Cross-posted on rawtheekuh.tumblr.com.
As an excited member of the American University class of 2014, I was ecstatic that the President of the United States had chosen MY future alma mater to discuss an issue that is both highly personal and politically polarizing: immigration. Since I have a talent for stating the obvious, I will say that I simply would not be here without my parents’ fateful decision to leave their pyaare watan. I feel you, Mr. President – we’re both the children of immigrants. Indeed, the act of migration is an experience that bonds us.


Watching Dana Bash make googly eyes at the CNN cameras and tell the world how “angry” the Latino community is about the lack of comprehensive reform makes ME angry. Last time I checked, Latinos weren’t the only immigrants affected in this increasingly contentious debate . Why limit the discussion to just the impact on the Latino community? I’m from Houston where we have a substantial number of immigrants, legal and otherwise, Latino and non-Latino. The immigration debate hits close to home for me, not only as a Texan and a young second-generation American, but as someone who has seen her own friends and family members put through the ringer trying to find work, live an honest life, and stay out of trouble to achieve their version of the American Dream.
My parents, my sister, the Bhutanese Nepali refugees I met through my summer internship, the friendly Latinos who come up to my father at Fiesta and start speaking Spanish: all immigrants. They all represent sides of the immigration issue that I have experienced but that the American media has failed to show. Though each immigrant community has distinct challenges, they also have similar desires: independence, freedom, & security. I thought it was difficult for my family members, skilled & English speaking, to deal with the INS and wait to become citizens. I realized that they had it easy compared to many. What if you’re like one of the Bhutanese boys I met, 17 and translating between Nepali and English for your parents, relying on charities and social workers to help you fill out your green card application?
I’ve seen footage on local TV and images in the Houston Chronicle of people stuffed into glove compartments
and the bottoms of car floors risking their lives for this dream. My
heart aches at their desperation and their determination. But… another
part of me cries out at the injustice my aforementioned family and
friends must feel. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair that they entered
illegally and now they’re demanding amnesty. It’s not fair since my
parents didn’t try to do the same thing. These ‘others’ are breaking the
law. We should send them back.” But of course, the debate is far more
complicated than these two polarized positions. A “law and order” attempt
to target illegal immigrants in Arizona has instead turned into a
merry-go-round of potentially blatant civil rights violations and racial
profiling. Please tell me that we all know how “fair” SB 1070 is (maybe some don’t.)
Despite the growing numbers of undocumented immigrants from places like
India and Africa, some more conservative members of our community
insist on siding themselves with the blunt right-wing rhetoric of mass
deportations and fear-mongering. Many are willing to see the “white native Minuteman’s” perspective over the “scary
Latino that speaks no inglés.” I myself have been tempted to resort to
this simplistic comparison.
As I continued to watch Obama he then opined that, “Children should not have to pay for the sins of their parents” (a statement in support of the DREAM Act). I stood up and cheered in front of my TV. Again, I feel you, Mr. Obama. I know what it means to want to create a life for oneself beyond the choices of one’s parents.
“Get to the point, Radhika. Where exactly do you stand & why should I care?” I am not trying to make this about my own state of flux or confusion, although I acknowledge that must be partly what comes through. It is about real lives that hang on the whims and winds of the political climate. It is about how those same people are seeking stability and happiness. In order to achieve that, we must elevate the discourse and cut past the media hype. Most importantly, we must educate Americans who may not have experienced the trials and tribulations of immigration themselves. Because the stories of those who have done so should and must influence our nation’s dialogue on immigration.
I never thought that I’d say this, but I actually support SC Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham. I agree with him that simply being born in the USA should not entitle that person for citizenship into this country. I also know of many Desis exploiting as many loopholes from this provision.
Before Illegal immigration is tackled, Legal immigration needs to be fixed.
Last week I got my green card after waiting 5 years for it, and after being in this country for over 10 years. It will take me another 5 years to be a citizen.
Who wants to wait 15 years to become a citizen legally?
Boston: Funny thing is, I’ve benefited from that law myself, but I don’t personally see my parents as exploitative or mooching. You do know the reasons behind jus soli in the U.S., right? The 14th amendment and all that jazz? RealClearPolitics articulates this position far better than I ever could. Naturally, I am against repealing birthright citizenship.
radhika,
it’s fine to make a fetish of the 14th amendment. and also to demonize the xenophobes and bigots who are all for repealing it. but how do you respond to the proposition when it’s articulated in this way:
http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2010/08/09/liberalism-and-birthright-citizenship/
to be a nationalistic liberal is cool. I resent that. The greatest upward shift in my fortunes occurred when my family was forced to leave SL and emigrate to the US (sans professional degrees, occupations or anything defined as ‘high-skill”). If you want borders, you’re going to exclude and do so with great and negative consequence to the GLOBAL poor.
original argument:
http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2010/07/03/why-birthright-citizenship-creates-resistance-to-immigration/
the neo-liberals & republicans advocate for the free movement of capital and goods & services & open markets – if so, then there should also be the free movement of labour.
Open all borders.
Liberate the world.
The gap between rich & poor will narrow.
We should have a much stronger “points” system here, like Canada but w/out all the refugees that Canada takes in. Better-skilled immigrants = less resistance to immigration and better economy = everyone wins.
I’ll start listening to the 14th amendment reformers after they start acknowledging that the 2nd amendment lost its relevance after the extensive development of federal, state, and local law enforcement.
@Nandalal: I don’t know if you saw it, but I mentioned that I have been working with Bhutanese Nepali refugees this summer, many of whom did not choose to come to the United States. Instead, they came to the country that would take them. I completely understand that refugees have few, if any choices in their situation. The fault does not lie with the country that happened to take them – instead, it lies with the people who created refugee populations & therefore, a need for refugee camps in the first place. I’m not saying that everything is all sunshine & rainbows for refugees who must come here, and I make that distinction clear in my post.
What I’m not quite understanding is how in your mind, nationalism is bad and yet jus soli is also bad. If the mere existence of borders is so detrimental to the global poor, why REPEAL a policy that clearly benefits them? Does not compute in my brain.
Also, what do you mean by “fetishizing” the 14th amendment?
@suede & DesiPride: I completely agree that the U.S. is in dire need of legal immigration reform. Desi – out of curiosity, why shouldn’t the U.S. take in refugee populations?
@neo-liberal: Free trade doesn’t necessarily equal fair trade in my mind. What good is the free movement of goods & services if people are being exploited in the process? And I do not believe that labor exploitation is an “inefficiency” that the market will correct by itself. There are too many examples in our world that suggest otherwise.
Radhika, Taking in refugees allows other (bad-acting) countries to set our immigration policy. We have to think long-term. Large refugee intakes don’t work out nearly as well, on average, as skill-based systems (one or two counter-examples don’t disprove this). The examples are all around us if we take an objective look. Good luck at AU.
Fortunately for many of us, you have nothing to do with Constitutional law.
Sombunall Americans. There’s a very loud and visible elitist segment that simply doesn’t care. It’s YOUR place to have YOUR tough luck. Sound familiar?
bad-acting? You mean countries in whose politics and economies we’ve meddled?
Obama and the democrats are hypocrites. First of all they do not care about separating legal with illegal immigration. Between me and my wife, we have lived here a total of 18 years, have 5 post graduate degrees, multiple research publications and have paid more taxes any a huge chunk of this country. Still in limbo land regarding immigration, now we are seriously considering moving to India or Asia thanks to absurd immigration policies. Obama talked big about this before he came to office, now he is too busy ganging up with the democrats thinking up ‘Made in America’ provisions. The two types of immigration need to be separated.
Next, when it comes to illegal immigration, how come no one talks about the effect of agricultural subsidies on farming practices in Mexico. Or the bleeding dry of rivers flowing south into Mexico. All this has killed agriculture there but Obama and co continue with those absurd subsidies resulting in continued illegal migration due to destruciton of traditional livelihoods.
I think he was referring to aishwarya rai’s hollywood-conquering scheme
You are too funny, Manju! Thanks for lightening things up!
Give us browns some agency, Vivek. Refugees in the 21st century are almost always seeking refuge from evil brown bastards. Stop giving whitey so much God-like credit for being the ultimate cause of everything. You have a white-worshipping complex, according to my therapist.
i believe that if you have a college degree from any good school you should automatically get a green card. the US needs more ppl if we want to remain relivant in the future. we might as well make them people with educations.
as for birthright citizenship. I dont understand how someone can with a straight face want to get rid of it. It is not like ther is some pure american blood that needs to be protected. I am not sure what a functioning alternative would be. its not like the people that got here in the past and are born here are fundamentally better for the US than some guy whose parents immigrated here illegally. There are a lot of people who are nth generation immigrants i would like to see deported out of the US, and a lot of people abroad who I think would benefit the U.S. That doesnt mean I can set a bunch of arbitrary criterion for stripping people of their citizenship. At the very least havign birthright citizenship defines the U.S. as a country in some way and provides some basically reasonable basis for an american nationality.
Yunhi, if you are in immigration limbo, may I ask how much you’ve paid in lawyer’s fees? Don’t skimp on that–I was in limbo too until I hired an upmarket immigration lawyer–he took care of things fast. I think the system is set up that way.
now THATS jsut screwed up…
heh.. that’s quite an, uh, simplistic characterization of the opposition
IMHO – this is not the greatest advice – but a great plan -B.
Upmarket or downmarket – for a lawyer you will be one of the many “files”. Even the most expensive lawyer cannot change the law and the “policies”, lot of behavior of the USCIS case-workers is dictated by memos that are sent out occasionally. If you are one of them run-of -the-mill DBD (no DUI, no arrest, no citations) then your paper-work will be handled by a paralegal (there no exception to this).
Plan A The best advice is to keep yourselves in the loop. Every thing that you need to know is available on the internet on one of the .gov sites – treat this process as the second job (which also means give up on having a life). If you know what you are talking about then lawyers cannot dish out BS when you ask ‘good’ questions. Desis (especially desi FOBs – which was apun 10 years ago) have leveraged as well as contributed to the information on current ‘trends’ on how cases are being decided.
Plan B An expensive lawyer will be the one who is less conservative in his/her approach – which also means this lawyer will be ‘creative’ and ‘aggressive’ (you have to be lucky to acquire a lawyer like that). This is certainly an advantage if you are absolutely sick of this process – are ready to battle it out in the courts (if it comes to that) and do not give a fark about which way the final decision goes. Keep up with the information (follow plan A) even if you had to resort to Plan B.
Good luck.
15: I can’t speak to the situation of Nepali-Bhutanese, but in the Central & South America we are quite uniformly the root meddlers who have empowered decades of local bad actors & proxies ‘brown’ meddlers. A good primer is Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer but it’s all pretty well documented and even acknowledged by the main players; until all Americans are forced to confront the enormous extent to which a few special interests (mostly fruit companies and landowners) have been co-opting the powers of our State & Defense departments to destabilize democracy and reward dictatorship throughout Latin America, our mewling about the impact of illegal immigration from those areas is downright obnoxious.
In the late 1800s the development difference between the two regions was not that great, but our army & navy were bigger; we consistently used those tools to further the interests of multinational corporations like the predecessor of the Chiquita Banana company and the investments of the Dulles family even if it meant toppling democratically elected leaders who were interested in good governance, seeding corruption and war that set back the economies and law & order of those societies back over and over again. American citizens cared little to oversee our government’s foreign activities on our behalf; we were easily persuaded that these engagements were vital to ‘national security’ (rather than the specific interests of a few wealthy elites). In the mean time the resulting resource exploitation helped spur our national wealth; it’s possible we would have done well without murdering and stealing, but we’ll never know, will we? A large porition of our ‘way of life’ and and our ‘standard of living’ has been built on the backs of Latin Americans who were stymied in their attempts to build up their own countries over and over again. We bear the responsibility of of democratic decision making & negligence & blinding ourselves to our thievery. We owe more respect & compassion towards the peoples who are still suffering after decades of murderous oppression, bad governance, and economic hit jobs. Our complate societal ignorance of our own history of meddling only compounds our responsibility. When the proponents of these anti-immigration measures start acknowledging our history of overthrowing governments and proposing real measures to make amends in the source countries, I’ll take them more seriously.
. I am not sure what a functioning alternative would be.
europe doesn’t have jus soli mostly. many nations in fact shifted away from it in the 80s and 90s.
and immigration is a complicated issue. i generally disagree with the SM consensus, but there’s no point in arguing a lot when there are more interesting things to talk about/think about (to me). that being said, the emotional valence in posts like this is pretty clear. on the one hand acknowledge empirical and analytical complexity, on the other hand be clear about your normative preference and emotional sentiment. i’ve seen a lot of these arguments on SM, and it seems that there’s just a lot of acrimony which builds up. the main issue is to acknowledge that others have their own perspectives, and they’re not irrational.
Listen here you. We don’t take kindly to your attitude ‘round these parts. “Listening to people with whom you disagree?†Who does that?
radhika,
if you read the posts referenced it relates to integrating north america–hence no jus soli, no nationalism. it takes the privilege that many desi kids have growing up to make this an unimaginable prospect for them, sadly.
if i am reading your reply correctly you’re quite alright with a constitutional structure which tosses a bone ONLY to those who are not lucky enough to be geographically proximate–but the benefits of being a citizen need not be tied to citizenship. Bill Easterly’s question, “does it help poor people” is one which applies to the world.
sorry, that should be “only to those who are lucky enough”
and by ‘fetish’ i mean primitive belief in the emancipatory power of a constitutional provision which does not benefit all low-skill immigrants equally. Waiting for years on end to be recognized as someone with the full rights of an american citizen was not instructive or beneficial unless you’re talking about having a great perspective for a structural critique of the status quo. You can help all the wonderfully lucky geographically proximate low-skill immigrants far better by making the benefits package consistent with presence in-the-moment and not a fanciful lets-get-on-the-team-because-it’s-our’s hoo-rah party like birthright citizenship.
the fault lines break, in this discussion, between those who were ‘haves’ growing up and those who were not. That is disconcerting.
Nandalal, “does it help poor people” is a good maxim. most of us here are brown. so:
india’s GDP PPP = $3000 mexico’s GDP PPP = $14000
how destitute are mexicans? 24% are obese vs. 30% in the USA.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity
the issue with mexico is that
1) it’s adjacent to the USA, so they have opportunities in mobility relatively easily
2) the wealth difference on the border is the greatest in the world, so they seem very poor, though they’re middle income in the rest of the world (2/3 of the GDP PPP of portugal, richer than turkey)
bill easterly is an economist, so his own bias is anti-nationalistic. he’s looking at improving the lot of all, making the most of the marginal input. there’s a place for that. but let’s take a step back and remember that most people have a gradation of affinity and empathy, with family coming first. sometimes the affinities are ideological. evangelical christians are obsessed with persecution of chinese christians, while american buddhists fix on tibetan buddhists. this doesn’t mean that one negates the suffering of the other, and the two groups have collaborated, but it shows that affinity if ideology matters in allocating resources. and family, and ethnicity also matter. contrary to what some would say from the polls i’ve seen mexican americans with legal status are very sympathetic to those without documentation. why? there’s still an ethnic-national affinity, and more concretely many families have documented and undocumented members.
i just wanted to poke into the complexity here a touch. for SM i’m definitely on the “restrictionist” side. but i don’t deny the real argument from compassion and fair play. it’s real. but there are other factors too. and there’s also the fair play problem whereby middle income mexicans have opportunities of de facto migration which poor africans and south asians do not because of a random act of geography. additionally, some of us believe that the institutional framework which fosters economic growth is bound together with the coherency which a nation-state has, a coherency which can be eroded by overly rapid changes in national character. many societies have “virtuous circles” of positive feeback loops, and it is important that people assimilate to different norms. for example, my family is from bangladesh where corruption is rife. my parents have advised new immigrants that you don’t need to attempt to bribe people in the USA because sometimes people have totally different expectations. the people adjust and learn to trust others, but it takes a little time to lose the old self-protective instincts. if all 160 million bangladeshis were allowed to migrate to the USA immediately the shift wouldn’t occur because there’d be too many corrupt people and the equilibrium would be “stuck” there.
I dont count the european system as functional.
Jeeeez! Who in the blazes is this “gangster” talking about?
Strategic actions have a very long payback as well as blowback. Ancient cultures like China and India and old ones like Japan and Europe understand this or at least know when they have made a mistake. The US is a raw and v.young culture. It has always been discovering that blowback comes in ways you can’t imagine, and then rationalizes away the blowback. That is OK, because as the late R.N.Kao told K. Subrahmanyam, the US learns by making mistakes, bigger mistakes, and even bigger ones, while growing big and gargantuan. Of course the US also fails to accept that its growth in certain periods has sprung from disengagement in earlier ones, and its territorial isolation. So Mexican immigration is blowback from the land grab of the present day southwest. It shifted the center of agriculture north of the Rio Grande and gave us abominations like modern day Arizona – the water guzzling sinkholes of Glendale and Scottsdale, the California central valley (rice and dairy in the desert?) water stressed Colorado and so on. Not to forget the millions of people south of the RG whose ancestors have lived far far longer in the regions of American Southwest than the post Mayflower types.
Hear hear! Some (more light-hearted) food for thought for you.
Having never been a fan of any kind of nationalism, I think increased communication/global access is going to make the idea of national borders less relevant over time. Citizenship shouldn’t be an accident of location and time. If the likes of Pat Robertson’s spawn can run riot because of jus soli while anchor babies are denied it, that’s patently unfair. That’s discrimination right at birth, and goes against the tenets of equality.
Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker proposed an immigration market. It’s a great idea, if a bit idealistic. Some countries come close to this, but the ability to ‘buy’ citizenship is still restricted to wealthy individuals.
On a slightly different note, most desis I know are against SB1070. However, they have very different views on India’s Bangladeshi immigrants. The main arguments against Bangladeshi immigration into India are terrorism (falls under the purview of law and order issues) and India’s overpopulation (lack of resources). The anti-immigration lobby here uses the same law and order/lack of resources argument. Do we believe these arguments somehow have more merit in India? I’m curious.
Say “goodbye” to the welfare state then. No national borders means no way to determine who did and didn’t pay into programs like social security, the universal healthcare system we were supposed to have by now, the unemployment insurance, and so on. These programs were created under the assumption that we could have a way of keeping track of who is and isn’t a citizen. If you have people saunter on over the border the day they hit 65 without having paid in a dime beforehand that’s going to shred our pension programs.
And how would they cash in without being citizens/permanent residents?
Please do not mix Indian and American politics. These threads always go completely off the rails. Thanks.
Yoga Fire,
Stop that. You’re using logic. That has no place on the interbutts.
Unintended consequences? What’re those? This is about FREEDOM and EQUALITY and RIGHTS, man! I want the freedom to be equal and right all the time!
Context Vivek. Swati was talking about the irrelevancy of national borders and any kind of restriction on how we hand out citizenship.
SM Intern: I see your point on how threads get derailed, so I’ll stop with that line of questioning.
Yoga Fire, I don’t advocate getting rid of borders. I’m only questioning their relevance to the matter of citizenship, which, world over, is becoming increasingly choice-based. I agree, the welfare state model is not fully compatible with open borders. However, the typical illegal immigrant is younger than 65, and comes to work to send money home, rather than enjoy a quiet retirement here. Most pay taxes too. Legal immigrants, with immigration markets, would still have to pay a price of entry. Or be employment worthy enough to contribute significantly to the economy. No free lunches here.
Universal healthcare is a great idea in principle, but in a country that generally subsidizes terrible food habits (with horrendous environmental impact), where buying local/organic/non-processed food is a hugely expensive option, I’m not sure I’m fully on board. But that said, I haven’t heard of too many people immigrating to the US for its superior healthcare system. Or its pensions program. I’m sure that would be a far more valid argument in some of the actual welfare states in Europe.
Swati: I read the article you posted, and some of his ideas, particularly the bond scheme, would go against any sort of moral/ethical standing that the US in particular has against slavery. I like the idea of a points-based system as is used in Canada & the UK. I have a question though – how do undocumented immigrants pay taxes in the US?
Well, if they are employed, w/, say, a fake Social Security #, they would have taxes withheld on their wages. That’s the main way. Also, keep in mind they would be paying sales taxes on purchases–quite high on cigarettes and alcohol.
I think that’s a bit optimistic. Even if you have no job here you still have the possibility of getting a higher paying job. This will necessarily bring in more people than there are jobs to do. It’s the same thing you see with rural to urban migration. You end up with a lot of people flooding into cities because even with the high chance of not getting a job, the jobs you can get pay so well that the expected wage still exceeds what you make at home. See the Harris-Todaro model for more on why that is.
But aside from that, I just don’t know how sustainable this trishula of progressivism, multiculturalism, and democracy is over the long-term. Generally speaking, historically the countries that developed the most generous and universal welfare states also happened to be the countries that were the most socially and culturally homogenous. The Scandanavians got all their stuff together with almost no fuss at all in the 30s. The Brits and we Americans didn’t manage until well after WWII. In fact, we’re still not quite there. People are reluctant to vote in universalist benefits if they feel like a disproportionate amount of their money is going to go towards helping “other” people. Indians have a serious crab mentality where we always try to beggar our neighbors, but the same attitude can be seen universally on a less severe, less resource poor scale. I don’t think those kinds of benefits can last in too pluralistic a society unless you have a strong central government that’s going to implement them. It won’t happen democratically. One of those three prongs is going to have to give.
The reason the American media associate Latinos with immigration is because the Latino community is the largest minorty group in America right now. Since the Latinos have the larger population they receive more media attention. Is it fair? I am not sure if it is but this is an incendiary issue. I agree that Latinos aren’t the only immigrants in America. However, right wing politicians are very concerned about Mexicans and the other Hispanics immigrating to America through illegal channels through Mexico or the Southern USA states. I think CNN and other American media outlets need to expand the immigration debate to be more inclusive of other immigrant groups.
They are hardly able to agree on whether it is day or night and you think they can garner the votes to amend the constitution?!
“Having never been a fan of any kind of nationalism, I think increased communication/global access is going to make the idea of national borders less relevant over time. Citizenship shouldn’t be an accident of location and time. If the likes of Pat Robertson’s spawn can run riot because of jus soli while anchor babies are denied it, that’s patently unfair. That’s discrimination right at birth, and goes against the tenets of equality.”
The whole reason the anchor babies are born in America is because America is America, not because their moms think America should have no borders. A lot of immigrants to this country could say the same thing for over 100 years now. Careful what you wish for. I’m not a fan of nationalism either, but let’s be real. They are rethinking the whole idea of citizenship being conferred by birth without any other exigencies for the parents. It’s not a given in most countries. Change of circumstances causes change of assessment, that’s their take.. at least I think so since I don’t listen to him or other talking heads much.
Yeah, the “kind” of immigrants make a difference to most people. Makes a difference to us–who here would care much if Robertson were raggin’ on 10 million Russian Slavs crossing the Bering Straight and heading for California. Or ten million Brits. hmmm.
Should count the blessings, though. At least Spanish is easier to learn than Russian as a second language..