Immigration is not the issue: Open letter to radio talk show commentators
Dear [Radio Talk Show Host],
I heard you speaking on the radio and saying some things that are both irresponsible and also not true.
First, you talked about “illegals.” That is about as politically correct as referring to African-Americans with the ‘N’ word. The new standard, since the 1970s is “undocumented workers.” Many of the people who are targeted in the current immigration issue have the original DNA of this hemisphere. We do not need to refer to them as though they are criminals or ‘aliens’ from outer space.
Second, you refer to the young people marching in protest as ‘illegals’ who are told by some political agents to go out and demonstrate. Actually, most of the young protesters are likely US citizens who are acting on their own accord because they do not wish to see their parents, siblings, friends, and/or neighbors be transported in rail cars to faraway places; reminiscent of scenes out of Europe in the 1940s. If you say that would never happen here, then I say let us keep that option completely out of any new legislation.
Many persons who get their news and commentary from you think of you as a journalist and social, intellectual leader. I write this letter to encourage you to seek out other perspectives, particularly those from the Christian, social service, and humanitarian groups that oppose the current anti-immigrant movement and legislation. There is no ‘amnesty’ section in either the House of Representatives or the Senate versions (two very different bills), but there are many other draconian measures. The current anti-immigrant fever was primarily generated as a political wedge issue and you can see the stoking of the fire by referring back to a lineage of news reports as well as the GOP 2006 campaign agenda beginning last fall.
The issue also has the capacity to stimulate our reptilian responses to other human beings. Some people think that there are cultural and language purity issues at stake, and therefore we should purge immigrants of color from our lands. That alone would be an evil goal, as all good persons would agree. Others think that our national economic sustainability is at stake. Even if you think that is true (I do not), you should consult some rigorous studies and writings on the issue rather than just opine from your gut reactions.
Recall in the 1990s that radio talk shows were the primary provocative voices of the genocide in Rwanda. We are not there yet, but time will tell because this issue is generating some extraordinary, negative emotions in people. The Rwanda radio commentators sincerely believed that another people was infringing on their racial group’s social and economic wellbeing.
On planet earth, God’s abundance has assured that there is enough of the world’s resources to ensure that each and every one of us could survive and be fulfilled. The recent immigrants who have made it here have lost much of their future sustainability in a long history of unjust wars and invasions. Those geopolitical and cultural conflicts subsequently resulted in corrupt structures that continue to inhibit the fair distribution of resources in their societies. If our neighbors are hungry, and we build walls to shut them out in order to hoard a greater share of global resources, then ours is a lost society, spiritually, morally, and forever.
I believe that there is no immigration problem, except in our own minds and actions, because people who serve society with their labor also consume products and services, as well as support the common good with their labor and many years of paying taxes. The government can stem the flow of immigrants by simply doing what it does now coupled with a good neighbor policy toward the immigrants’ various countries of origin, without having to break up families in order to throw so many good persons into prison camps. Most “undocumented immigrants” are children and many have been here for most of their lives. To deport them to a sad, risky, and desperate humanitarian situation far away would harm them, but it would also change us as the people who let that happen. If you say that would never happen here, then I say let us keep that option completely out of any new legislation.
As good neighbors, we need to support international development and advancement, and stop supporting the foreign governments’ policies of corruption and hoarding that impoverishes their own citizens. These dysfunctional governments have caused many to migrate away from the land, culture, and people that they love. They would rather be “home,” if only they could make it. We need to get past this instinct that we in the U.S. are a separate section of humanity that is privileged and more deserving, and instead open our hearts and arms to those in need. If we help them to do that in their own lands, and not promote injustices, then most immigrants would not migrate in the first place.
To those who see immigration through a lens of terrorism and fear, and say “everything changed on 9-11,” I say this: As the world’s only superpower, we have the duty, responsibility, AND THE MEANS, to help the world transform into a more positive place. If we focus more on good neighbor policies, and less on a dominant and punishing posture, that would go a long way to solve the so-called “terrorist” issue — which I believe exists between our current administration idealogies and those of a few small pockets of faraway, right-wing religious extremists. Any terrorists who tried to sabotage our efforts to forge genuine good will — if truthful, consistent, and ambitious on our part — would have no support from the rest of the world’s populations and would eventually dissipate to relatively insignificant levels. Using the issue of terrorism in the present immigration debate is, I believe, simply a way to make eventual, massive human transport acceptable to the citizenry. The government can find better ways to inspect transported goods and continue to stop dangerous persons from entering the country through improved border inspections without criminalizing our friends, interning them in massive prison camps, or deporting them to inhumane conditions and destinations. If you say the latter would never happen, then I say let us keep that option completely out of any new legislation.
If the rest of the world watches us behave as though we U.S. citizens are a superior or more-deserving people, and immigrants be damned, then we will have set the example for a lot of suffering to take place in many countries to follow. It would also be violently wrong by any universal moral standard.
Below are some news, social service, and legislative link resources to help us advance in our personal, humanitarian and spiritual journeys regarding the rights of immigrants, and to possibly better understand this issue from other perspectives:
Positive Universe News — Immigration and Humanitarian Concerns www.positiveuniverse.com/ImmigrationandHumanitaria.html
American Civil Liberties Union: Immigrants’ Rights www.aclu.org/immigrants/index.html
American Friends Service Committee: Immigrants’ Rights www.afsc.org/immigrants-rights/default.htm
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles www.chirla.org/
National Immigrant Solidarity Network www.immigrantsolidarity.org/
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights www.nnirr.org/index.html
NNIR Resource Links www.nnirr.org/immigration/immigration_links.html
OneWorld US, DC: Organizers See ‘New Civil Rights Movement’ in Immigration Protests us.oneworld.net/article/view/129992/1/4536
Robert Scheer: There Is No Immigration Crisis www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/there-is-no-immigration-c_b_18080.html
S.2454– Securing America’s Borders Act (Senate version) thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.02454:
S.2454–GPO PDF Download Version frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:s2454pcs.txt.pdf
H.R.4437.RFS–Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (House version) thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.04437:
Joseph
Positive Universe Serving readers and writers in more than 110 countries worldwide www.positiveuniverse.com/ A Better World is Possible
March 30th, 2006 at 4:29 am
Joseph, what you say here is so universal and needs to be shouted from the roof-top! Along with so much to admire about the recent movement is the way non-violence is demonstrated–along with organizing, tenacity, aliveness, inter-generational harmony, willing help from some of the media, soul and so much else. We in the US and all the rest of the world need to take heed! Often I marvel at how the US military and governement has OFTEN NOT encouraged well-being and democracy in so many other places while pretending to do so here. (See the book -Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala- by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, 92 reprinted 99 Harvard, for just one classic standard.) Yet, when the US powers destroy and starve so many–what else is there to do for many but to try seek some manner of survival–sometimes here where the wealth/resources/labor from the original homelands have often come? Why are we surprised? When I have seen films that show US involvement in Latin America from early on and the violence, control, empire that came from that and still does, I get sick to my stomach! And feel terribly ashamed of this my country of birth. Now’s our window of non-violent opportunity to show that we care and will do our part to make amends and make life better for our neighbors. For how long if not now?
March 30th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
If one is not an Indigenous Native American, then one is an illegal immigrant. Lest it be forgotten by the kneejerk and reactionary, The continents of North AND South America were stolen and plundered by White European Conquerors. Genocide is the ethnic cleansing of all Native peoples and it matters not a whit what one might believe about the atrocity at present. Genocide is as the Native people die. Racism therefore is Lou Dobbs. Racism therefore is Bill Frist. Racism extreme therefore is Gayle Norton. One can put a pretty party dress on an Immigration Reform Bill however, it does not leave the racist pig ready to attend the humane prom.