The
immigrant “can sense that the United States is of two minds,” writes Hector
Tobar of the University of California in Our
Migrant Souls: A Meditation (Farrar, Straus, 2023). “Like the indentured
servants, the Poles, the Germans and the Chinese people of other centuries, she
knows there are factory owners and affluent families on the other side of the
fence or the ocean who really want her to make it across… She knows that she
has something that is prized on the other side.” At the same time the “walls,
barbed wire and restrictive immigration laws announce they hate her kind.”
A country by definition must have
borders. A phrase like open borders,
if taken literally, erases the existence of nation states. The trick is to
maintain an orderly system so that tourists, students, temporary workers,
immigrants and refugees can safely enter a country and by their labor,
knowledge and consumption they can contribute to their surroundings.
The current number of foreign-born
people living in our country is the highest it has been in about 100 years;
45million by one estimate, reports Idrees Kahloon in The New Yorker (6/12/23). Many are immigrants who have become full-fledged
legal U.S. citizens (about 970,000 within the past 12 months). Other
foreign-born residents are guest workers (in Silicon Valley, in hospitals, in
vineyards and on farms) and students (in technical fields, medical research and
business) and others are immigrant/refugees--those who are in the legal process
and those who have drifted into society without status.
The current influx actually began over
60 years ago when Congress changed its immigration limit and its general ban on
those from Asia, details Dexter Filkins, also writing in The New Yorker (6/19/23). Our society’s need for more skilled and
manual laborers attracts foreigners. More arrive under our policy of family
preference or chain migration by which one immigrant can assist family members.
Several factors push families toward the U.S., including drug violence, natural
disasters, a bad economy at home, oppressive politics, the profitable smuggling/trafficking
business (coyote cartels) and more.
Arrivals in the U.S., as Hector Tobar
describes, have always encountered nativism. Some current U.S. residents say
that their life would be better if immigrants were not unfairly given social
services. Some residents also say that their own ancestors had to learn English,
but that today’s arrivals don’t do so. They also say that new arrivals take
away jobs that longer-standing residents would like to have.
Data can counter these points, but the objections are not really about
what they are about. The concern about jobs, for example, is only valid for a
limited time in a specific place where “cheap labor can hold down wages for
some workers,” says Filkins. However, the demand for employees in our country
far exceeds the current supply. In the bigger picture immigration has no effect
on jobs or wages. It is employment sectors that set wage scales and it is free
trade and tax policies that send jobs overseas. Yet no one opposed to today’s immigrants
is persuaded by the facts.
Migrants and refugees crossing our
country’s southern border are resented more than well-educated technicians and
doctors and trades people arriving from Asia or Eastern Europe, though each
foreigner encounters nativism.
“Determining the exact number [of
refugees is] remarkably difficult,” Filkins explains. There are possibly
11million undocumented people in the U.S. today; not all of whom intend to stay
or will be allowed to stay. Even now our government does not know how many
migrants it has sent back. The legal process for entry is backlogged and
caught-up in conflicting court rulings. There are over two million pending
cases just for those who claim refugee status. They are legally entitled to
wait in the U.S. for a hearing on their case, but they have no right to a
public defender. The wait time for the initial hearing is now five years. If
the decision is unfavorable to the refugee, they can appeal. The wait time for
that appeal hearing is another five years.
Reform of our dysfunctional immigration/migration
system is, as any objective observer realizes, slow-going. A policy of
exclusion, Filkins explains, is impractical. No matter how big a wall is built,
people are not deterred from fleeing misery and staking their hope on our
beautiful country. Total exclusion also damages the U.S. economy plus betrays
the story of our country and it is inhumane. Three parts must come together simultaneously
for acceptable reform. 1.) Tougher boarder security. 2.) More funding for local
police in states like Texas and Arizona plus in cities that welcome migrants; more
social services and processing assistance; more immigration judges. 3.) Better
legal opportunities for immigrants, enforced fairly.
At the moment both Republican and
Democrat leaders tolerate the frustrating chaos because they can blame one
another. Additionally, Democrats and Republicans share the ambivalence of our
citizenry. They want more immigration because it bolsters U.S. productivity.
They want less immigration because more of it fuels resentment and politicians
get the blame.
A final consideration: No matter the
administrative chaos and the political muddle of the moment, there is an
ethical obligation to assist the immigrants/migrants among us. To be continued…
Droel serves the board of National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)
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