Think of all the things that can happen in 16 months. A lot. In non-political terms, it is almost enough time for two babies to be conceived and born. A year is long enough, there are full seasons for all sports. In one year I moved from NYC to WDC and back. It’s a long time and even longer when you know your political career is over after your current job and therefore have nothing to lose. It is even scarier when you didn’t care what people thought of you when you had an election pending but more so when you do not. I refer, of course, to Dick Cheney who has had nothing but disdain for the press and public opinion and many think he is the real power in the White House, I do not subscribe to that school of thought.
The good news is that the Democrats control Congress and maybe reign in the reckless George W. Bush et al. The second bit of good news is that maybe with nothing looming ahead – other than speaking engagements, he has publicly talked about how much money he will make doing those and referred to how much former President Clinton has been getting but he is a lot more popular and much better at it. Personally, I think Dubya may want to hold off and let people forget how much a mess he made before he hits the lecture circuit.
But with nothing but that to look forward to perhaps Dubya will actually work harder to get real immigration reform through. He claims it is one of his top priorities and is desperately needed. While there are a number of things that need fixing back home – health care, our reliance on fossil fuels, global warming, our real economic and national security – immigration is one subject upon which the President and many Democrats agree. While the GOP presidential candidates have traded barbs on who is more lenient to the illegals already have turned it into one of their top campaign issues, each one wants to appear the toughest on the subject despite past statements. The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR2007091801626.html) reported Mitt Romney had said something along the lines of “you cannot force 11 million people out of the country at gun point” and Rudy Giuliani has said something like “if you come here and work hard and happen to be undocumented, you are the kind of person we want here” (maybe he was reading the inscription on the Statue of Liberty where it asks the work for its ‘tired, huddled masses yearning to breath free.’ Both now claim to want to boot anyone not born here to leave answering the question, “Why do crazy fringe candidates run?” They run to move the debate in whatever direction they want. In this case, they seem to be taking their cues from Congressman Tom Tancredo (Colorado, http://www.teamtancredo.com/) whose web site has this:
“Illegal aliens threaten our economy and undermine our culture. While our brave soldiers risk their lives to protect us overseas, our political elites lack the courage to defend us at home. I am 100% opposed to amnesty. As President, I will secure our borders so illegal aliens do not come, and I will eliminate benefits and job prospects so they do not stay.”
This is something I do not say often, if ever, President Bush is right on this issue – not entirely but if he is sincere about his feelings on the subject, that it must be addressed now and that it would be cruel to separate families and send hardworking people back to either deplorable economic conditions or worse this Congress should do whatever it can to get real reform passed; THIS SESSION. The problem is that, like other important issues, it touches a nerve with a lot of people and that makes any changes hard to make so we ignore it. Groups like the “Minutemen” patrol the US/Mexico border to protect Americans from anyone crossing it. Irony there is most people who are here illegally came in a normal way and just stayed longer. Their goal (from their web site, http://www.minutemanhq.com/hq/ ) is:
“Mission: To secure United States borders and coastal boundaries against
unlawful and unauthorized entry of all individuals, contraband, and foreign military.”
This issue has dogged us since our nation was founded. I had read but can’t find a link about efforts to make English the official language back in the 1700’s in response to – get this – German immigrants. To be fair, there were languages here before English – the only real ‘non-immigrants’ are the native Americans, most of whom were killed by the European invaders (my family came over on the Mayflower so I can call them that, my family probably did some of it). Wikipedia has more information on all the languages spoken in this country here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_in_the_United_States. It’s amazing how many languages are spoken here. Oh and English wasn’t even the first European language spoken here, the Vikings and Spanish showed up before anyone went near Plymouth rock.
In my opinion, most anti-immigration arguments, like all those that preceded them racist at their heart. The first settlers did not come here to create some multi-ethnic and religious utopia, they just didn’t want King George to tell them how to worship. As we grew more people came and we expanded but even then problems arose as one group clashed with another. (PS some information came from http://www.rapidimmigration.com/usa/1_eng_immigration_history.html but most is just what I remember from my public school education and experience living in NY and San Francisco). As one group came and assimilated into the culture – not always peacefully – they did to newer arrivals, they basically hazed them. It seems to me that the process of becoming a US citizen was a lot like joining a fraternity. We look at parts of cities, such as Chinatown in NY and SF that weren’t started as tourist or culinary spots but ghettos. If you saw how many Chinese people were forced to live in the small area in SF you could not really think that was done by choice.
Now, if came to this country illegally the people who want you gone complain that you are taking jobs from ‘real Americans,’ you are here to get government benefits (you are ineligible for these benefits so if you came for that or are thinking about coming to get food stamps, you may want to reconsider), or are coming to just conduct nefarious acts. Clearly proponents of these points of view have never spent much time in the areas I have but that’s not the real point. These are all disingenuous because the real issue is the changing face of the US. It mirrors the changing face of our planet. People no longer live in the same place their entire lives and many – not all but many – do not care about the Europeans coming in, they don’t want a non-white US. (Note to them: we are already there, salsa has been more popular than ketchup for at least 10 years, a good thing because it is better for you).
So what do I think we should do? Any real effort to keep people out seems to fly in the face of our country’s proclaimed ‘mission statement,’ for lack of a better term. We are all immigrants and when we talk about why the US exists we claim it is to be a bastion of freedom of expression, thought and the ‘melting pot’ of the planet – isn’t that what I was taught in elementary school? Our society is supposed to be a classless one where hard work alone will give you access to the ‘American dream.’
But something has to be done. As arbitrary as it is, we need to set a time and let people who have been here, working and paying taxes and obeying the laws for that time stay here. A system by which those who want and deserve it can become legal citizens. Meanwhile we need to protect the border, as much to prevent terrorism but also hire enough Immigrations and Naturalization Services people to correctly process visas and enforce their limitations while making it possible for people fleeing political persecution to come here and be safe. Honestly, those are jobs Americans would do. Fences make good neighbors and all that but not when they stretch along our southern border. Talk about a ridiculous waste of money. I would not be surprised if someone wants to use that old ‘Star Wars’ program (conceived under Reagan to shoot down Soviet missiles but most reputable scientists thought it is/was a waste of money and resources so the neo-cons and other hawks were all over it) to target people coming in from the south. And a bigger threat to our jobs is outsourcing, I can’t think of a time when I called tech support and talked to someone in the US. And while we are talking about jobs, if people really think immigrants are taking all those CEO positions maybe they should crack down on companies that do not check the working papers of their employees. This is the one argument I understand; people come here to get jobs and make a better life for their families. The stereotype is they pick our produce, clean our homes and hotels and take care of our children and they probably do some of that but any job opportunity is the reason they either risk their lives, or as I said before, come over as tourists/students/whatever and just stay.
We have millions of people working and living here. They are in all states and most are not out breaking the law but contribute to our economy by paying taxes (at the very least they pay sales tax) and make our communities stronger they way those before them have. We have a strong and diverse country because of many things including the people who came here today or a hundred years ago.
As we head into the end of the Dubya presidency we should take advantage of this rare opportunity, make him use whatever political capital he has to work with Congress and create at least a small morsel of a decent legacy; real immigration reform.
PS. Another reason to hope this is how the White House spends its time because my sources have said war plans have already been drafted for Iran and with our military stretched to its limit, we cannot handle any more offensive action and this would be a bad idea even if that was not true. There may be plenty of time for Dubya to end this on a high note, there is just as much a chance for him and his friend over there to get caught up in their own rhetoric and do God knows what. They just forced a terrible FISA revision through Congress and could go that route and the possibilities are almost endless. It could be a bumpy ride.
AlysonChadwick.com 