"Illegal immigration." The term itself is politically loaded, with a stereotype attached: illegal immigrants are dirty, evil people who come to the United States from Mexico to make everyone speak Spanish and to steal jobs from hardworking Americans.
In this post and its sequels, I will generally use the term undocumented immigrant, not illegal alien. Although I have used "illegal immigrant" in the past, and fully understand its use in posts that touch on the issue, I avoid it in this post, which is intended as an overview of the subject. First of all, I find the term "undocumented" a lot less loaded, as I mentioned-- it gives the issue a bit of a clean slate. Second of all, "illegal immigrant" glosses over the legal complexities of the situation. While illegal presence in the US is not, in itself, a criminal act, certain manners of entry, as well as re-entry into the US after prior deportation, may be.
Disregarding the blatant racism and xenophobia involved in the rest of the "illegal alien" stereotype, let's take a look at the Mexico thing. It's true that, based on data from 2002, the majority of undocumented immigrants are Mexican (and that almost 1/4 are from other Latin American countries), but it may surprise some people to learn that, for instance, China also contributes-- and unlike Mexican immigrants, undocumented Chinese immigrants sometimes get hearings. For some reason, you don't hear as much of an uproar over the undocumented Canadian or European or Asian or other immigrants who make up 1/5 of undocumented immigration.
In some ways, the United States has a vested interest in making the path to citizenship difficult but not deporting or jailing undocumented immigrants; undocumented workers can actually help the economy. By giving fake social security numbers to employers, they are still subject to tax deductions for social security, but without amnesty they will never benefit-- which pumps a whole lot of money into the system. Of course, for the US to adopt the methods I mentioned would be ethically unsound, which is why amnesty and easing the path to citizenship (which also helps the US) is the way to go.
A crime committed in the United States is still a crime, regardless of the victim's documents. The Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause makes sure of that. But the threat of deportation is so strong that often crimes against undocumented immigrants go unreported. The Curvature writes about immigrant (especially undocumented) women and rape. Not only is it wrong that these people can't get justice, it's also dangerous; people who have shown themselves a danger by stealing, attacking, or even raping or murdering members of the undocumented community could just as easily do it again. To appeal to the United States' sense of self-interest, I'll rephrase: they could do it again to US citizens.
As Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos points out, amnesty for current immigrants without papers would help the economy by, among other things, increasing wages. The exploitation of undocumented workers means that their bosses can pay them below minimum wage and get away with it, threatening to have their workers deported otherwise. And that whole "stealing jobs" thing? Normalizing undocumented people would actually create jobs. Remember, when someone starts making more money, they have more money to spend. When they have more money to spend, they become bigger consumers. And then everyone is happy and has a big smiley face ^_____^ because their economy is being stimulated. The only people unhappy are those who have been exploiting the undocumented and paying them ridiculous salaries and making a huge profit. Unfortunately, money is power, and they've been making a lot of money, so they may have a fair amount of clout.
Children of undocumented immigrants who are born in the United States are legal citizens of the United States-- meaning that if parents are deported, the child may end up in the foster care system, or have his or her family torn apart. Even if their parents stay in the country, they are at a disadvantage compared to other children.
Let's look at solutions:
First of all, in situations where families have varying legal statuses, get those people documents. This is especially important for families with young children. Of course there will be a fear that people will have children to stay in the country, so this should only apply to people who already have kids, while we work on the rest of the immigration reform thing.
The only non-nativist argument I've heard people make against illegal immigration other than "They're taking our jobs!" (which I already addressed) is, "Why don't they just do it legally?" It seems, then, that a solution everyone would agree with would be making legal immigration easier. Besides, that will make it easier to keep tabs on people.
Is that going to happen? In Obama's State of the Union Address this year, he announced:
[W]e should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system -- to secure our borders and enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation.I hope Obama is sincere about fixing the broken immigration system. Someone needs to be.
Related links:
-Previous Starboard Broadside post on immigration reform
-Arlo Guthrie covering his father's song, Deportees (Plan Wreck at Los Gatos), a protest song about media coverage of a plane wreck in the 40s in which the vast majority of those who died were being deported (Woody Guthrie felt that they were treated as "just" deportees and not "real people").
-Undocumented immigrants: Facts and Figures
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