Rant of the Week: Anti-immigration xenophobes

There is no other issue in Colorado that gets folks riled up like illegal immigration. It’s really quite astonishing. Coming from Idaho and living a short time in Massachusetts, I was not exposed to the great amount of xenophobia in America these days. I was called a “pro illegal immigrant advocate” the other day on the Denver Post forum. For what, expressing a realistic and effective immigration solution for America? The “anti-immigration” interests, if I may call them that, have several solutions to address this issue. Let’s take them one by one.

1. Build an impenetrable fence and aggressively arrest and deport all 12+ million illegal immigrants in America.

I find it quite enjoyable that the only Republican candidate with a semi-reasonable immigration policy is John McCain. This burns the xenophobes big time. This option is just plain infeasible. In a Republican primary debate (yes, I stitched to a few during commercials), Mitt Romney went on a “big wall and mass deportation” rampage, until the debate moderator asked “But is that really feasible?” Mitt stammered and stumbled around and conceded, “No.” But this is the still the only acceptable approach for most of the anti-immigration crowd. I never get a straight answer on how this “round them up and deport them” thing would work. The only thing I can think of is arresting everyone in America with a Latin last name and sort them out in holding camps. Maybe over the top, but how else are we supposed to deport 12+ million people, who mostly live in the shadows? Sadly, the concentration camp scene is fully acceptable to many anti-immigration nuts.

(If you’ve noticed, I’m not calling them anti-illegal immigration zealots. Every anti-immigration person will tell you “I’m not against immigration; I’m against illegal immigration.” This is surely true for some, but not all. They’ll tell you that, then they’ll speak out against issuing work visas and granting amnesty. Don’t buy it.)

2. We can stop illegal immigrants from coming to America by denying them services and perks. We should not be giving illegal immigrants free public education. Wal-Mart should quit “catering” to illegal immigrants by printing everything in Spanish. Illegal immigrants should not be issued drivers licenses. In fact, we support a recent ordinance in Texas that would forbid landlords from renting to illegal immigrants. And of course, we want our hospitals to deny treatment.

I love to picture Jose and Juan at the border with their gallon jugs of water, ready to cross.

“Hey Jose, did you hear?”
“What’s that man?”
“Wal-Mart isn’t going to print their signs in Spanish anymore”
“Oh no! What do we do now, Juan?”
“Fuck this! Let’s go back home and work for pennies so our families starve.”
“Okay, good idea. I can’t see how I could ever live without Wal-Mart printing stuff in Spanish.”

LOL! Immigrants don’t come to America for incentives. They come for jobs. You can strip away all the incentives you want, but until that job in America doesn’t pay 10 times more than it pays in Mexico, it doesn’t help one bit. To assume cutting off services will help the situation is not only a ludicrous notion, but would be damaging to America.

We’ve seen most of these immigration issues before, and we’ve become a stronger nation for it. I’m not saying today’s immigration isn’t different in some regards, because it is. However, immigrants of old were successful because their families eventually pulled themselves up to the middle class by their bootstraps. Why are we hamstringing today’s immigrants so they can’t do the same? There's a proven connection between poverty and crime. If poor illegal immigrants are committing too many crimes as some anti-immigration zealots contend, why do you want to deny them a place to live and schools to attend? How does creating a bunch of uneducated thugs living on the streets solve our immigration problems? That is counterproductive to our nation’s interests. Instead of providing them an opportunity to make a living without resorting to crime, they would force them in this direction. We need to think about creating an avenue to prosperity as part of our immigration policy, not removing it. We need to help uplift our immigrants, not push them down.

Of course, not everyone expressing concerns about illegal immigration are xenophobes. This is a serious issue that warrants action. We need to secure our border in the most efficient way. What about bringing our troops home from Iraq and having the National Guard help on the border? We need to hold employers accountable for hiring illegal immigrants. Of course, let’s deport the illegal immigrants that commit violent offences. We need a sound and well-regulated system for our farmers and industries to bring in immigrants on work visas. And finally, we need to create an avenue for the immigrants here currently to get residency. There, I said it! Amnesty amnesty amnesty! Excuse me—I think my neighbours are banging on my door with pitchforks…