Please — No Good News
Remember, just the other day when I was saying how the sort of optimism that has buoyed the immigrant marches of the past month has become such a rare commodity?
Kevin Drum, with whom I've had a friendly email dialogue about the immigration issue last week (and who I think is pretty smart guy), for example, can't easily accept some of the good stuff found in an L.A. Times poll just released. An analysis of the survey by Ron Brownstein sums it up this way:
Most Americans say the United States should confront the challenge of illegal immigration by both toughening border enforcement and creating a new guest worker program, instead of by cracking down on enforcement alone, a Times/Bloomberg poll has found. By a solid 2 to 1 margin, those surveyed said they would prefer such a comprehensive approach, which a bipartisan group of senators has proposed, to an enforcement-only strategy, which the House of Representatives approved in December. Support for a comprehensive approach was about the same among Democrats, independents and Republicans, the poll found.In other words, the American public -- when exposed to the sort of intense debate of the last few months-- is actually capable of reaching some sensible conclusions. In response, Kevin says:
Today's LA Times poll shows why I don't really trust polls on immigration...Basically, sizable majorities seem to be in favor of practically everything, and the numbers are fantastically sensitive to question wording. People are in favor of a wall, in favor of a guest worker program, in favor of a path to citizenship, in favor of greater enforcement, in favor of whatever you ask them about. Or maybe not depending on how you phrase the question.Kevin's right, of course, about the wording of poll questions -- they do skew the stats. But the results reflected in the Times poll make total sense to me -- precisely because they are so apparently contradictory. I say apparently because, at bottom, there isn't much of a contradiction here. Americans -- like anyone else-- don't like the idea of anything illegal, including immigrants. Of course they want secure borders -- maybe even a wall (as long as they don't really have to pay for it). And, fortunately, public opinion has matured to a point where a solid majority want a humane and practical solution for the illegals already here (and even for some in the pipeline). This is good news. Let's just accept it. This seemingly bi-furcated approach --increased enforcement coupled with liberalized legalization-- is precisely the formula embodied in the McCain-Kennedy bill which formed the basis of last week's failed Senate compromise. As I've been noting over the last few days, there's a visible trend now within both parties to take a more accomodating position toward the undocumented. Democrat Minority Leader Harry Reid -- who helped kill off the compromise-- is now making sure the whole world sees that, um, he does want to a get a bill passed. And the hard-line Republican leadership in the House-- while hardly capitulating-- shows more signs of being pushed back by fear of alienating millions of Latino voters. As long as we are back on this subject...a few random thoughts about what it means to see thousands -- maybe a couple of milliion of illegals-- demonstrating in the streets. Keep in mind that, back in the late 50's and early 60's, when blacks marched and got clubbed and fire-hosed, they were also "illegals." Jim Crow legislation made it a criminal violation for a black to eat, sleep or work in certain places. A Negro sitting at a Woolworth counter, or sitting in the front of a bus, or drinking out of the wrong water fountain was, indeed,  an illegal. Plenty were those who expressed sympathy with the plight of the "good" Negroes but who counseled that by getting uppity, that by marching, sitting-in, getting arrested, actually demanding (instead of politely requesting) their rights, they were only setting back their cause. Doesn't that sort of sound like the panty-twisters of today bent out of shape over some Mexican flags?  P.S. A great one-liner I picked up today from one of my colleagues at USC. "This whole illegal immigration problem could have been avoided from the beginning," he said. "If only the guys who drew up the border had placed it closer to Oregon."
April 13th, 2006 at 12:41 am
Marc, I’m glad you discussed the whole “legality” issue because I was just thinking about this yesterday while pondering all the debates we have had here about immigration the past few weeks. In fact, to my mind the business about “enforcing our laws” is the weakest argument in the debate. Our attitudes about lawbreaking are never absolute but always depend on our values and politics. Smoking marijuana to relieve the pain of cancer may be illegal but most of us can sympathize with it; likewise, many women had to resort to illegal abortions before Roe vs Wade with all the risks they involved. Your Jim Crow example is an excellent one, and yesterday I read that an 82 year old woman got a $114 jaywalking ticket in California because she could not get across the street fast enough even though she started out when the light turned green. Some might argue that lady should not have tried to cross the street if she knew she could not make it to the other side in time!
Civil disobedience is an honored tradition in the United States, or should be, and so the legal argument is the least compelling in my book.
April 13th, 2006 at 12:44 am
Actually, to the surprise of no one who knows me, I agree with most of this.
And yet, the flag thing. And the canard about people who expressed concern. There’s only one thing to say about that.
Lots of Mexican flags in the first wave of demonstrations.
Few Mexican flags in the second wave of demonstrations.
The rally organizers made the logical adjustment.
Simple as that.
April 13th, 2006 at 5:16 am
Polls on Bush’s approval are right. Polls on illegal immigration are wrong. It seems to me that the people taking the polls on illegal immigration should instead check with the same people who answered the ones on Bush, because, obviously, they must be smarter. It’s great to be selective and inconsistent in your arguments. You can always come up with the conclusion that you want.
April 13th, 2006 at 5:21 am
Michael B. I’m partly in agreement, though I wonder how many who argue solely on the “Enforce the Laws” side of this issue also speed when they think they can get away with it (90 % of the time perhaps?) but gripe when they get a speeding ticket and say something along the lines of “Why aren’t the cops out trying to catch the REAL criminals?”
Irony abounds on all sides of this issue.
April 13th, 2006 at 5:22 am
By the bye, good post Marc.
April 13th, 2006 at 6:01 am
“This whole illegal immigration problem could have been avoided from the beginning,” he said. “If only the guys who drew up the border had placed it closer to Oregon.”
…or, about 500 miles further south.
April 13th, 2006 at 6:08 am
Polls are an enigma to me. I have been polled, and asked questions that I could not possibly answer honestly with the choices provided by the pollster.
One of the great things about this country is that the people are (supposed to be) able to change the laws. Our elected officials are supposed to pay attention to the majority of their constituents. A law is supposed to reflect the greater good. When the majority of represented people (citizens) say “This law no longer reflects our wishes” then the law should be changed. Civil (Definition: Of, relating to, or befitting a citizen or citizens) disobedience is indeed an honored way to draw attention to an unfair law. Rosa sat in the front of the bus. People marched in the streets — law enforcement overreacted and the citizenship reacted in horror. Eventually, the laws were changed. In California, the people voted in favor of medical marijuana — eventually the law will be changed. The 82 year old woman who couldn’t make it across the street is a fluke. I doubt that jaywalking laws will appear on the ballot, but if people want to take it to the streets, or the petition it’s possible.
Civil disobedience IS time honored in this country, but our laws should be respected more because they are what makes us civil.
April 13th, 2006 at 6:12 am
“Doesn’t that sort of sound like the panty-twisters of today bent out of shape over some Mexican flags? ”
Like Cardinal Mahoney?
Actually, your attempted parallel between the “illegal immigration movement” and the civil rights movement of the ’50s and ’60s is preposterous.
April 13th, 2006 at 6:26 am
I also have to note that you come out full on the side of “guest workers” if you believe that any opinion trend in that direction is “good news”. Frankly Marc, at that point your whole set of arguments about this issue become worse than hollow. You’ve now – while invoking the civil rights movement – come out cheering for the first officially legalized two-tier labor market in the U.S. since slavery – people without the full rights of citizens brought here especially to labor at jobs “Americans don’t want”.
I find this incredible…
It’s also incredible that you can’t admit that the “Mexican flag critics” were proven right, since the leadership of this movement themselves have rather overtly taken that position and done their best to enforce it.
You’re getting less coherent the more you write on this issue.
April 13th, 2006 at 6:33 am
I agree that the tide is changing, and the poll, while polls in general are pretty flaky and mostly inaccurate, is just one more example of the shift of popular momentum toward an immigration rights bill we can be proud of. but the most important sign that things are bound to move in the right direction are the tremendous protests over the past few weeks.
still, got to agree with reg, your comparing immigration protestors with blacks crossing the segragation barrier is pretty outrageous. waving a mexican flag and sitting at a whites-only lunch counter with a bunch of rednecks are two completely different cups of tea, to say it mildly.
April 13th, 2006 at 6:46 am
“an immigration rights bill we can be proud of”
I have to keep pushing this question – is an immigration rights bill with “guest workers” – according to a Chamber of Commerce/NAM/Business Roundtable game plan – obviously set so that the numbers will be increased to the satisfaction of the usual suspects, something we should be proud of ?
I believe that “guest workers” is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard of as the new shape of American immigration policy. It’s a step backward, not forward. And, bizarrely, Marc appears to celebrate this shit. This is one of the most uncritical, lame investigations of a complex issue I’ve ever encountered.
April 13th, 2006 at 6:58 am
“Civil disobedience is an honored tradition in the United States, or should be, and so the legal argument is the least compelling in my book.”
The civil disobedience that’s really at issue here, Michael, is the civil disobedience of capitalists who have for years factored illegal immigration into their business plans. If American agribusiness is currently occupying the same moral ground as Martin Luther King Jr, I guess I’m missing something.
And as a general point not directed at you in particular, Michael, let’s not persist in conflating “immigration” or “Latinos” with illegal immigration. I think that’s offensive for about three different reasons – not the least of which is that some precision of language would seem to me a starting point for rational discussion.
April 13th, 2006 at 7:17 am
When workers, already here, are given legal statis, can join unions and demand at least minimum wage — is that when we approve a new batch of “guest workers” ? Is that the plan?
April 13th, 2006 at 7:32 am
“The civil disobedience that’s really at issue here, Michael, is the civil disobedience of capitalists who have for years factored illegal immigration into their business plans.”
reg, I think you have done a great job of raising this issue in these discussions and focusing attention on the exploitative motivations of the employers, which is beyond doubt and which definitely helps explain why there have not been more effective border controls. But I don’t think the illegals should be the ones punished for this, and it is hard to punish the employers without punishing the employees at the same time.
April 13th, 2006 at 7:40 am
Comparing the “illegals” now to the “illegals” of the pre-Civil Rights south doesn’t ring true to me. Demanding that those former illegals obey the law would have been morally unacceptable to most in the North, and me.
It’s not that I’m utterly horrified by the “law-breaking” now, but implying some sort of similar moral standing is the kind of thing that makes a lot of people role their eyes. It feels like it’s intended to somehow make one feel guilty for bringing the issue up; it seems like a sneaky way to make “open borders” the clear human agenda just as Civil Rights was. It ain’t that simple this time.
April 13th, 2006 at 7:47 am
And as far as saying that public opinion has “matured” to the point that it now agrees with you: gee, thanks. Speaking as a proud member of the rabble responsible for Public Opinion, I don’t remember thinking about it all that much before this.
Still, I agree with most of this.
April 13th, 2006 at 8:22 am
Well, of course I am not for open borders, and I’m generally being polite. In my George Wallace, racist, cracker, white boy sort of way, of course.
Still, the general idea of finding a way to accommodate the illegal immigrant population here while better securing the borders and only importing workers that are actually needed and finding ways to make sure they are not exploited and not replacing potential workers already here is clearly the way to go.
To the extent that that is what Marc is saying, I agree with it.
I’ll say hi to the UFW folks for Marc in my travels. Racist though I am and corrupt though they are of course are …
April 13th, 2006 at 8:26 am
“I read that an 82 year old woman got a $114 jaywalking ticket in California because she could not get across the street fast enough even though she started out when the light turned green.”
She’ll win. Not even Michael Johnson could make it before it turned green.
April 13th, 2006 at 8:51 am
I agree with Reg 100% on no guest workers. Many unions are also against guest worker programs and also against employer sanctions.
Teamsters Local 952 of Orange County made a resolution against guest workers and against both Congressional proposals, because they “do nothing to remove the economic incentives that unscrupulous employers have to hire and exploit immigrant workers, and fail to really address the fact that we have 11 million undocumented workers in this country contributing to our communities.”
The union “opposes any form of employer sanctions because they have historically resulted in ‘employee sanctions’ in the form of firings of workers for union organizing and discrimination practices on the job,” and “opposes guest worker legislative proposals because such modern day ‘bracero programs’ create an indentured servitude status for workers.”
The AFL-CIO agrees saying that instead of 400,000 braceros/guest workers per year, “those immigrants should be given 400,000 green cards, or residence visas, instead, which would guarantee them equal status in their workplaces and communities.”
Pacific News Service reports outside the beltway their proposal ]for guestworkers] is meeting a rising tide of rejection. The National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, the Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund are against guest worker programs. These groups argue “Congress should abolish employer sanctions instead, since they’re often used to retaliate against undocumented workers who demand labor rights.”
The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights criticizes both the Senate and House bills because they hold “no promise of fairness in immigration policy and would undermine the rights, economic health and safety of all immigrants and their children. Congress needs to go back to the drawing board to come up with genuine, positive and fair proposals.”
April 13th, 2006 at 10:50 am
Marc,
I’m in agreement with Reg and Juila.
I’d have to say I’m against the guest worker plans as well. The Bracero program, to my understanding, was very exploitive and I have no hope that a modern program would be any better.
It’ll create a permanent underclass , and lower wages for American workers.
April 13th, 2006 at 11:04 am
Why don’t we just make ‘em all U.S. citizens–even thouse who are still in Mexico? It will stop the rush northward that talks of amnesty always bring.
Guest-worker hopes spark rush to border
NOGALES, Mexico – At a shelter overflowing with migrants airing their blistered feet, Francisco Ramirez nursed muscles sore from trekking through the Arizona desert…. he shelter’s manager, Francisco Loureiro, said he has not seen such a rush of migrants since 1986, when the United States allowed 2.6 million illegal residents to get American citizenship. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0412mexico-border-rush12-ON.html
Duh. Reward civil disobedience and bad behavior and you’ll get more of the same. It happened with Carter, with Reagan, and now. It will happen again, too, if any proposals other than forcing them back home are passed.
It looks like Marc will have to go to the border again to cover this new influx of Democratic voters and new dependents for the U.S.
April 13th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
For those who question the analogy to the civil rights movement, there is going to be a program on the History Channel about it, focusing on the relationship of civil disobedience on the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It is part of a “Ten Days That Changed America” series. Last night it was July 6, 1892, the day that strikers at the Homestead Steel plant turned away Carnegie’s Pinkerton militia, for a temporary victory in the strike of 1892, and the ultimate defeat of the strike and the nascent “American Experiment” of a partnership between management and workers. The program was produced and directed by Rory Kennedy, RFK’s youngest (I believe). Not her best effort, but certainly interesting.
Briefly on the “flag” issue….Initially the protest in LA was a show of solidarity, basically an expression of feeling, not a demonstration directed toward a particular subject of public policy. The Mexican flags were then (as they have been in the past) flown as a matter of “racial” pride. Then the issue became focused on AB 4437, and the effort to pass a constructive immigration bill–that is, with the intent to affect US public policy–and then the US flags came out. [Btw, this shows why the stars and stripes should not be called the "American Flag"...the Mexican flag is just as "American" as the USA flag is].
Anyway, the differing look of the demonstrations, flag-wise, indicates I think that this is a serious and politically maturing movement, and in that sense at least has kinship with the civil rights movement of the early 1960s.
April 13th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
It is good news, kind of, that the Senate will revisit immigration reform. But you know, Reid has always, um well, supported moving forward on immigration refom and it has always been the Republican leadership that made such a thing impossible. See Reid’s letter to Frist about moving forward for deatils at
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2006/04/reid_urges_fris.html
(my favorite part “It was especially baffling when you voted against your own cloture motion on the Hagel/Martinez substitute amendment last Friday. The only reason to file cloture is to limit debate and amendments, so it was illogical for you to file cloture and then complain that Democrats were not allowing a sufficient number of amendments.” )
Let’s hope that Frist is serious about moving forward on reform. But I think that he is more serious about running for president and this bill will never get out of the senate (where it will just be rejected by the House)
April 13th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
White racists hiding behind their policy-wonk masks, like Bill Bradley and others, should wisen up and and stop trying to cut the baby so many ways. We are here, whether they like it or not, and more of us are arriving every day. Now sir, where would you like your tamale?
April 13th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Bracero
By Phil Ochs
Wade into the river, through the rippling shallow watter
Steal across the thirsty border, bracero
Come bring your hungry bodies to the golden fields of plenty
From a peso to a penny, bracero
Oh, Welcome to California
Where the friendly farmer will take care of you
Come labor for your mother, your father and your brother
For your sister and your lover, bracero
Come pick the fruit of yellow, break the flower from the berry
Purple grapes will fill your belly, bracero
Oh, Welcome to California
Where the friendly farmer will take care of you
And the sun will bite your body, as the dust will draw you thristy
While your muscles beg for mercy, bracero
In the shade of your sombrero, drop your sweat upon the soil
Like the fruit your youth can spoil, bracero
Oh, Welcome to California
Where the friendly farmer will take care of you
When the weary night embraces, sleep in shacks that could be cages
They will take it from your wages, bracero
Come sing about tomorrow with a jingle of the dollar
And forget your crooked collar, bracero
Oh, Welcome to California
Where the friendly farmer will take care of you
And the local men are lazy, and they make too much of trouble
Besides we’d have to pay the double, bracero
But if you feel you’re fallin’, if you find the pace is killing
There are others who are willing, bracero
Oh, Welcome to California
Where the friendly farmer will take care of you
April 13th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Marc, I continue to be curious why you allow stuff like this to continue on your site. I put a stop to my readers calling you Orwellian for claiming that people who break the law are not lawbreakers.
>White racists hiding behind their policy-wonk masks, like Bill Bradley and others, should wisen up and and stop trying to cut the baby so many ways. We are here, whether they like it or not, and more of us are arriving every day. Now sir, where would you like your tamale?
April 13th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Yes, Josh, I remember, not from folk songs but from my time with the UFW that the bracero program was, shall we say, problematic. Do you know that the UFW has signed the first union contract with a national labor contractor to cover frequently exploited agricultural guest workers?
I covered that the other day.
April 13th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
As predictable as his starched shirt, tended lawn and tossed salad greens is Bill Bradley’s unqualified endorsement of the UFW, one of the most exploitive, corrupt and incompetent unions. Next thing you know, Bildro Bradez (hey man, I’ll turn you into a Chicano yet) will be touting the state lottery for saving the state’s public education system.
April 13th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Whoever you are, you should learn to read. Incidentally, I don’t have a lawn and seldom wear starched shirts. Sorry to disrupt your silly stereotype.
However, that awful union is actually organizing some people. Again, sorry to disrupt your silly stereotype.
April 13th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Incidentally, folks, what your host has not told you — odd, since I’ve told him — is that an actual supporter of Kennedy-McCain has taken the lead in the California governor’s race. No, not someone who says he doesn’t know what the Sensenbrenner bill is when my friends at Univision asked him about it the day before Gran Marcha …
April 13th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Oh, and “Maria,” I’m hardly a policy wonk.
I wonder who you work for.
There are some very strange alliances taking place on this issue. Good fodder for investigative journalism.
April 13th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
“A great one-liner I picked up today from one of my colleagues at USC. “This whole illegal immigration problem could have been avoided from the beginning,” he said. “If only the guys who drew up the border had placed it closer to Oregon.”
Here is a creative plan for solving the immigration issue, why not annex California, and give it back to Fox. Forty-nine states is quite sufficient, and if there is ever an Catastrophic earthquake; it will be Vincente’s
problem.
In the news some local politician representing a poor minority community, stated that double-digit unemployment among African-American males would still exist, even if there was no illegal immigration. And this same politician, commented that the only time African-Americans ever had 100 percent employment, was when they were slaves.
I don’t get it–why should an illegal immigrant find it easier to obtain employment? And why should a politician representing African Americans, feel that the only time that Black male young adults can be fully employed, is if they’re enslaved or incarcerted?
April 13th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
What a whining b**ch that Bill Bradley is! There’s a white boy who sure can’t take the heat. I’ve seen a lot of weird customers on this blog but he takes the cake. Make any critique of him and he’s pasting posts one after another defending his wounded little ego. Let’s see, he’s a friend of Angelides, a friend of the Governor, a booster of Steve Westley, a mouthpiece for the UFW, a parrot of Mickey Kaus, an advisor to Gary Hary, a Mensa member, a presidential level advisor (have I left anything out?) and oh yes, a whining b**tch. Now he’s asking the host of the blog to take down any comments criticizing him. Please, Marc, don’t make Bill cry. Boo hoo.
April 13th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
I want to thank Marc for his posts on this rights issue. It has opened my mind, my borders, my citizenship, my flag, my job and my pocketbook. Take it all and continue the good fight over the scraps. I’m going bowling.
April 14th, 2006 at 2:15 am
Update on the little old lady and her jaywalking ticket, Angelenos here will no doubt have already seen this.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mayvis14apr14,0,51710.story?track=tothtml
April 14th, 2006 at 7:59 am
Oh, look, it’s my little stalker boy, “Zack H.” Try not to be so pathetic in your lying, little boy. I’m busy with actual work, but I will address your dumbest lie, that I want Marc to delete excrescence such as yours. Contrary to your nitwit implication, I did not delete attacks on Marc on my blog, merely urged people to chill in their attacks on him there, since he is my old friend. So when people called Marc “Orwellian” for saying that people who break the law are not lawbreakers, I did not delete their posts, merely urged them not to call names.
Zack H. Says:
April 13th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
What a whining b**ch that Bill Bradley is! There’s a white boy who sure can’t take the heat. I’ve seen a lot of weird customers on this blog but he takes the cake. Make any critique of him and he’s pasting posts one after another defending his wounded little ego. Let’s see, he’s a friend of Angelides, a friend of the Governor, a booster of Steve Westley, a mouthpiece for the UFW, a parrot of Mickey Kaus, an advisor to Gary Hary, a Mensa member, a presidential level advisor (have I left anything out?) and oh yes, a whining b**tch. Now he’s asking the host of the blog to take down any comments criticizing him. Please, Marc, don’t make Bill cry. Boo hoo.
April 14th, 2006 at 8:07 am
Please don’t call Bill names.
April 14th, 2006 at 9:25 am
Why, thank you, Marc.
Isn’t it terrible when we mostly agree?
Very good piece on the generals and Rumsfeld, by the way.
April 15th, 2006 at 10:03 am
By the way, Marc, do you have any idea what a WHITE RACIST ARCHIE BUNKER BOY it makes you to call these folks “illegals??!!”
No. Really? Evidently you have not been reading the utterances of one Marc Cooper.
>As long as we are back on this subject…a few random thoughts about what it means to see thousands — maybe a couple of milliion of illegals– demonstrating in the streets.
April 15th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Kennedy McCain is a good bill, but it needs supplemented by the enforcement and border security provisions in the House bill.
Otherwise, we will have to refight this battle every 20-30 years.
April 15th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Paul from MPls: Comparing the “illegals†now to the “illegals†of the pre-Civil Rights south doesn’t ring true to me.
***********************
This is something that has really been bothering me. Some people seem to fall into the trap of thinking that immigrants need to have the same exact history as that of black Americans in order to use the words “civil rights.”
Last time I checked, no single group had a trademark on the term “civil rights.” Or “human rights” or “equal rights” for that matter.
Every human being has not only the right but the obligation to demand equal treatment under the law.
April 16th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Nobody was quibbling about the use of terminology. I was making the point – which I think is unexceptionable – that the issue of how to deal with illegal immigrants and advocacy for “illegals” isn’t comparable to the history of black Americans or the evolution of the civil rights movement in the ’50s and ’60s.
And the final assertion – which is obviously a matter of profound belief for most of us – that every human being has the right to demand equal treatment under the law – when what’s at issue is that some folks take “the law” into their own hands when asserting a right of residence in the United States simply because they can due to border proximity – strikes me as a self-defeating argument on this particular issue.
Interesting fact from today’s New York Times: The number of federal immigration agents who focus on work-site enforcement plunged to 65 nationwide in 2004, from 240 in 1999, according to the Government Accountability Office. Moreover, the government reduced the number of notices of intent to fine employers who hired illegal immigrants to just 3 in 2004 from 417 in 1999.
April 16th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
They aren’t asserting a right of residence just because they can due to border proximity. It’s a little more than just that. Our country help set up an economic system through NAFTA and other policies that would ensure the mobility and exploitation of labor from Mexico and other parts of Latin America.
We’ll let you come here and work (wink wink), we’ll let you pay taxes, and if you use a taxpayer ID to pay federal taxes it might even help you to become a citizen (wink wink), we’ll let you fight in Iraq (wink wink), we’ll let you pay into social security (wink wink), and we’ll let you be a cheap source of labor that also functions as a built-in scapegoat that distracts Americans from the war in Iraq and high gas prices.
But don’t you dare mess up our game and
demand the same rights as everybody else!
I don’t believe anyone in this human rights struggle is attempting to equate the sins of African slavery with the opppression faced by non-white immigrants in the U.S. today. Clearly the African slave trade and the Civil Rights Movement are singularly immoral stains on the fabric of America specifically, and on mankind in general.
That being said, it is not accurate to suggest that there is no relationship between the two struggles either.
The struggle of undocumented immigrants today is the moral equivalent of African slavery and the Civil Rights struggle in the respect that both are struggles of the poor and powerless against the powerful and rich. Is it mere coincidence that all of these struggles feature white hegemonic power structures against non-white impoverished people?
Not quite. You see, all of these examples of oppression I’ve just mentioned are cut from the same shameful and immoral cloth. The circumstances may be different but the net result is the same:
Servitude, oppression, and the loss of our humanity.
The attempt to draw a distinction between these sins is dishonest and is designed to fracture a
coalition among people of all backgrounds.
The distinction between the Civil Rights Movement and this Human Rights Movement is a distinction without a difference.
Don’t fall for it. Their aims are the same, Hate and Power, all they’ve done is simply move on to a set of fresh faces.
In their eyes both indigenous immigrants and blacks before the Civil Rights Movement are equally deserving of their lot in life: servitude.
April 16th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
“They aren’t asserting a right of residence just because they can due to border proximity.”
If that’s true, how come millions of impoverished Africans aren’t coming to work at the bottom end of the U.S. labor market via illegal immigration ?
April 17th, 2006 at 10:12 am
Julie
It is so simplistic to view history through your own veil of prejudice.
The desire to gain power and enrich oneself on the sweat of others is not a white-only club. History is rife with examples of people of all colors, and ethnicity who have oppressed, pillaged, raped, suppressed and murdered. You only choose to point your finger at those who fit into your ideology. You then build your argument for unchecked immigration on that ideology. If anyone dares to disagree with your paradigm, you charge them with siding with oppression.
Many posters on Marc’s site have demonstrated their concerns with the complexities of this situation, and you choose to bring it back to racism. Add clichés like “Work Americans don’t want to do” and “people living in the shadows” and you could write speeches for the current administration.
April 17th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Nowhere have I ever said that I am for “unchecked immigration.”
What I oppose is exploitation and scapegoating. If the government and business want labor from Latin America, and they obviously do, then they need to let these people come here legally so that they have the same rights as everybody else. The immigrants who are already here, working and paying taxes, should be legalized. For some reason, this is considered a radical idea.
And I am not looking at anything through a “veil of prejudice.” For that I would have to listen to right wing talk radio or watch Lou Dobbs as he says “illegal alien” every 15 seconds while showing footage of brown people from Mexico and Central America. As I said in a previous post, they are human beings who are native to the Americas. No human is an “alien.†It’s sad that I should even have to say that at all.
If this were really just a story about illegal immigration, the media would show the issue in its entirety. Illegal immigrants come from all over the world. The marches on the east coast included illegal immigrants from Europe, Asia and Africa.
April 17th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
You’re right they should come here, with rights like everybody else — there’s a process for that, it’s called legal immigration. But if that happens then they will no longer be valuable to the businesses. The only way to keep them exploited is to have them sneaking across the border, so that they have NO rights. These businesses do not exploit because they’re bigots, they exploit because they are greedy. They would exploit anyone who would be willing to take pennies instead of dollars.
I don’t watch Lou Dobbs, but I’ve seen him as a guest on other programs. I don’t remember him saying that he blamed the immigrant, I thought he was decrying illegal immigration — the system, or lack thereof. Do you actually think he’s ranting because he doesn’t like people with brown skin? Obviously, you’ve made a careful analysis of his motives. I don’t know.
You want to stop exploitation of oppressed people? Stop the flow of people who beg to be exploited, who replace people who stand up for their rights. Aim your anger at the governments of Mexico, El Salvador, etc. Cesar Chavez worked his entire life to bring dignity to the workers in the fields. He was against illegal immigration.
The news story is about immigration across the southern border because infrastructure is breaking down in southern border states. The numbers are far greater.
You say “Nowhere have I ever said that I am for “unchecked immigration.†So what’s your solution. Because I absolutely agree with you that people should not be exploited, nor scapegoated.
April 17th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
All things considered, I am in agreement with reg and others regarding the guest worker provision. My fear is that an eventual bill will be signed into law which only yields that and nothing else.
April 19th, 2006 at 11:10 pm
“A great one-liner I picked up today from one of my colleagues at USC. “This whole illegal immigration problem could have been avoided from the beginning,” he said. “If only the guys who drew up the border had placed it closer to Oregon.”"
BS! Mexico would still be as intentionally poorly governed today, with social stability valued over any sort of economic opportunity. The marches would just be in Portland and Seattle rather that LA.
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