As the immigration issue becomes the wedge issue for the 2006 election cycle, legality is the issue people from both sides of the aisle hide behind in defending any type of divisive policy. Though forgotten, the United States has gone through a number of cycles declaring one group or another "illegal" in terms of immigration. But they've only gone so far as to outright ban the immigration of one group through the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
As a Chinese American, I find the recent discussion of immigration reminiscent of the scape-goating that led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act. I'll paraphrase history from here on out, but Ronald Takaki's Strangers From A Different Shore is a good starting point on finding out more detail about the Asian American experience.
The Chinese posed no real threat to the US economy and were in fact welcomed as an infinite supply of cheap labor used to build dangerous and large projects such as the Transcontinental Railroad. With the abolishion of slavery, the necessity for cheap labor required the Chinese solution and to open the country up to Chinese immigration.
However, once the Chinese were being used as strike breakers or to keep local labor in line, the backlash over the Chinese presence began. Obviously a downturn in any economy will lead to the scapegoating of any group easily targeted as outsiders which also has deep roots in anti-Semitism.
Today, we see the same play being used to target immigrants from the south. It's easy to blame them for any of our problems, but the saddest part for those, who are itching to kick them out, is the fact that even if all illegal immigrants left overnight, those people would wake up and face the same problems they had yesterday.
So how do we discuss immigration given people's penchant to hide behind morality of law and it's arbitrary application to those who choose to flee a bad life situation for the closest safe border? We are a nation that should use better judgement in how we execute our laws. The law requires flexibility and we should reevalute any law that no longer applies to the world in which they were originally passed. The Constitution is designed to allow for this flexibility.
We need to view immigration through the lens of the current day issues and tune our policies accordingly lest we repeat our historical mistakes. It may be too far to go and remind people that the US turned away hundred thousand Jews during World War II who sought asylum from Hitler. But a gentle reminder that those Jews eventually made their way to places like Dachau or Aushwitz
For our minutemen who vigilantly guard our borders, remind them that it is our own government that forces Mexicans off their land through NAFTA. The United States dumped 3 trillion tons of corn at below market prices into the Mexican market putting Mexican farmers out of business. Remind them that the United States exploits their labor by moving our jobs behind their border in order to avoid paying for safe working environments, providing labor with health care and living wages, and conforming to local environmental regulations. These are the real issues that face us today and drive our immigration policy. If you want them to go home, start by demanding our government from trashing their homes and building them up to be the place people can continue to live in.
*also posted at http://caughtyellowhanded.blogspot.com