hot-button political issues: everyone has one. most people care about a lot of different issues, but there is always that one, maybe two, that you can feel in every part of the body, that tenses every cell when the other side does something fantastically wrong-headed. even the most quakerly pacifist is left wanting to bust something up, preferably one of those wrong-headed noggins.
your belated warning: my political volcanos are education and immigration.
and today, it’s immigration that’s going off, because i just learned about the kentucky senate’s passage of an arizona-style immigration law (a bit late, i know, but i’m not currently in residence). now, it’s not law yet- still has to pass the house, be signed by the guv, etc. but holy goddamn i am worked up. this is just wrong in so many ways. and you know, because this is my volcano, and this is my blog, and blogs were made for ranting, that i am going to enumerate the wrongness for you, with strong language and hyperbole.
WRONGNESS PART ONE: the united statesian system of government
the united statesian system of government is based on our constitution. article 1, section 8 of said constitution gives to the federal government the power to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization”. the supreme court has since ruled that regulating naturalization encompasses regulating all immigration. i reference the informative website Things That Are Not In the U.S. Constitution: just because the constitution lacks the word immigration does not mean that it lacks the concept of immigration. therefore, states that usurp this power are, in fact, radically challenging the constitution itself. and we don’t even have to get into the sticky mess of how this completely undermines the concept of “innocent until proven guilty”.
WRONGNESS PART TWO: kentucky is not arizona
arizona has(had) the sixth largest estimated population of undocumented workers, with the last known counts putting it around 300,000 (pre-stupid ass law). kentucky clocks in at 37th, with about 15,000. we are not on the same scale. we do not have the same problems, so we do not need the same “remedies”.
part two sub clause: arizona is batshit. do you really want to import that kind of political rage and division? over a law that has not yet been proven to stand up in court (and most likely won’t be, given the way it violates the constitution)? why on earth would anyone want to be like arizona right now?
WRONGNESS PART THREE: what, kentucky is fucking rich all of a sudden?
two facts (& two herald leader pieces): first, one of our major industries, horses, depends on immigrant labor. it’s a tough job, and capable, native united statesians are just not showing up for it. the type of visa available to this kind of agricultural laborer is capped at 66,000 for the entire nation. trainers who are willing to wade through the expensive, labrynthine process to get visas for their workers are finding that there’s just not enough to go around. and last year, when the racing commission tried to tighten up licensing standards for track workers, the impact was immediate: out-of-state trainers avoided keeneland’s spring meet. their business just doesn’t work without a reliable labor supply. taking that away means that their business won’t work in kentucky. so let’s not shoot the industry in the foot (again, after already shooting down expanded gambling).
second, implementing this law ain’t gonna be cheap. all of sudden, thousands of people will be imprisoned for the crime of being in kentucky. if convicted, each one will cost us between ten and four hundred thousand dollars a year to keep locked up. and that’s not counting the costs of going through the process. so unless david williams can pull some magic revenue source out of his ass (maybe his sphincter can pinch coal tight enough to make a diamond? let’s try it!), that’s money we could better spend elsewhere. like on actual kentuckians.
WRONGESS PART FOUR: what, exactly, does illegal look like?
what would lead you to expect a person was here illegally? because let me tell you, i have met a number of people without papers. they are not always who you expect. their accent or level of english doesn’t tell you, because that will include a lot of naturalized citizens (who are *fully* united statesian), legal immigrants, and some natives. and yes, many without papers do learn to speak english well. their skin color won’t tell you, especially if you assume it’s always brown- that’s a wide net that pulls in latino citizens, native americans, and citizens of indian/arab/x/combination descent. and news flash: a sizable minority of undocumented immigrants are asian, and there are even some africans and europeans in the mix, all of whom your racial profile just missed.
if someone could just enlighten me as to how, in a brief interaction, one could be alerted to another’s documentation status, it would be a lot easier to believe this wasn’t a load of bigoted bullshit masquerading as law enforcement. i am so waiting for the lawsuit when one of our newly-minted arizona immigration enforcers pulls over a native american and asks for his papers.
WRONGNESS PART FIVE (Wider Scope A): go read real fucking history so we can stop repeating it already
does this sound familiar? unless we stop them from coming here, “they will soon so out number us, that all the advantages we have will not in my opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.”
or how about the idea that all these immigrants are just “multiplying tumults and violence, filling our prisons, and crowding our poor-houses, and quadrupling our taxation“? maybe we should “build a wall of brass around the country“. because “after all we built up this country and then we allow a lot of foreigners. . . to come and run it for us“.
“Standing behind them are Christian employers of this land, who would rather import heathen willing to work for barely enough to sustain life than retain a brother Christian at a wage sufficient to live.“
“It simply amounts to unrestricted and indiscriminate dumping into this country of people of every character and description.“
all those same ideas are floating around today, but the words themselves are much older. the first quote was ol’ ben franklin himself, back in the 1750s. but he was talking about the germans (and how many of us white folks can trace back to those kraut eaters? how the hell did the nation survive?)
the second quote was lyman beecher, talking about english immigrants in 1834. the third, john jay, first chief justice of the supreme court, 1750s. he was worried about the “catholic alien invaders,” which sounds way cooler than plain old germans and irish. jay would be glad to know that we’ve finally taken up his ridunculous idea, and we’ve got a helluva lot more than brass these days!
the fourth quote came from novelist john dos passos- he was talking about the polish, whom he regarded as the “scum of Europe.” the fifth is terence powderly, a 1892 labor leader. the heathens he was addressing were the chinese.
the last quote is from a 1920 congressional hearing. this is the second part: “If there were in existence a ship that could hold three million human beings, then three million Jews of Poland would board to escape to America.” and three million less suffering the holocaust.
germans, english, catholics, irish, polish, chinese, jews, and now mexicans, or anyone who looks vaguely latino. the trend is pretty obvious: another wave of immigration. people get nervous because “they’re not like us.” and then the fear, that time-honored political lever. extra points if it’s an economic downturn. before you know it, we’re discriminating, rioting, sterilizing women, passing idiot laws, depending on the decade. all the while we guiltlessly reap the full benefit of said immigrants by exploiting the hell out of them.
every time, the fear has been the same: they will destroy our way of life because they are different. every time, it was proven wrong. our ancestors learned english, got jobs, raised families, and both learned how to be united statesian while simultaneously changing what it means to be united statesian. and the country grew, healthy and strong.
immigration is not really a problem in this country. actually, it is part of our national dream and character. it has enriched us immeasurably. xenophobia, on the other hand, plagues us like white on WASP. it consistently makes us do things that shame future generations. anyone particularly proud of all those folks who refused to hire irish workers? the sweatshop working conditions that immigrants faced one hundred years ago? or what about the eugenicists who sterilized poor immigrants and turned jews back to germany? those japanese internment camps during wwii make anyone want to wave a flag? do we really want to keep adding to this list?
WRONGNESS PART SIX (Wider Scope B): right and wrong exist, goddammit
whatever you want to argue about a nation’s need to protect its borders or enforce its laws, the bottom line is this: because of the way we do things, an entire group of human beings have second-class lives in this country. they work and yes, they pay taxes and social security, without being able to enjoy the benefits. they do not have equal access to health care, higher education, personal safety, or the protections of the law. even if they are the victims of a crime, they cannot seek justice because interacting with any official could jeopardize their livelihoods and separate them from their families. they often face subpar working conditions and unfair wages. employers can pretty much make an undocumented worker do whatever because their legal status means they have no protection. they do not have options because there is very little fucking way to get papers right now.
if they are apprehended by immigration, “due process” just doesn’t apply. they can be held for months, even years, without judicial review- jailed without justice, according to the amnesty international report that gathered this info. two thirds of these detention facilities are contracted out, and there is no system of oversight for cases of abuse and neglect. the use of excessive restraints (handcuffs, belly chains, leg restraints) is common. their medical care is often delayed and/or denied. 84% are unable to access the legal assistance necessary for presenting a viable claim in court.
you can say they don’t deserve those rights because they are not from this country, and i say that is im-fucking-moral. these rights are endowed by the creator to all, and that idea is, or at least should be, basic to who we are as united statesians, and who we are as humans.
moving to another place for better access to resources is a fundamental part of the human story. it’s why we’re not all living in africa. it’s why the native americans’ ancestors crossed the land bridge from (what would become) russia. it’s why white people ended up on this continent it all. it’s why most of the ancestors of us white folks got on the boat to begin with. nobody started asking us for papers until what, about one hundred twenty, one hundred thirty years ago? i’m approximating.
rationalize it whichever way makes you feel smug enough, but human beings should not be treated like this. it is just not right.
