Manifesto

[getthefacts]

for Immigration Reform


*** I welcome your opinion, no matter on what side of this debate you are. Please share. BTW, save the "cookie-cutter" comments like 'advocating for open border', 'what part of illegal don't you understand, etc. Thank you ***


Immigration Reform is one of the most divisive debates in our nation today and xenophobic sentiment, fueled by an ailing economy, is at an all time high. But the backlash against immigrants, in legal status or not, is not new in our nation’s history and its causes are not economical, as people today may claim.

In truth, the only underlying cause for this behavior is the same that led us to devastate our Native American tribes; that led us to condone the enslavement of people based on the color of their skin; that kept women as a sub-citizen for centuries. Is that same condition which still reprimands sexual feelings and sexual orientation, which pitches neighbor against neighbor because of their different beliefs, nation against nation because, somehow, one’s successes have become incomprehensively dependent on someone else’s failure. We call this underlying cause fear and because of fear, this nation is turning its back on itself.

America is moving away from its own core values whereby all men are created equal, whereby all men are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These same values have brought immigrants to our shores in centuries past and keep bringing them in today. But how do we reconcile this ideal of equality amongst ourselves with the state of the millions of undocumented living in our society today? How did the signers of the Declaration reconcile the substance of that document with the reality of slavery at the time it was written? They didn’t. They chose to ignore the problem. Likewise, leaders in this country have been ignoring social reform of our immigration laws and the reality of our immigrant population.

In the absence of the rule of law, human passions will undoubtedly find refuge in fear. People who aren’t lead in the right direction, will very likely steer in the wrong direction. How many undocumented women in labor will we have to tie to their hospital beds before we understand that this is not the right path for America? How many American born children will be left in schools because their parents were arrested during an immigration raid? How many immigrants have to fear, or become a victim of a hate crime, before we address the issue? Are we waiting for a new generation of “strange fruits” hanging from trees before we decide to act?

This fear of incorporating new cultures is not a novelty. Fear brought about the Nineteenth Century Chinese Exclusion Act, fear created an Immigration Act that allowed only for “free white persons” to become citizens until very recent in our nation’s history. the one It was fear that allowed for a provision in the law banning immigration of individuals who are HIV-positive and fear is keeping us from reforming a system that is crippling this nation’s heritage and future. The times of ‘Irish Need Not Apply’ deserve no place in modern American society. Neither does the fear that America will cease to exist if when we incorporate new cultures.

Many will always use the argument that once a person broke the law, being such a person in the country illegally, he or she needs punishment in the form of automatic deportation, regardless of having established roots in this society. But is the law always right? Were the Jews aboard the ‘Exodus 1947’ wrong when they tried to “illegally” enter British controlled Palestine? Would someone argue today that the system that kept married women as property under common law, her rights relinquished to that of her husband, was a sound law? Can one affirm that blacks pursuing their liberty on Northern States were acting illegally or that the Fugitive Act, which required citizens to assist in the capture of slaves in order to return them to their slave owners, was morally correct?

In America, we are not taught to assume that the laws on the books are always correct. Our revered Constitution was amended several times because we should be able to revisit unsound policy. That is why a legislature and a judicial system was put in place. That is why we need to turn fear and prejudices aside and muster the courage to debate this issue.

Today, opponents of immigration reform are pushing the argument that the country should be addressing issues like the suffering economy before deciding to give jobs to foreigners. This is a false choice, for the millions of people living without proper documents are already in the country working. They state that immigrants depress wages and flood the marketplace with cheap labor. If true, isn’t this is a great argument for reform? To bring people out of the shadows so that employers may not take advantage of them and so that employees are all playing by the same rules? Furthermore, the presence of immigrants, even those here without papers, is a true economic boost. After all, people here still have to eat, commute, pay for shelter and clothing, all activities that will benefit some industry and the country overall. The fact is that, for opponents of reform, there will never be a good time for reforming our immigration system, not in a good economy, not in a bad one.

Anti-reform advocates have pushed their agenda, by stating that they are against “illegals” only, perpetuating the myth that America has a great immigration system where anyone can enter legally if they fill the right forms and wait a reasonable period in line. The reality is that the laws on the book are outdated and do not reflect the needs of our economic engine. Arbitrary quotas in the employment-based system made it impossible for employers to fill the positions they needed with legal workers during the boom years. This created a black market of workers that kept coming in to fill the ranks of the American labor force. Long and unreasonable waits of a decade or more also plague the family-based system, making its goal of family unification completely useless. What does it say about our immigration policy when a foreign-born adult son of an American citizen has to wait 10-12 years to receive a permanent resident card, on top of an additional five years if he is pursuing citizenship?

There is also a myth that immigrants come here illegally because they want to exploit our resources. This myth states that undocumented immigrants have no commitment to our laws and thus no commitment to our society. Immigrants are portrayed living in ghettos, looking and dressing differently, making no effort to learn English or integrate into American culture. Stereotypes are plenty. There are indeed people who could not care less about American society, have no regards whatsoever to their neighbors. Some of them did cross the Mexican border; some of them flew in and overstayed their visa. Some where actually born and bred in American soil, for nationality is not a determinant of character.

Most undocumented are your neighbors, people who wake up early in the morning and kiss their families goodbye to work. They are sitting at our side on buses and trains, they are taking communion with us at church, they are coaching our kid’s soccer teams, they are active in our schools, they are serving our meals; they are helping us build this country, brick by brick, like every immigrant generation before them. And most of them don’t take America for granted. They know this is the place that has given them the opportunity that they did not find in the land they left behind. They work extra hard every morning because they have a sense of duty to their families and to this nation. Nobody will come this far to settle for failure. The immigrant story, throughout our history, is one of greatness and overachievement.

We carved it into our biggest symbol as to remember where we come from. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free”. Through the ages this issue has been challenging our social structure; it has been generating the fear of loosing privilege, the fear of moving into the unknown. But as James Baldwin once said, the rise of my brother does not mean the fall of another. Fear not abolishing these divisions for we are all human beings filled with the desire to create a better world for our children. This nation was built under the ideal of greatness and America will only rise stronger if we contemplate and solve this challenge like we solved others before.

Reforming our system means recognizing that we failed to implement a reasonable immigration policy. It means recognizing that we will benefit from fully welcoming undocumented migrants who have established themselves in our communities and are an indelible and vital part of our society. The system is broken and the American way demands one reasonable solution: let us fix the problem.