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Saturday, April 08, 2006On immigration, etc.Recently this page has taken a rather tough line on a) illegal immigration and b) the need for Mexico to get its own house in order or face the consequences, not use us as a pressure valve. On the other hand, this page has long railed against the excesses of the INS or the idea immigrants are bad. So, where do we stand? Roughly where we always have. To drag out, yet again, our "for shame" immigration story... Ten years ago or so, a young girl left France to teach at a small midwestern Christian college. She filled out her visa paperwork as best she knew how, noting that she was a teacher - per the university's recommendation. She then discovered she should have applied as a professor - the INS and 99.99% of academia have different distinctions between teacher and professor. When she filed an amended request for her visa renewal, she was deported for filing false statements - the statements she had a) sought to correct and b) had made a good faith effort in making in the first place. For the trouble of attempting to comply with U.S. immigration law, the young lady was arbitrarily deported by a bureaucrat who doubtless more in sorrow than anger had to enforce the laws of the country. Five years ago or so, on the other hand, a visa renewal request was approved and sent to Mohammed Atta. Months after he and 18 friends murdered 3000 people in cold blood in a series of suicide attacks. One year ago, a girl took a job in a Chinese restaurant in return for lousy wages and cheap rent in one of the restaurant owner's rental properties. She came here legally - student visa - but became illegal by working when a family member back home lost his job and could no longer support her. A few months later, she went further underground after leaving the restaurant - and thus, necessarily, the place where she rented - when working conditions at the restaurant became untenable. United States immigration policy today knows who the real threats are: people with jobs, people with improper paperwork, people whose lives failed to follow exactly the intended course. I'm quite certain that the ideological descendants of Mohammed Atta - people whose miserable lives and purposes don't vary - face fewer barriers in getting by here than the people we want here. As we consider amnesty, etc, what we need more than anything is to find our humanity and find some association with reality. Up to 9/11, life was a helluva lot easier for a wealthy Arab with no apparent purpose than for a migrant worker struggling to pay rent. Compliance efforts were plainly easier for Mohammed Atta than struggling students or aspiring educators. We need to get our heads out of our patooties long enough to look for immigration policy that finds a place for those working toward the American dream, rather than focusing on nativist "protect our jobs" idiocy that prefers visitors with no love of America and no intention of staying. Bottom line, the visa application for students and others needs to stop focusing on how soon you're leaving and who's going to pay for you and start focusing on the understanding that if you come, you pay your own way in return for basic social protections. If a Saudi wants to come here to learn to fly a plane, I don't care whether it's to park it in the Empire State Building or to shuttle his countrymen between Riyadh and Cairo. I see no reason for us to bust our humps to find a place for him. But if he wants to come here and start on the path to citizenship and assimilation, that's fine. Right now, our visa policy's a mess. And why? Because we invite in tons of people we don't really have a place for if it looks like there's a short term cash infusion involved. In the meantime, those who would come here to build lives invite the real suspicion, lest they clean a toilet for $6.75 that a white guy could make $12 cleaning. Those who are here illegally should, of course, either be deported or face a rough road getting accepted in. For those who say it's impossible, it's time for a "If they can put a man on the moon" speech. At the same time, though, we need to create conditions where coming here illegally isn't the logical course. We need to make life painful for government bureaucrats who block the paths of, rather than clearing the way for, those who make serious efforts at compliance. And missing those who just ignore the law is still more painful. We need a policy focused on letting in people who want to stay, not those who have agreed to leave. That way we can reduce the risk of the sort of occupation Europe is experiencing. We need, in short, to get back to a healthy bit of our mythology: It is time for an immigration policy that tosses out the salad metaphor and sends those who aren't committed to American - or at least thoroughly democratic and western - principles right after them. From there, we should get back to the melting pot and accept those most eager to assimilate into our society, making the American dream as universal as possible. This requires opening up our hearts and borders to those who want to come here and play by the rules at the same time that we crack down on illegals and take a good hard look at how much we should really be doing for those who want to come here, gather our knowledge and wealth and then leave with it for their own purposes and the purposes of their countries. 
posted by gbarto at 8:41 PM |
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