I’ve been trying to find the words to express the crisis we are facing here in the American Southwest with regards to the failed Immigration policies of the United States. I hope to continue the conversation I started with my first BooTrib diary about the need for our elected officials to take a serious look at reform of our immigration system.
Regardless of how you feel about this issue, there is one underlying factor that cannot be ignored any longer–people are dying by the hundreds in the desert heat of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
More below the fold…
As I’ve mentioned in many comments here, President Bush has soured the debate on Immigration Reform by insisting that it’s a Homeland Security issue. By using his terrorism meme, this becomes solely about “Securing our Borders” rather than a full-fledged dialog on other issues such as economics and human rights.
Tom Barry, policy director of the International Relations Center, recently wrote this analysis, entitled, “The Immigration Debate: Whose Side Are You On?”. I recommend that you read the full thing, it’s very good.
The president has not retreated from his “them-versus-us” framing of international affairs. At home, restrictionist groups demanding a clampdown on legal and illegal immigration are framing the immigration debate in the same dualistic terms. They insist that U.S. political leaders tell the public whose side they are on–the side of pro-immigrant groups, or the side of the opponents of “mass immigration,” “open borders,” and “immigrant terrorists.”
The “whose side are you on” question about immigration is sparking political fires across the country–from U.S. border communities in southeastern Arizona, where citizen vigilantes proudly say they are protecting the “home front,” to the halls of Congress. An increasingly powerful caucus of Republican representatives is pushing to close the borders to the immigrants that stream across on a daily basis and to deport the 9 – 10 million unauthorized immigrants living within U.S. borders.
Anti-immigrant movements are, of course, nothing new in the United States. Campaigns against new immigrants have generally coincided with the business cycle, rising in intensity with economic slowdowns, declining in times of prosperity. There are two main corollaries to this rule. One, the U.S. public generally views immigrants with more or less hostility according to the color of their skin, their English-speaking abilities, and the degree to which their religions and cultures depart from Judeo-Christianity and what conservative Harvard scholar Samuel P. Huntington calls the “American Creed.”2 Two, in times of war, immigrants from nations in conflict with the United States are especially suspect.
Grassroots campaigns that blame immigrants for job losses and declining wage levels, as well as charges that fault the immigrant population for crime and public health crises, have coursed through U.S. history, ebbing and surging in response to economic and political circumstances. Certainly, the deepening sense of vulnerability experienced by many U.S. citizens today in the face of downsizing, outsourcing, stagnant wages, labor union decline, and the steady loss of medical and retirement benefits explains part of the rising anti-immigrant backlash.
But now, the restrictionist forces come to the public debate armed with a righteousness that goes beyond perceived economic threats from foreign workers. Immigration restrictionism is increasingly framed as key to homeland and cultural protection. Most of the allied anti-immigrant forces argue that the War on Terror cannot be successfully fought without gaining total control of U.S. borders, downsizing the resident immigrant population, and severely restricting new immigration.
This issue concerns me greatly for several reasons. First of all, I am a 7th generation Arizonan of Mexican descent. My family was in this area before the current border was in place. The same blood flows through my veins, through all our veins. Secondly, I work amongst the Latino activist organizations here in Tucson that are bastions of hard-core liberal Democrats. We are trying to fight for the human rights of these people but are increasingly frustrated by the lack of focus on this issue.
In May of 2005, Senators Ted Kennedy and John McCain introduced the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act (S.1033). While the bipartisanship signal sent was great, both Senators came under immediate fire from their party bases. It seems like there is one thing all people can agree to regarding immigration–to disagree. Why?
RubDMC provides our community with a daily reminder of the human rights crisis in Iraq. I hope you will all take the time to visit the Derechos Humanos website regularly to see the lives lost here in the United States. There may not be poetry, but it should still cut deep to the heart. These people are not criminals, they are immigrants seeking employment or residency to help bring themselves and their families a better life.
Probable hyperthermia; gunshot wound; multiple injuries due to motor vehicle accident; hypothermia due to exposure to the elements…
The crisis will continue as long as the debate remains stagnant. I hope to jump-start this dialog here. What are your thoughts?
The first picture is taken from near the Nogales, Sonora/Arizona border crossing.
The second is from the Paupers’ Field in Tucson, which is a section of the main cemetery designated for unnamed illegal immigrants. The plot has become full and the county is now starting to cremate remains. The full story is here, and deserves its own diary.
at The European Tribune.
Excellent diary. You social-justice-oriented folks in Tucson certainly have your work cut out for you what with the Minutemen running around down there. I hope that you’ll continue to let us folks further from La Linea know how we can help.
I heartily second the suggestion of the Derechos Humanos website. Another great source of information is John Annerino’s book Dead In Their Tracks, in which Annerino hikes through the Cabeza Prieta with a few migrants.
It’s hard to know about the ordeal these guys go through and not feel very different about eating dollar-a-head lettuce.
link. I also recommend seeing a screening of The Gatekeeper–regarding the border wall they built in San Diego County. As a result of the barrier, it has funneled the immigrants to remote desert areas of Arizona, causing a spike in the deaths.
We hosted the director here in Tucson last year and it was a powerful experience.
I know that wall. Environmentalists tried hard to block its building but were unsuccessful. 🙁
I read your diary and I just don’t know what to say, I have no answers to this question. I am very disturbed by the whole immigration policy, period.
As a California, we have this problem here, one of our employees from El Salvador had his son picked up in Arizona and is being held somewhere, don’t know all the details due to the language problem with him..
When you consider this area, Cal. was once part of Mexico and now they are kept out. Never made sense to me, but then most things this govnt. has done in the past an present do not make sense to me.
It seems when we had the vacero(sp) program there was not so many problems. Then we came to the point in Cal, where they said Americans want these jobs, they shut done the program and tried to get americans to work the fields and other jobs, and they wouldn’t…Just wouldn’t…So that argument blows air to me, Americans do not want the jobs the Mexicans hold here. So now it seems that we reverted back to using illegal aliens to do the work.
Solution, as I said I do not know, but the system we have is clearly not working any way you want to look at it.
BTW hi Man, haven’t talked to you much lately…How have you been…
bill is a good starting point for reform but I fear the mudslinging will only cause further delay and more death.
Sadly, the other co-sponsors are Reps. Kolbe and Flake, both Arizona Republicans. I wish our party would be more proactive on this issue.
PS, our business does not use illegals, I should add, our employees are all from ElSalvador, here on green cards, mostly seeking political asylum. We sponsored several to get Green cards, when an amnesty was called years past that did not punish those who were already here and allowed them on the road to citizenship.
The early ones came here the same way all immigrants have to, across the desert from Mexico after they make their way that far to cross over, later ones were able to fly here, not sure how that works..
These men have now worked for us for 20+ years for the longest and on down to the newest at about 3 years, all are related and are able to bring others here in time.
Fine men and women, for they have brought some of the wives up too. Very good and responsible employees.
Maybe I will elaborate on this issue more on the Euro Tribune site, but I recently went to a very interesting 2 day conference in Geneva, Switzerland with 26 speakers, talking about immigration, refugees and asylum seekers…a LOT of information and new points of view. But what really struck was the idea that immigration is really about economic justice. Why wouldn’t a person in Mexico, for example, who makes $5.00 a day, want to come to the US and make $5-$6 an hour, which is still low, but 8x the daily amount they were making. And billions of dollars are being sent back to home countries from workers in host countries each year…again, case in point, Mexico…one worker in the US is feeding whole familes back in Mexico. For 500 years Europe was an emigrant “factory” of the world…people leaving in search of prosperity elsewhere. And America is a land founded by immigrants, and immigrants have always been new blood for America. Now people want to stop this, because immigrants supposedly are going to take our jobs, etc? We have to look at economic and social justice as an issue to address internationally, so people don’t have to go somewhere else to better their lives. But people shouldn’t be blamed for wanting to do just that…have a better life, economically and socially.
Exactly. There is a lot of assigning of blame and criminality to people seeking a better life even on the left (which I find appalling). Possibly framing the entire issue in social justice terms might have a better effect, but there is so much dehumanizing and ranting about jobs and medical care and all that that I think sometimes people forget their basic humanity. Or something.
is our white European collective history. White European is also where this issue breaks down. We have competing needs and competing bias on immigration, and need to break down each aspect to limit the “mush”.
I support immigration. It’s healthy and inevitable.
I support border security which is another issue entirely.
I support a living wage. Corporate exploitation is and will always be just that.
The biggest issue is for us should be corporate exploitation. Corporations should not be allowed to take the benefit and transfer the risk to the public ( Wal-Mart). That risk includes the cost of basic infrastructure (water, power, roads), health care, education, human services, environment…
To stay on the same course enriches corporations and the wealthiest Americans at the expense of workers and public good.
Most people don’t want to completely eliminate immigration. The problem is unrestrained immigration, and our lack of management of the current restrictions, which results in a very large undocumented community.
If so many people living in Mexico are so anxious to become citizens of the U.S., then why don’t they petition their state to leave Mexico and join the U.S.?
Seriously, what is the point of keeping the state of, say, Sonora in Mexico?
is a beautiful state with a rich history. It used to be a lot bigger but the U.S. bought off a good chunk of it with the Gadsden Purchase and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
You come at this issue with a clear sense of nationalism on the U.S. side. There is just as strong of a feeling on the other side of the border amongst Mexicans. Manifest Destiny didn’t just affect Native Americans, it also resulted in the cutting of Mexico’s territory by half its size. Why just Sonora? Let’s also claim Sinaloa and Baja California too while we’re at it. (sarcasm)
To prove a point that this is economically driven, why isn’t there much screaming about the Canadian border being fortified the same way as the Mexico border?
Well I wouldn’t suggest that the U.S. should “claim” Sonora (or any other state).
Obviously the reason that there’s no “screaming” about the Canadian border is that most Canadians are happy with Canada, and don’t want to come down here.
Just for calibration, it’s estimated that there are about 10 million Mexican natives living permanently in the U.S., about half undocumented.
http://www.mexidata.info/id350.html
The entire population of Mexico is just over 100 million, so around 5% of the ENTIRE POPULATION OF MEXICO is living in undocumented status in the U.S.
That’s a big problem.
what you would define as a problem. If the 5% of Mexicans you referenced were to return all-at-once the agriculture and hospitality industries in the American Southwest would collapse, causing a huge economic problem here in the U.S. There are also national implications with the immediate loss of Social Security and Medicare remittances–a vast majority of them still pay taxes even though they are undocumented.
That would be the problem, in my opinion.
Out of curiosity, what part of the U.S. do you live?
I live in the southwest, although I’m not sure exactly what that has to do with it. The northeast, for example, has related–although smaller–problems with undocumented European immigrants. For example, there are an estimated 5000 illegal Irish workers in Boston.
The problem is obvious, as you suggest: In order to provide the benefits of citizenship, immigration needs to be done on a legal basis. That’s not happening.
The reason I ask is because environment has a lot to do with how we view issues. I lived for a few years in Oklahoma; the immigration debate will have different focuses in a place like that than in Tucson.
So how does the policy move forward? (this is to everyone)
In my opinion, the McCain-Kennedy bill is a great starting point, but there is such a huge negative reaction to any talk of an amnesty program that we are getting nowhere.
So thoughts?
I don’t think you can make that economic argument. Undocumented contributions on minimum or less than minimum wages to Social Security and Medicare do not balance the cost of health care and education, let alone the cost of public services. An expanding population means expanding public services and greater demand on existing resources.
If the 5% of undocumented workers left, the agriculture and hospitality industries would not collapse. They would be forced to increase wages and prices. Increased wages translates into increased buying power and increased contributions through taxes.
The economic argument benefits the corporations who are more than willing to exploit labor. Low wages and few rights. A fair trade? No. Not only is it unfair to the labor being exploited, it’s unfair to the existing labor pool and the public who pays for the increased cost of services.
The goal is not to keep people out, it’s to bring them in. I believe it is much better to vastly improve legal immigration. We want citizens, full participants in this big democracy, not workers with less than the rights of other workers. For workers from any region who want to work but not become citizens, we should have healthy work visa policies. Why not let the democracy work through inclusion rather than exclusion?
because the Canadians for the most part don’t have brown skin.
Trusth is stranger than… PDF
Seems there a lots of illegal Candians here in the U.S.- and unlike most Latin American immigrants- Canadian illegals do take white collar jobs.
has a story regarding the 2005 World Migration Report, highlighting the remittance issue.
I wrote a little piece on global remittances a while ago, admittedly from the U.K. context. FWIW, it’s here
I missed that diary. Londonbear posted a comment at Eurotrib with a great perspective on EU policies. It was fascinating.
Great diary, Man Eegee. And thanks for the Derechos Humanos website, I’m glad someone is keeping a public record of those who are dying in the desert.
I know at one time various groups in AZ and CA (and possiblly other border places) were going out and trying to place water bottles and such along the routes, but that is a pretty iffy process. We really need solutions to at least that problem, but I don’t know what they would be not knowing a thing about the desert.
This is a good discussion to have though, because in all the disagreements about immigration and ‘illegal’ people and so on, we must find some common ground on acknowledging that no matter what label one wishes to apply to them, these are human beings with lives and loves and hopes, and they don’t deserve to just die in the desert because of a label.
is another organization that is trying to help lower the death rate of desert crossers. They’ve received media attention for their water stations. Some fire has been drawn because people say it encourages people to cross. That is a lie.
Many times coyotes, or traffickers, give out false information to their charges and in a lot cases these people think they will find a city or town within an hour or two of walking from the border. In the Tohono O’odham Nation, where a large percentage of deaths occur, they could be walking for days without encountering a village. (that link is to a map)
Here’s more info on Humane Borders. They are one example of true Christianity in action–not the divisive stuff we are seeing from the radical right.
Thanks for this. This is an area I need to read up on more, obviously, but I’m very happy to hear about these groups.
thank you for this diary, Man Egee!
Have you ever heard the song “Muddy Jesus” by Ian Moore? It is one of my all time favorites and was running though my head while I read your diary and the comments here.
I haven’t heard the song, but I’m looking it up. I’m always fascinated by music and art inspired by the borderlands. I hear Jesus swims across the Rio Grande?
Well, not all the way across….
Here are the lyrics:
Jesus lives in a ramshackle shack
with a fat New Orleans junkie
A charismatic cholo so
Some say he was born plain lucky
He’d cruize the streets of Jarez
in his low cut Eldorado
He had oil slick hands devine command
A brash and bold bravado
Chorus:
Mother Mary said your time has come
The river’s wide but can be fought and won
for the love of god and every man
Jesus cross the Rio Grande
Jesus fell in step with a group of high pwered federales
who sat him down and formed their plan through a haze of cold Tecates
Judas siad now Jeez I know you’re prone to walk on water
But if you swim downstream there’s a better chance that you’ll make it across the border
Chorus
Jesus made his run on a hot and humid Friday night
But his vision was blinded by the bright El Paso lights
A bullet struck him down before he reached freedoms land
The faithful they’re still waiting for the coming of their man
Ian Moore is an Austin boy and he is one of the greats, imho – this song is on his 1995 release called Modernday Folklore, I highly recommend it!
to check my posts?!?!?
lives=lived
cruize=cruise
Jares=Juarez
devine is actually pselled that was in the CD liner, so I’ll leave that
pwered=powered
Apologies!
The reason the United States and Mexico have such a delicate relationship, is because the land changeover is relatively new–around 150 years ago. Here’s a map showing the territories that were exchanged:
Source: Historicaldocuments.com
Important Events and Dates:
Texas annexed in 1845
Signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848
Gadsden Purchase, 1853
The link above the map provides more information on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Just throwing these things out there to generate discussion.
I hope you’ve studied American – and Canadian – history enough to know that that’s always been the case. The “we were here first (but not first first)” mentality is very strong in the northernly reaches of this continent, and always has been. Part of it is justified – flooding the labour market with a constantly-renewed stream of cheap labour is horrible economically.
The real issue here is one of economic, personal, and political opportunity. These people seek to come to America and Canada and Europe to find jobs (and, by extension, money) and personal and political freedoms that are denied to them in their home countries… Often largely because of the developed world’s foreign policies. We encourage these nations to maintain their massive wealth gap and to repress their citizens because it’s convenient for our massive corporations. Outsourcing is driven by the same potential difference, but seeks to exploit this cheap source of labour without actually giving it a chance to improve its situation. (And, thus, make itself less cheap)
The solution is not just more intelligent immigration policies, but more intelligent foreign policies. We need to address the inefficiencies in our own economic system (overreliance on cars and a hideously inefficient highway system, for example) and help these nations develop their own economies and improve the lives of their citizens.
Until corporations and small employers seeking to drive down wages by importing de facto indentured servants with no rights and no legal protections and no legal recourse…
Until NAFTA, GATT, and other such predatory and unbalanced “Free Trade” agreements are either scrapped and replaced, or modified heavily to explicitly incorporate and promote equal protection for workers and equal pay for equal work within and between partner nations (i.e for men and women, for different ethnicities, and for differrent nationalities)…
Until rot and corruption and oligarchical and predatory corporate influences on government here and abroad are curbed…perhaps kicked to the curb and stomped into submission is a better phrase…
Until the fundamental inequalities and crises that drive immigration from abroad to here, and pull/entice/conscript immigrants from there to here…
Are recognized and fought back, things will only get worse.
So-called “illegal immigration” is part and parcel of an implicit policy. It is a fundamental strategy that drives down wages, busts unions, and curbs workers’ power here in the US, and provides a social “safety valve” in other countries by allowing a virtual export of an underprivileged and desperate underclass that, if they remained at home, would be a very powerful and militant force for change.
Look at what is happening in Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia – that underclass, which is far less likely to emigrate to the US, is driving popular movements and replacing thugocracies with left-leaning (although flawed) popular governments.
Compare to what is NOT happening in Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and other places that DO have significant numbers of people “emigrating” (often with both their government’s and our corporation’s active or passive complicitly) to the US.
I have to think practically and personally to deal with my anger over this issue. Let’s see, do I have a right to keep out immigrants?
Sure, shouldn’t I be working to keep out those folks that aren’t like me?
Here’s one current example of the problem:
Moises Carranza-Reyes, a 29-year-old Mexican immigrant who remains in the United States illegally, has sued Park County, alleging that his seven-day stay in a filthy, overcrowded jail cell in Fairplay cost him his leg. His lawyers say county officials sacrificed their client’s constitutional rights in order to turn a profit.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3876674,00.html
Ignoring the question of whether someone here illegally has constitutional rights, and whether a seven day stay in jail is enough to cause his particular medical condition, and the $700,000 that the federal government paid towards his medical bill, the difficulty remains that he is here illegally and is thus in Limbo from a legal standpoint.
“His status is a problem at this point,” his lead attorney, Lloyd C. Kordick, said at the news conference.
(If you haven’t already, that is.)
The JULIAN SAMORA RESEARCH INSTITUTE “is committed to the generation, transmission, and application of knowledge to serve the needs of Latino communities in the Midwest. To this end, it has organized a number of publication initiatives to facilitate the timely dissemination of current research and information relevant to Latinos.” Looks like a wealth of info here, about immigration and other Latino issues.
I found it when I was looking for information about the meat-packing industry and immigration issues. This paper – IMMIGRATION AND THE CHANGING FACE OF RURAL AMERICA: FOCUS ON THE MIDWESTERN STATES – was extremely interesting, although, since it is almost 10 years old, I suspect that much has changed since then. Even so, it brings up many good points valuable to this discussion and is well worth reading.
over at the excellent diary On “The Immigration Crisis”, where do you stand? that duke1676 was inspired by this one to write.
The immigration question is one that most progressives – unless they have a personal stake in the issue for one reason or another – would prefer to not think about. It’s just too tough to figure out a good position on. Torture, optional wars – that’s easy – we’re agin ’em.
But not thinking about the hard, complicated issues to which there are no simple solutions won’t make them go away. Immigration will be an issue in future elections – always has been in America, always will be. The left needs to start now discussing and hammering out our ideas on this now.
and recommend duke’s diary!
and everyone who is interested in immigration issues. Los Braceros 1946-1964. Posted it over at duke’s diary already, but the history of the Bracero Program is so important that I wanted to make sure that anyone here who doesn’t go there, sees it. (Although, if you are here, you should definitely go there, too.)
And btw, I feel like I deserve some kind of gold star for resisting the lure of BooMan’s last night post and spending my morning on immigration. (If anyone is handing out gold stars.)
Here you go!