Some Thoughts on Immigration, Part 2
1. Immigrants have always been feared and scapegoated in America. As Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1753, of German immigrants,
[f]ew of their children in the country learn English . . . The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages . . . Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.
Sound familiar? Needless to say, the scapegoating is untrue. The vast majority of immigrants are decent, hardworking people. We hear often about immigrants committing crimes, but a recent study at the conservative Cato Institute on crime rates in Texas indicates that both undocumented and documented immigrants commit crime at far lower rates than native-born Americans.
Needless to say, conservative politicians who stand to benefit from the scapegoating of immigrants don’t let facts get in the way of achieving their goal: riling up their base. This is not unlike the long, rich tradition of political race-baiting in our country. As LBJ observed,
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
The dynamic works well for many business owners too, who profit from the way the immigration system is currently. After all, they get to have it both ways. They can fund conservative politicians, who get elected by sowing fear of immigrants. When the conservative politicians have power, they return the favor to the business owners who supported them by cutting taxes and regulations, but doing little to change the immigration situation (at least until Trump, for whom, as Adam Serwer has pointed out, “the cruelty is the point”).
The end result is that the business owners continue to get their immigrant workers, who have fewer rights and whom the owners can therefore exploit with less repercussion for work that no American citizen will do. They also get their tax and regulation cuts. If the conservative politicians were to actually follow through on their rhetoric and seriously crack down on immigrants, they know what would happen - prices would soar. That’s an untenable proposition for a party that claims to care about inflation.
2. Conservative politicians also get to have it both ways. They (rightly) say that Central American gangs like the MS-13 are ruthless killers, and then pretend not to understand why people in Central America flee their countries. Imagine what you would do if America were overrun by bloodthirsty gangs, who had effectively captured and co-opted the government at all levels, and were systematically kidnapping girls to be sex slaves, and conscripting boys to join their ranks, on pain of death. Would you choose to stay, paying the “war tax” to the gang member who came to your house each week, and hoping that your children weren’t abducted or killed? Or would you try to save your children?
3. America is at least partly responsible for many of the problems in Central America that cause people to come here. Our government toppled and interfered with democratically-elected governments there throughout the 20th century. We occupied Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933, then we supported the Contra guerillas who fought against the Nicaraguan government after the Sandinista Revolution in 1979. We endorsed a coup against the democratically-elected president of Guatemala in 1954. We invaded Panama in 1989 in order to depose their leader, Manuel Noriega, who had previously worked with the CIA.
American industries extract resources and destroy natural habitats in Central America without adequately compensating the people who do the work and on whose land the extraction and destruction occurs. Our lax gun laws allow for an “iron river” of firearms to flow from the United States to Central America and into the hands of the gangs there. The US population represents a huge market for the drug producers and sellers south of our border. And of course, the two large Central American gangs, the MS-13 and the Barrio 18 actually originated in California. They radicalized in prison there, then beginning in the 1990s, when mass deportation of immigrants with criminal records ramped up, they were sent back to Central America, where they grew into the force that exists today. To put it bluntly, over the past several decades, the US has destabilized, befouled, and plundered Central America, as we’ve also helped to create, arm, and fund the gangs there.
4. Since we’re at least partly responsible for many of the most intractable problems in Central America today, it’s our duty to help address them. For anti-immigrant Americans, helping to address Central America’s problems would have the added benefit of decreasing the numbers of people coming here since, as I’ve posited, more people around the world would choose to remain in their own countries, or at least return home seasonally, given a certain level of stability and opportunity there. So those who don’t want immigrants but also don’t want to take any measures to improve life in developing countries are hurting their own cause. But then, if there were no immigrants to demonize, conservative politicians would have a much harder time getting elected. And by the way, if you think there are a lot of refugees in the world right now, just wait until the effects of climate change really start to kick in. Bottom line: if you don’t want immigrants here, you should support American policies that help developing countries to offer a life of safety and opportunity to their citizens.
5. Many immigrants are conservative. They are often religious, with traditional values. They often aspire to serve in the armed forces or police. They usually don’t expect any form of government aid, even in dire circumstances. If they’re undocumented, and they work in the United States, they’re paying taxes into our system without being eligible for many of the benefits. Immigrants typically want to work hard and earn their way. I suspect that if given the option, many would vote in a conservative way, especially if conservatives weren’t openly hostile to them.
6. Immigrant children want to fit in here. They want to be as American as possible. They don’t want to stand out. They don’t want to be different. They often behave in a more stereotypically “American” way than many whose ancestors came hundreds of years ago. Think about how you felt as a teenager. When treated fairly and equally, immigrant children integrate seamlessly into American society. This happens quite readily. Americans who doubt it display an interesting lack of faith in the power of our country’s culture and values.
To sum up: the United States is a big, relatively sparsely populated country, with plenty of space for immigrants, who we need. Immigrants have always been the lifeblood of our country, and the vast majority of them are good people. Their experience is the American experience; their dream is the American Dream. Immigrants have always been scapegoated for the benefit of conservative politicians and business interests in America. Currently, people from Central America (and elsewhere) are reluctantly fleeing their homes due to brutal violence and dire poverty, much of which we as a people and a country had a hand in generating and exacerbating. Those abroad being persecuted due to their membership in certain groups have the statutory right under American law to petition for asylum at our border. This is logical, ethical, and ultimately beneficial to us. Since we bear some responsibility for the bad situation in Central America, we should help to fix it. The byproduct of our helping to fix it is that more people will remain in their own countries rather than move to the United States.