Trying to explain to anti-immigrant factions that America is a nation of immigrants is somewhat akin to teaching calculus to a kangaroo. That is, it's impossible. Immigrants, of course, are people of color. They are subversive, usually poor, and almost always equipped with guns, drugs, or at the very least a nefarious plan to destroy the social fabric of our nation. The immigrants who first showed up on America's shores hundreds of years ago were none of those things. Well, maybe some. They were white and relatively wealthy, and there was no nation for them to subvert save the British monarchy. But they did have guns and nefarious plans to eliminate Native Americans and steal their lands. There are at least some similarities.
The more realistic similarity between yesteryear's immigrants and today's is that most of them are simply looking for a better life and a better opportunity. Many of today's immigrants are fleeing oppression just as the first European settlers did. Many are looking for jobs just as successive waves of immigrants have been over the 250 years of our nation's history. There are always going to be the bad apples, but of the 11 million people living in America's shadows, how many do we truly believe are rending our culture, subverting our laws, and leading to the destruction of our society? Have we really convinced ourselves that these people illegally enter America, risking their livelihoods and in some cases their lives because they hate this place and came to destroy it? Are they all bad people because they broke the law of a country of which they are not even residents, let alone citizens? There is no unclaimed land for these people to make their own as there was centuries ago, and Mars remains out of reach. America seems a very natural - and in my opinion - inviting place for these people to call home.
Of course, my opinion stands in stark contrast to the neo-Nativist movement, comprised of predominantly fringe right wingers who have somehow managed to make the term amnesty a negative one, and who seem to believe that illegal immigrants are the scourge of the Earth. Most of this is rooted in racism and bigotry, though the people who espouse these ideals will find slightly more opaque veneers to gloss over this criticism.
The real truth is that there isn't a valid argument for not reforming our immigration system, a system that we might generously describe as being broken. The other real truth is that whether we revamp immigration laws or not, immigrants are coming. Our founding fathers wanted freedom and opportunity so much that they waged war against the world's most powerful empire. Do we really think a fence along the Mexican border is going keep people out? Even that comparison trivializes the issue. People hear immigration and think Mexico as though that is the only country from which people emigrate to America. But the bigger picture is of course much more complex, and is intricately interwoven with a multitude of other issues. Fixing our immigration system will bring economic benefits and likely social and political stability as well as a bigger fence along the Mexican border, a path to citizenship for our shadow dwellers, and the ability to retain intelligent people from all over the world who have come here for an education and often want to stay but cannot.
A good immigration bill has already made its way through the Senate but is held up in the House of Representatives, where progress goes to die. My glee at the political suicide being committed by Republicans is more than offset by my sorrow about how these men (and the handful of women alongside them) seem to want America to move backwards. I'd love a better Republican party, but I have come to the conclusion that they will implode before they can move forward, so while I yearn for the day that Republicans can bring ideas to the table, I'll try to smile about the fact that the immigrants are coming no matter what Republicans do, and in the meantime they've probably just ceded their political fortunes for the foreseeable future.
No comments:
Post a Comment