Immigration Reform in the US – Let’s Not Forget, Immigrants Are Human

On Tuesday President Obama spoke to a high school in Las Vegas about immigration reform that can’t be put off any longer, and the proposals a bipartisan group of Senators had presented to him the day before. He agreed with most of the points but also said that if Congress delays on their response he will put forward proposals of his own and call for a vote.

Richard Quest, speaking to Julie Myers Davis, former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, ICE, on Quest Means Business, Jan 29, said “let's be realistic. There is no way that the Republicans are going to give a Democrat president at this particular point in the -- who's already -- who's already routed them on the budget and the fiscal issues, another victory on immigration.”  

Julie Myers Davis didn’t agree, although she deftly avoided saying anything directly committal about what she would like to see in reform.  She spoke about something real needing to be done and parties putting aside their differences. Which has become Republican-speak for ‘why won’t Obama let us have our way, the selfish bastard’.

But New Jersey Democrat Senator Robert Menendez said “Democrats want it. Republicans need it” which pretty much sums up why reforms are likely to happen this time round, and why Congress isn’t going to win this round if they put up too much resistance.

It’s a pity that humanity and good sense won’t be the driving force behind the Republican change of heart. That it won’t means trouble down the line for them because they will revert and make life as difficult as possible for present illegal immigrants as soon as they think they can get away with it. But that won’t affect the immediate outcome.

In his speech yesterday President Obama pointed out that once all Americans were immigrants escaping persecution or an impossibly difficult life, looking for something better. A point that seems to be lost on the people who are so passionately resistant to any kind of reform that gives undocumented immigrants legal status.

At the same time that President Obama’s speech was being aired on CNN, Christiane Amanpour gave this issue a human face, by talking to an 11 year old boy Jose Garcia Ramirez, born in the US to a father from Guatemala who is illegally in the country, and to Viridiana Hernandez, a Hispanic college student from Arizona who is also undocumented, and who fights for immigration reform as an activist.  Both of their stories were difficult to hear.

Jose’s father was torn from him by members of ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) – wearing jackets bearing the logo, surely something to fill any illegal immigrant with terror - when he was getting into the car to take his kids to school. The cruelty of that is beyond measure. The children were traumatized, and watching a distraught Jose talk about it, trying not to cry, trying to be brave, was heartbreaking.

He said his father was supposed to have been deported that morning, but so far he hadn’t been. The game ICE played with that family was like executioners standing with their guns pointed and firing blanks at the last moment, but with the threat of the next time firing real bullets. Jose and his family are left without means of survival beyond their community, as the father was the breadwinner. 

Veridiana’s story, although she wasn’t facing immediate trauma, was equally shocking. She spoke of how she grew up with constant humiliation and being treated as if she didn’t deserve respect, as if she was worthless and stupid. Despite that – and that she faces the danger of being deported every day of her life – she has grown up to be a remarkable, beautiful young woman, courageously fighting for her own rights and those of her community.

Perhaps Jose’s father will get amnesty, because of the publicity, and that will be a wonderful thing. But what about all the other lives that get smashed up every day by a system that parades as being there to protect the American people but is partly driven by plain old racism and fear of people losing a world that’s familiar, a world that gives them a sense of knowing who and where they are, a feeling of being safe. A world they know somewhere deep within that they can’t hold onto. 

Just like Facebook’s options for relationships, ‘it’s complicated’. But the meanness of some Americans, the ease with which they shut off their humanity, and the cruelty of their behavior towards undocumented immigrants makes it so hard to have any compassion for them. Added to which, many of those immigrants are doing work that their employers think is beneath them, often being paid dirt wages by the very people who despise them so that the latter can sustain a certain lifestyle that contributes to their own sense of self worth. 

Here’s the thing; when we lose our humanity, we lose the plot for ourselves and our dignity is under seige. In the end we suffer at a core level. So in a way those Americans who are so resistant to immigration reform are kind of being rescued from themselves by shifting demographics that are out of their control, and by a President who has won enough battles with Congress to have shifted the power. Good guys sometimes win.

Images in the Public Domain: President Obama, Christiane Amanpour (juxtaposed J. Stewart)

US Immigration Laws and the Latino Vote – Persistence Pays

Persistence always takes courage and it always eventually pays off. In the US, Latinos have always been challenged by the immigration laws and US fear and scorn of them as a race. But none of that has stopped them coming in and working whenever and wherever they could. In states like Texas they’ve done – and still do - the work some Texans feel is beneath them and often gotten paid lousy wages and been treated like dogs.

Gradually, despite racial resistance, they began to make a significant contribution to the economy as a group and as numbers grew so did resistance, partly because Latino gangsterism also mushroomed. The combination of poverty – because so many Latinos couldn’t get work or were paid such terrible wages – and the ease with which guns are available in the US, had a lot to do with the violence, although it’s rarely acknowledged.

Ppunitive laws passed in the last few years haven’t discriminated between gangsters and hard-working Latinos – which speaks loudly of racism and fear. Because of the way they’ve been exploited and treated as if they were almost not human, Latinos been utterly disempowered politically. Still, numbers have continued to grow, and so has their awareness of their basic rights, and of their power as a group. Some have even boldly spoken out about their illegal status.

But not all Latinos remained illegal. And those who managed to get legal status fought for the rest. Finally their numbers and the momentum of their persistence have reached a threshold where politicians have to pay attention to them.

In the last election, Republicans had a chance to get the Latino vote because Obama hadn’t come through with the immigration promises he made – partly because of Republican resistance. But they couldn’t get over their racism and shot themselves in the foot repeatedly. So they lost the Latino vote. 

That old boys’ club mentality- not just about immigration but about war, taxes, gun control, government spending - lost them the election, and immediately post election they seemed aware that unless they changed they’d never be elected again because their support base is dying off and not being replaced.  

Still, Republican old boys clung to their position. Firstly they did it on taxes, and they lost. Now they’re doing it with gun control, government spending, and war – resisting Chuck Hagel primarily because he doesn’t believe in war for its own sake, which includes Israel declaring war on Iran. Their back is to the wall on all issues, but they simply can’t let themselves see it yet. This is not a subtle group. 

With immigration, they see it, miracle of miracles. At least in the Senate. President Obama, who can’t be accused of doing it for political reasons, has been working on an overhaul of immigration laws that will give legal status to most of the 11 million currently illegal Latinos. He’s not proposing amnesty; certain conditions have to be met, including paying back taxes, but it does acknowledge the role Latinos in the economy and reward them fairly for it, whether they are highly skilled workers or low-wage earners. It acknowledges their basic human rights.

Whitehouse officials say Mr. Obama has made immigration a top priority this year (nytimes.com). He wants to push it through Congress on one bill – in my opinion, maybe because he’s got so much to do and it’s a way of avoiding another long-drawn-out, hair-splitting, knock-down drag out fight. Maybe because he’s tired of giving the old boys more room to manoevre than they deserve – again, my personal opinion. 

He aims to present his plan in a couple of weeks (nytimes.com). There is some Republican resistance to a single bill of course but so far the plan has had bipartisan support in the Senate. Early in Obama’s first term he couldn’t get it past Republican resistance. Back then, Republicans were over-sure of themselves – just as they were with the fiscal cliff. Now they need that Latino vote and they know it. In two major areas they have had to admit defeat and it hasn’t been dignified. 

I wonder if they’ll ever learn that lesson. Probably not. It’s frustrating, because they stand in the way of real progress, but they can’t stop the tide of it and that’s what really matters.

What’s that Bob Dylan song? The Times They Are A-Changin’

Come gather 'round people / Wherever you roam / And admit that the waters / Around you have grown / And accept it that soon / You'll be drenched to the bone / If your time to you / Is worth savin' / Then you better start swimmin' / Or you'll sink like a stone / For the times they are a-changin'...

Come senators, congressmen / Please heed the call / Don't stand in the doorway / Don't block up the hall / For he that gets hurt / Will be he who has stalled / There's a battle outside / And it is ragin' / It'll soon shake your windows / And rattle your walls / For the times they are a-changin'.

That was a different era, but the words still apply. They always will.

IMAGE adapted from a poster for a 2012 post-election reception and briefing presented and hosted by La Coalicion