity has all but faded. The United States is no doubt at a very important crossroads. In one direction is a country ruled by distrust, xenophobia and continual exploitation--with its need to strengthen law enforcement. That choice offers us a society willing to look away while an entire population lives in fear, in a de facto police state. It's a country in which the immigrant becomes indeed the enemy.
In the other direction is a global society defined by openness and with the understanding that we as a nation have always depended and thrived on the energy, ideas and contributions of immigrants. It's a promised land that can only be envisioned by the newcomer to our shore, who still dreams the dream. For even if we don't know it yet, we all desperately need to be reborn through his eyes.
This post was originally published in NewAmericaMedia.org.
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Andrew Lam is an editor of New America Media and the author of East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres and Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora. His book of short stories, Birds of Paradise, is due out in 2013.
Follow Andrew Lam on Twitter: www.twitter.com/andrewqlam
With that being said, while legal immigrants may not be the “enemy”, the hurdles and road blocks to permanent residency can be so onerous, as to make one feel unwelcome and the “American Dream” a faint hope.
My family and I have been legal immigrants for the past 16 years. During this time we have followed all immigration laws, regulations, and rules, paid all our taxes in the U.S., my kids have gone to school from kindergarten through high school, and are now in college … Even with my approval for permanent residency, there is a backlog of years for a green card (and proposed legislation would add more years to the wait). As an immigrant applying and waiting for a green card …
- My wife and kids have not been, and are not, able to work.
- I get $0 financial aid for college, even with paying U.S. taxes for all these years.
- My son lost his right to stay in the U.S. when he turned 21. I had to change is visa so he could finish is college degree in biology. Now when he finishes his degree, again he will have the leave the U.S. Basically you turned 21, here is the door, leave.
So again legal immigrants may not be the “enemy”, but the current immigration laws and regulations make one feel far from welcome.
Speaking of non-assimilating, non-English speaking, uneducated individuals and immigration. Sneakily brought into our hinterlands "legally" while we sleep, thousands who claim their countries are too dangerous for their existence. Yet, oddly enough, safe enough for an occasional trip home for visit or vacation.
http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/
Right after U.S. President (self-proclaimed to be the fourth best President, ever) stated, "Everyboby has to play by the same set of rules." And started forceably deporting illegals out of the USA at the record-breaking rate of 1 every 79 seconds.
That's when . . . . . . .
That is a good question. Just when DID legal, law abiding, green card holding legal permament residents of the United States become the enemy?
Perhaps when politicians started attacking them?
Perhaps the author could cite examples of politicians attacking legal, law abiding, green card holding legal permament residents of the United States...
The question is "When Did The Left Wing Try To Convince The American Public That Immigrants And "ILLEGAL" Immigrants Are The Same Thing?
"ILLEGAL" Immigrants and those who support them are the enemy.
""""When Did Immigrants Become the Enemy """" when they enter a country illegal and in hiding..and not with proper documents..
Please..do not confuse LEGAL immigration with ILLEGAL immigration....they are two different things.
We make it so hard for LEGAL immigrants to come to the USA...they have to wait for years till their turn comes...then you have to have all proper documents and support of affidavits before the process can begin...So, tell me why do we make it so much easier for the ILLEGAL'S????
They are not just the enemy...they lie and break the laws..
End. Mass. Immigration. NOW.
Let's find jobs for the people that are already here and need a job.
Overcrowding has never benefitted any nation, nor has mass illegal immigration.
I also wish people would stop mixing immigrants with illegal aliens, there's a huge difference. Immigrants are generally skilled and/or educated, english speaking individuals who legally went through the process.
People who conflate illegal aliens with legal immigrants do a huge disservice to all legal immigrants and all the honest Americans who support legal immigration and welcome legal immigrants. I wish they'd stop and we have to keep calling them out each and every time until they stop that dishonest practice in service to their dishonest agenda.
Foreigners who fail to obey the rules will be fined and imprisoned as felons:
- Foreigners who fail a deportation order are to be punished. (Article 117)
- Foreigners who are deported from Mexico and attempt to re-enter the country imprisoned for up to 10 years. (Article 118)
- Foreigners who violate their visa sentence to up to six years in prison (Articles 119, 120 and 121).
- Foreigners who misrepresent the terms of their visa while in Mexico such as working with out a permit will be imprisoned.
Under Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony.
“A penalty of up to two years in prison and a fine of three hundred to five thousand pesos will be imposed on the foreigner who enters the country illegally.” (Article 123)
- Foreigners with legal immigration problems may be deported from Mexico instead of being imprisoned. (Article 125)
- Foreigners who “attempt against national sovereignty or security” will be deported. (Article 126)
Mexicans who help illegal aliens enter the country are criminals:
- A Mexican who marries a foreigner with the sole objective of helping the foreigner live in the country is subject to up to five years in prison. (Article 127)
- Shipping and airline companies that bring undocumented foreigners into Mexico will be fined. (Article 132)
Selective cherry picking enforcement of the laws by the fed gov and some local municipalities
Selective enforcement of financial laws
Selective enforcement of equal rights
Selective enforcement of voting rights
Selective no-bid non-compete gov contracts to special friends and donors
Selective funding of pensions and 401ks with stimulus money
Its a much longer list but perhaps you will be able to see the difference between assigning the issue to only one side or assigning the issue to the perpetrator.
"D.C. Council member David A. Catania has found an additional $20 million in the budget to continue offering free health insurance to 19,000 undocumented immigrants, reversing a proposal by Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) that could have restricted them from receiving emergency care.
Catania (I-At Large), chairman of the council’s Health Committee, has made full funding of the Alliance Insurance program a chief priority as the council prepares for final budget deliberations.
But the council would be restoring the health insurance program at the same time it is scaling back other government services, including millions in services for the poor, potentially sparking fresh debate about whether city benefits for undocumented immigrants are too generous."
(emphasis added)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-council-member-catania-comes-up-with-20m-for-health-coverage-for-illegal-immigrants/2012/05/03/gIQAkUdezT_story.html