Immigration -- Illegal, of course....

As a relatively independent observer of American politics and immigration policies in that I am certainly as American as anyone else in this nation and I'm not personally affected by how many immigrants, legal or otherwise, this nation has, I feel quite free to express my unbiased opinion on this subject. I should mention that my ancestors were here well over one hundred years before the United States became a nation since they arrived here in the mid 1600's when we were yet an English colony.  

Over the couple of centuries our nation has existed, there have been many influxes of immigrants, legal and otherwise to help create the nation we now have. Peoples from all over the world, blacks from Africa, usually against their will, Chinese who helped build our western railroads, Germans and Russian Jews, and many other peoples, especially the Irish in the 1850's  who were starving after they lost their potato crops in Ireland and the English didn't attempt to help them. And then there were the indigenous folks called Indians who were incessantly forced at gun point west by American settlers who proclaimed that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian"! I heard this as a child in Montana where I lived across the river from a reservation, so we're not talking about ancient history!

We fought wars with Spain and then with Mexico to gain even more land, and even [reluctantly after three refusals] allowed the nation of Texas to join our confederacy of states. But we had nothing but disdain and contempt for the Indians of those lands we had acquired.

So when they cross the Mexican border because they are so impoverished in Mexico, despite their willingness to work hard at very menial jobs, we call them 'illegal immigrants' regardless of the fact that these lands which we stole from them were originally their homelands!

So, of course, we can pass all sorts of laws which justify their illegality, but we can't do so without proving to ourselves and the rest of the world that we are a merciless, greedy people who are only interested in our own welfare at everyone else's expense! ....after all, we are Americans and are certainly better than anyone else!  I'm sure the folks in Rome thought the same as they put Christians in the ring with the lions.

So, finally, there was this article in US News and World Report which prompted my reflections above.

A Divided Country
By Kira Zalan  [US News and World Report,  10-28-11]

For the second year in a row, a record number of illegal immigrants, nearly 400,000, have been deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Obama administration credits the expansion of its Secure Communities program, a law enforcement information-sharing tool. The Warren Institute at the University of California–Berkeley School of Law used government data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to analyze recent immigration enforcement statistics. The report’s lead author and director of immigration policy at the Warren Institute, Aarti Kohli, recently spoke with U.S. News about its findings, which include evidence of racial profiling, lack of due process in deportations, and the social implications of these trends.

What was the catalyst for this report?
Immigration enforcement programs in the interior of the United States have increased exponentially in the past decade. And we feel like these programs are understudied. There’s very little academic research on how they work, what the impacts are.

What did you find?
One of the most disturbing findings was that U.S. citizens were being arrested under the [Secure Communities] program. Approximately 3,600 U.S. citizens have been apprehended by ICE. We also found that almost 40 percent of the people identified for deportation programs have a U.S. citizen family member, either a spouse or a child.

Why is that important?
This is a really disturbing finding. Anecdotally, you hear a lot about family separations. I think for society at large it’s important to understand what are the future consequences of having these divided families. You report that a majority of those deported don’t have access to counsel. Is that legal? It is legal and what we call into question is not the legality of it but whether that comports with our system of justice and fairness. It’s very problematic that these people are being deported without due process of law.

Did you find evidence of racial profiling?
What we found was that Latinos are highly overrepresented in our samples. There have been other community groups who have raised this issue that perhaps some police are engaging in pretextual arrests because they know, once I get this person to the jail there will be an immigration check. So if an officer is interested in engaging in racial profiling, or targeting “illegals,” then this is a tool for that person.

What’s the problem with racial profiling?
We have more than 40 million lawfully residing Latinos in this country and they have dispersed demographically So you have new communities who have been exposed to a lot of rhetoric about immigration but may not understand all the realities and that a fair number of Latinos are actually lawfully residing here.

Is immigration politicized?
The reality is we have approximately 11 million undocumented people living in this country. Eighty percent of these people entered before the year 2000. Undocumented immigrants are an easy population for some politicians to demonize, but the reality is many of them have been and continue to be members of our society and have roots here.

Does this affect President Obama’s popularity among Latino voters?
I think the high number of deportations and this targeting of individuals at the local level is a real issue for the Latino community. There are a lot of questions about this strategy and its efficacy. So I think it’s a real issue for the administration.