Immigration Ignoramouses

Full disclosure, in case you haven't read the the "About" section on the right-hand side of this blog, describing me:  my wife and I are immigration lawyers, who make our living primarily by helping immigrants navigate our unbelievably broken immigration system.  If you read the following and see bias, that's your privilege.  It also helps to identify you as part of the problem I'm about to describe.  Frankly, our occupations mean, if anything, that we know more about immigration as a political issue and a human nightmare than most Americans do.

Obviously, I'm motivated to write about immigration now in large part because of the incredibly vicious, disgustingly racist immigration law that Arizona recently enacted.  As most Americans know by now, the law allows the state's police to stop and interrogate anyone they "reasonably" suspect might be an illegal alien.  The law contains no guidance regarding the boundaries, for enforcement purposes, of "reasonable" suspicion.  But given the presence in Arizona of a large Hispanic population, combined with Arizona's notorious history when it comes to race (e.g., opposing the making of Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday), it's difficult to imagine Arizona police officers spending enormous amounts of time tracking down undocumented Canadians.  (I'm supposed to believe that they'll be staking out liquor stores in Phoenix or Tuscon, ready to grab the first person who walks out with a case of Molson's?  Please.)

It's tempting to fold a discussion of this disgusting law into the larger issue of the tea baggers, and their rank hypocrisy on the question of "big" government:  "Get it off our backs, so we can put it right on top of yours."  But I think it's been painfully obvious for some time that the tea baggers, and their fellow travelers in the political establishment, are about nothing but empowering themselves at the expense of everyone they hate.  I do think there is a connection between the law and the baggers' political ambitions, and I'm not alone in thinking that way.  What is more interesting to me, and more frightening, is the combination of ignorance and bigotry on the subject of immigration that threatens not merely our way of life, but our very character as a nation.

One example:  In the course of my work in Baltimore community theatre, I came across an ignoramus of an actor/director who referred to a Bank of America branch in the Fells Point area of the city as "the Bank of Mexico," because its customers were largely Hispanic.  Apparently, he's never been told that there are countries in Latin America other than Mexico.  Most of the Hispanic population he so cheerfully castigates are from Guatemala and El Salvador, and are in the U.S. lawfully under a law that gives them temporary protective status, complete with work authorization.  To paraphrase Jack Webb from one of my favorite "Dragnet" episodes, they're as legal as eating a hot dog at the ball game.

Another theatre-related example comes from last summer's League of Historic American Theatres' annual conference.  I was having a conversation with a British couple that comes to the conference every year in a tourist capacity.  Suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, a representative of one of the restoration companies barreled up to us and interrupted the conversation.  Ignoring me completely, he went off on a monologue/diatribe about how happy he was to welcome them to the United States, as opposed to the "invaders" from Mexico who were draining our resources day by day.  (Digression:  study after study has shown that immigrants, documented or not, contribute more in taxes than they receive in benefits.  But that's a subject for another post.)  This "gentleman" (I use the term advisedly) had no knowledge of whether the this couple had "papers," or of the fact that many of the "invaders" he refers to are not only documented, but also citizens.  What he knows is this:  the couple is white, and the "invaders" are brown.  FYI:  the couple was here lawfully, and are lovely people; I hated having them become a part of such a hateful moment.

Do you get the picture?  Immigration has replace affirmative action as the racial "wedge issue" of the 21st century.  This country's rich tradition of bigotry, in a world where money travels at the speed of light, prevents people from traveling at the speed of sludge (unless, of course, they're white).  In the process, at a time when our economy can use all the help we can get, we are effectively denying ourselves an enormous supply of human capital, much of which can and does fill jobs that even unemployed Americans won't fill.  Here is but one example; there are many, many more.

When it comes to immigration, ignorance is not bliss.  It is lethal, to both our pocket books and our souls.

I'll have more to say on this and other issues in the coming days.  I'm getting off to a late start in May, but I aim to catch up quickly!