Chasing the Mexicans
Here's an item published in The Olympian on Saturday. It seems if one group sponsors a forum to help immigrants understand their legal rights and then the government conducts a raid, it might hold attendance down a wee bit:
The "debate" on immigration is broken, with sensationalists like Lou Dobbs simply stirring up anger and resentment in pursuit of ratings.
Meanwhile, the quality work of an actual journalist who covers immigration, Sonia Nazario* of the Los Angeles Times, receives comparatively scant attention. Her 2006 book Enrique's Journey illustrates the tremendous odds and hardships often faced by immigrants, and you would think Americans would muster up just a tad of compassion for women and children who face such dire situations. From the publisher's web site:
There are, naturally, practical problems that come with an influx of newcomers, including but not limited to language barriers, social problems and (gasp!) even crime, which should be properly viewed as a result of poverty rather than ethnicity. But we've successfully dealt with immigration before in this country, even those crazy Irishmen (he said, thoughtfully stroking his red beard while sipping a delicious Guinness early one morning.)
It's really hard to see the current climate on immigration as anything but another conservative hate-fest. I suppose next year they'll move on to another group their base can hate on.
Why Republicans tend to be such insecure, frightened bedwetters about everything is beyond me. This is a great, strong, wonderful country. We can handle people who speak Spanish and even people who peacefully pray to Allah, if we would just calm down a little and deal with things in a practical matter. Who knows, we might even benefit and learn things from people who come from other countries.
People still want to come here because, despite the last six and a half years, this is still the land of opportunity. The vast majority of them want to raise their families and enjoy a secure existence, just like our forefathers. At the point where the term "border security" becomes a euphemism for "chase and harass the Mexicans because it's good politics," we have a serious problem on our hands.
Remember, War on Terror! War on Terror! War on Terror! How stupid is it to divert scarce resources to go on a Lou Dobbs immigration jihad?
Last time I checked al-Qaeda doesn't have any training camps in Sonora.
* Blogger Ethics Disclosure -- I have never met Sonia Nazario, but I am familiar with her work because I knew one of her siblings at a university in the Midwest. I'm a fan of her work.
SHELTON — Organizers had expected about 75 Latino residents to turn out during a daylong forum about their legal rights in the United States.It's not actually clear that the raid was deliberately conducted that morning to mess with the forum, but according to The Olympian article, the head of the Washington State Commission on Hispanic Affairs is asking our two U.S. senators to investigate the raid.
Two of the three who did attend were told by others that they were crazy for doing so. The third said she only showed up because she recognized two lawyers on hand who had represented her in the past.
Anxiety is high in the area’s Latino community after agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took 16 undocumented immigrants into federal custody during a Thursday morning raid in Shelton.
The "debate" on immigration is broken, with sensationalists like Lou Dobbs simply stirring up anger and resentment in pursuit of ratings.
Meanwhile, the quality work of an actual journalist who covers immigration, Sonia Nazario* of the Los Angeles Times, receives comparatively scant attention. Her 2006 book Enrique's Journey illustrates the tremendous odds and hardships often faced by immigrants, and you would think Americans would muster up just a tad of compassion for women and children who face such dire situations. From the publisher's web site:
When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, too poor to feed her children, leaves Honduras to work in the United States. The move allows her to send money back home to Enrique so he can eat better and go to school past the third grade.You really have to ask yourself why this country is twisting itself into knots over immigration right now. Is it really all that much different from say, three years ago or twelve years ago?
Lourdes promises Enrique she will return quickly. But she struggles in America. Years pass. He begs for his mother to come back. Without her, he becomes lonely and troubled.
When she calls, Lourdes tells him to be patient. Enrique despairs of ever seeing her again. After eleven years apart, he decides he will go find her. Enrique sets off alone from Tegucigalpa, with little more than a slip of paper bearing his mother’s North Carolina telephone number. Without money, he will make the dangerous and illegal trek up the length of Mexico the only way he can–clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains.
There are, naturally, practical problems that come with an influx of newcomers, including but not limited to language barriers, social problems and (gasp!) even crime, which should be properly viewed as a result of poverty rather than ethnicity. But we've successfully dealt with immigration before in this country, even those crazy Irishmen (he said, thoughtfully stroking his red beard while sipping a delicious Guinness early one morning.)
It's really hard to see the current climate on immigration as anything but another conservative hate-fest. I suppose next year they'll move on to another group their base can hate on.
Why Republicans tend to be such insecure, frightened bedwetters about everything is beyond me. This is a great, strong, wonderful country. We can handle people who speak Spanish and even people who peacefully pray to Allah, if we would just calm down a little and deal with things in a practical matter. Who knows, we might even benefit and learn things from people who come from other countries.
People still want to come here because, despite the last six and a half years, this is still the land of opportunity. The vast majority of them want to raise their families and enjoy a secure existence, just like our forefathers. At the point where the term "border security" becomes a euphemism for "chase and harass the Mexicans because it's good politics," we have a serious problem on our hands.
Remember, War on Terror! War on Terror! War on Terror! How stupid is it to divert scarce resources to go on a Lou Dobbs immigration jihad?
Last time I checked al-Qaeda doesn't have any training camps in Sonora.
* Blogger Ethics Disclosure -- I have never met Sonia Nazario, but I am familiar with her work because I knew one of her siblings at a university in the Midwest. I'm a fan of her work.
