Provisional
Truth |
Essays | January 31, 2007
Immigrant Nation
An
illegal immigration issue now absorbing more of our national
attention than necessary has its roots in all prior
migratory waves: the search for a better life. We now are
told, however, the United States, peopled mostly by
descendants of European immigrants searching for a better
life since the early 1600s, can no longer tolerate those
huddled masses yearning to breathe free, at least if they
originate from below our southern border.
A
hundred years ago, in the midst of an extraordinary wave of
immigration, former president Teddy Roosevelt led another
charge expounding the dangers of immigrants who did not
assimilate themselves to American language and culture,
demanding that entry to the U.S. would be “predicated upon
the person's becoming in every facet an American, and
nothing but an American.”
At
the time, especially after the 1914 outbreak of the World
War, Roosevelt and others were particularly concerned about
German immigrants maintaining allegiance to their
fatherland. He wanted America to be one nation, "not a
polyglot boarding house.”
This theme repeats itself in the first decade of the new
millennium. Of all the controversial issues surrounding
immigration, often cited by opponents is a perceived refusal
of immigrants to assimilate into “America the new homeland.”
Hence the rush to – again – pronounce English as our only
official language, eliminate educational instruction in
Spanish and other measures.
In
the last generation, however, in exchange for nicely
manicured lawns and clean offices and abundant fast food, we
collectively have turned a blind eye to the immigrants –
legal or otherwise, mostly from Mexico – who willingly have
filled these jobs. And in pretending they do not exist,
since they're not “Americans,” we have created exactly the
environment which has led these immigrants to retain an
identity with their former homeland, and which, conveniently, we
now count against them. Hey, there's a pizza chain in the
southwest now accepting payment and giving change in Mexican
pesos – it's too late.
Recently illegal immigration again has been attributed as
the cause of many serious problems in America. If we cut
through the hysteria of über-conservatives, themselves
descendants of immigrants, who Pat-Buchanan-like blame
everything from manufacturing job-loss to renewed
infestations of bed bugs (not kidding) on illegal
immigration, we should be alarmed instead by this
nationalistic, fault-finding rhetoric with pale undertones
of 1930s Germany.
The Jews of Germany were cast by Hitler as outsiders,
non-Arians who refused to assimilate into German customs and
culture because they saw themselves as Jews first, who were
taking away jobs from loyal Germans and, ultimately, who
were such to blame for all of that nation's problems that
extermination became a perverse final solution. That it was
all terrible, nonsensical oratory designed to amass
political power did nothing to prevent the murder of more
than six million people.
“History
doesn't repeat itself,” said Mark Twain, “but it rhymes.”
There never could be, of course, a “final solution” to
illegal immigration problems in America, but scarcely two
generations after the second World War, deportation of
millions of men, women and children, an often-voiced remedy,
would be a sinister, heartless parallel albeit without the
murders.
There are plenty of other equally unworkable options but
there will be no real action taken on the matter, chiefly
because, like flag burning and gay marriage, illegal
immigration is one of several hot-button issues cleverly
designed to distract us from other pressing problems faced
by this country, such as budget deficits, trade deficits,
foreign wars, social security and medicare solvency, voter
turnout and personal privacy, to name a few.
Among the current, unsatisfactory options under
consideration are the “good (2,000-mile) fences make good
neighbors” solution (thanks Robert Frost), militarizing our
southern border, illegal alien amnesty, “guest worker”
programs and, most improbably, deportation of millions of
people.
But as gangster Al Capone was brought down by conviction for
income tax evasion – not organized crime – so will our
southern border illegal immigration problem be more
effectively addressed by means other than a
multi-billion-dollar, high-tech surveillance fence and our
national guard.
The federal government could end most illegal immigration
within months, if it so chose, without a Great Wall of
America. If employers were required to validate social
security numbers and identity documents through real-time
databases and report violators who immediately would be
arrested, it would prevent most undocumented workers from
becoming gainfully employed, the entire object of the
illegal immigration experience. Enforcement of violations
with government oversight, monetary penalties and jail time
for business owners would frighten many business people into
compliance.
Such a system would move us closer, of course, to that Big
Brother society in the offing. We're nearly there anyway, so
maybe we should dispense with the formalities and just start
inserting the microchips in everyone. Get an official U.S.
microchip and the problem is solved. No microchip, no life
in America. When every citizen has a microchip only illegals
and evildoers will not. Welcome to America, amigo, the
national security state.
In
reality, the government knows it would create a brutal
economic recession if businesses suddenly would be forced to
fire their undocumented workers and to increase wages to
attract real American employees to do “the jobs that not
even blacks want to do,” as former Mexican president Vicente
Fox so reprehensibly observed last year.
Massive dismissals of currently employed illegal immigrants
also would create an instant criminal class of unemployable,
hungry, homeless, desperate men and women who could create
all kinds of mischief and mayhem and who would overwhelm our justice
system and prisons as they awaited extradition.
A
more practical solution: continue our 400-year tradition and
let them in - all of them, legally, from anywhere – as they
only desire to have a better life. The America that was
founded in 1776 stood exactly for that – the pursuit of
life, liberty and happiness. Our immigrant-Founders would be
ashamed to know that in 2007 many of its citizens, all
descended from immigrants except Native Americans, no longer
feel the same.
And, in the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt, we must pledge to
help immigrants “in every facet become an American.” Come to
think of it, many Americans by birth, who don't vote and
would know only a few of the answers to questions on our
citizenship test, may need the same help.
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