[migrawatch-public] Them Vs. Us in the Immigration Debate

COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
May 28, 2007
By ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ
THEM VS US IN THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE

Is anyone old enough to remember the expression: "Go Back to Africa?"
Can anyone remember when the lynchings of Blacks, Asians and the
hunting down of American Indians and Mexicans were commonplace? Does
anyone remember when Jews – during the time of the Holocaust – were
turned away at this nation's borders? How about the Chinese Exclusion
Act? Can anyone remember when the Irish, German and Italians were not
welcome here?

This country has had a long and sordid history of xenophobia and
scapegoat politics, which brings us to the current immigration debate.
Prior to it, I had not been aware that illegal aliens were the number
one threat to the security of the most powerful nation on earth and
the cause of the majority of the nation's many problems.

It's amazing how we are all easily manipulated and corralled. All we
seem to need is for someone to whip up the frenzy to permit the
immoral discrimination and segregation of human beings and to permit
the mass incarceration of Japanese American citizens or to conduct an
Operation Wetback to send Mexican American citizens "back to where
they came from." Not too long ago, it was George Wallace. Yesterday it
was Pat Buchanan. Today it is the Three Amigos: CNN's Lou Dobbs, and
Republican presidential hopefuls, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter.

And it is amazing the lengths that people who have been formerly
targeted by demagogues will go to, to prove their Americanism. They
seemingly scream the loudest when a new group has been targeted. One
can hear the catharsis – an incredible sigh of relief – when they are
able to point a finger at another group.

This time around, illegal aliens are the target. They can't fight back
or vote or even protest in public. And technically, they don't have a
face. All the vitriol can be hurled against them without feeling
guilty – just don't say the word Mexican and you can't be accused of
being a bigot. Besides, you have nothing against brown people, as long
as they're legal, educated, employed (just as long as the job is not
too good) and can speak English.

Perhaps this exam will help us to determine the actual answer as to
who is the cause of this nation's problems. Who is responsible for
U.S. policies that permit:

• the spending of more than $500 billion to wage an illegal and
immoral war?
• torture and the violation of the Geneva War Conventions?
• the elimination of Habeas Corpus?
• the illegal wiretapping of its own citizens?
• war profiteering by Haliburton and mercenary armies
(Blackwater) to flourish?
• the dismantling of affirmative action and the nation's civil
rights laws?
• a tax system that favors the super-rich?

Here are the choices: a) illegal aliens b) Arabs & Moslems c) Blacks
d) Mexicans e) Jews f) Gays & Lesbians g) liberals h) abortion-seeking
women i) American Indians

While all these groups have been intermittent favorites throughout
this nation's history, today, it seems that most Americans would
choose option "a." (This option has been a favorite since the 1700s).

This means that if the United States puts up a 2,000-mile wall along
the U.S.-Mexico border and if the 12 million nannies, busboys,
gardeners and maids were deported, the Iraqi war – which is expected
to skyrocket in costs to another $1.5 trillion – would immediately
come to a halt. If deported, the nation's skyrocketing gasoline prices
would begin to immediately reverse. In fact, the nation's dropout
crisis would also end overnight, enabling those who are remanded to
the worst jobs in society to instead compete for the nation's best
jobs.

Once these 12 million law-breakers are deported, no doubt this
administration would direct the EPA, the USDA, the FDA, the Federal
Trade Commission and the Labor Department to begin to enforce its
consumer protection and food, drug and worker safety laws. (Why
enforce them now when illegal aliens are making a mockery of our
nation's laws?)

While it's true that illegal aliens are overworked, overexploited,
highly overtaxed – and generally without human rights – we all know
that if deported, Congress would pass Universal Health Care overnight.
While it's also true that illegal aliens have for decades been pouring
billions of dollars into Social Security and into Unemployment
Insurance and Medicare, knowing full well they will never see a red
cent – their precipitous departure, along with their windfall tax
revenues – would also no doubt bring about their immediate solvency.

If these 12 million varmints (as John McCain refers to them) were
deported, it would solve the U.S. prison crisis overnight. A recent
study, by the Washington-based Immigration Policy Center, has found
that immigrants are much less likely to be imprisoned than U.S. born
residents of the same ethnicity. Another study, by the Public Policy
Institute of California, has shown that immigrants are more likely to
push up wages than depress them. Regardless, the departure of 12
million would no doubt make space for our own home-grown criminals,
and it would also no doubt compel U.S. corporations to immediately
institute a living wage for all workers. Right?

Truthfully, the primary party responsible for all of the above
problems is the Bush-Cheney administration. All else is diversion,
distraction and division. The urge to blame illegal aliens or anyone
else for the nation's problems is but the result of the
administration's politics of fear, hate and blame. They've unleashed
that dynamic and now, Americans have come to believe that their
rights, livelihood and happiness are dependant upon the denigration
and dehumanization of their fellow human beings.

Perhaps the demagoguery is limited to a loud and rancorous minority of
Republican ideologues; we do know that a majority of U.S. citizens
support a path to legalization for this nation's undocumented
immigrants and oppose a new bracero program. Neither do they want to
continue to divide up human beings into legal and illegal categories.
It doesn't have to be this way; a simple transnational labor agreement
can change all this, though the drawback is that workers and their
families would not lose their human rights, dignity or citizenship in
the process. Who would we then blame for the nation's problems?

(c) Column of the Americas 2007

Rodriguez can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com and at 608-238-3161 or
PO BOX 5093, Madison, WI 53705. The column is archived at:
hometown.aol.com/xcolumn/myhomepage/

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