A book, “The Christian Examiner,” warns that “ill-clad and destitute” immigrants are “repulsive to our habits and our tastes.” A former mayor of New York City cautions that they bring disease, “wretchedness and want” to America. And Harper’s Weekly despairs that these immigrants are “steeped in ignorance” and account for a disproportionate share of criminals.
Boy, those foreigners were threatening — back in the mid-1800s when those statements were made about Irish immigrants.
Once again, the United States is split by vitriolic debates about how to handle immigrants, following President Barack Obama’s executive action to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. To me, the outrage seems driven by three myths:
• Immigrants threaten our way of life. Many Americans see foreigners moving into their towns, see signs in Spanish, and fret about changes to the traditional fabric of society.
That’s an echo of the anxiety Theodore Roosevelt felt in 1918 when, referring to German and other non-Anglo European immigrants, he declared, “Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.” That’s an echo of the “yellow peril” scares about Chinese and Japanese immigrants.
• Immigrants today are different because they’re illegals. They’re parasites.
Look, people aren’t legal or illegal, behaviors are. If an investment banker is convicted of insider trading, he doesn’t become an illegal. So let’s refer not to “illegal immigrants” but to “undocumented immigrants.”
They have contributed $100 billion to Social Security over a decade without any intention of collecting benefits, thus shoring up the system, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration. At the state and local level, households headed by unauthorized immigrants paid another $11 billion in taxes in 2010 alone.
• Immigration reform is an unconstitutional power grab by a dictator.
Sen. Ted Cruz compared Obama’s executive action to the Catiline conspirators seeking to overthrow the Roman Republic. House Speaker John Boehner suggested that it was the action of an “emperor.”
It’s difficult for me to judge the legality of Obama’s executive action, because I’m not an expert on legal issues like prosecutorial discretion. But neither are critics furious at Obama. We have a broken, byzantine immigration system — anybody who deals with it is staggered by the chaos — because politicians are too craven to reform it. At least Obama is attempting to modernize it.
We need empathy, and humility. My father, a refugee from Eastern Europe, was preparing a fraudulent marriage to an American citizen as a route to this country when he was sponsored, making fraud unnecessary. My wife’s grandfather bought papers from another Chinese villager to be able to come to the United States.
So remember: What most defines the 11 million undocumented immigrants in America is not illegality but undaunted courage and ambition for a better life. What separates their families from most of ours is simply the passage of time — and the lottery of birth.
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