Those Damned Immigrants

America's Hysteria over Undocumented Immigration

Ediberto Román, Michael A. Olivas

• Éditeur: NYU Press
• Année: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781479818372
• Sujet: Law
• Sous-sujet: Law Theory & Practice

The election of Barack Obama prompted people around the world to herald thedawning of a new, postracial era in America. Yet a scant one month afterObama’s election, Jose Oswaldo Sucuzhanay, a 31-year old Ecuadorian immigrant,was ambushed by a group of white men as he walked arm and arm with his brother.Yelling anti-Latino slurs, the men beat Sucuzhanay into a coma. He died 5 dayslater. The incident is one of countless attacks—ranging from physical violence toraids on homes and workplaces to verbal abuse—that Latino/a immigrants haveconfronted for generations in America. And these attacks—physical andotherwise—are accepted by a substantial number of American citizens and electedofficials, who are virulently opposed to immigrant groups crossing the Mexicanborder. Quick to cast all Latino/a immigrants as illegal, opponents have placed undocumented workers at the center of their anti-immigrant movement, and assuch, many different types of native Spanish-speakers in this country (legal,illegal, citizen, guest), have been targeted as being responsible forincreasing crime rates, a plummeting economy, and an erosion of traditionalAmerican values and culture. In Those Damned Immigrants,Ediberto Román takes on critics of Latina/o immigration, drawing on empiricalevidence to refute charges of links between immigration and crime, economicdownfall, and a weakening of Anglo culture. Román utilizes governmentstatistics, economic data, historical records, and social science research toprovide a counter-narrative to what he argues is a largely one-sided publicdiscourse on Latino/a immigration.

1

Introduction

“Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program … to bring you a special bulletin.” From the depths of your nightmares comes an untold terror. From across your borders come “cool and unsympathetic” beings who gaze on this land “with envious eyes, … slowly and surely dr[awing] their plans against [you].” A faint warning glistens across the wire as the terror grows. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed. … Wait a minute! Someone’s crawling out. … Someone or … something. … Good heavens, something’s wriggling out of the shadows like a [brown] snake. Now it’s another one, and another.” The massed crowds focus intensely as the being’s face rises from the darkness. “It’s indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it.” As you move closer and closer, the being is “raising up.” Finally one being comes into focus; you see what horror lies in front of you. Confusion reigns supreme as the masses try to make sense of what has occurred before their very eyes. Then, the soothing voice of the government streams from the airwaves to help them make sense of what is happening:

“Citizens of the nation: I shall not try to conceal the gravity of the situation that confronts the country, nor the concern of the government in protecting the lives and property of its people. However, I wish to impress upon you—private citizens and public officials, all of you—the urgent need of calm and resourceful action. Fortunately, this formidable enemy is still confined to a comparatively small area, and we may place our faith in the military forces to keep them there. In the meantime placing our faith in God we must continue the performance of our duties, each and every one of us, so that we may confront this destructive adversary with a nation united, courageous, and consecrated to the preservation of human supremacy on this earth. I thank you.” Your mind races in a futile attempt to make sense of what has occurred. “All that happened before the arrival of these monstrous creatures in the world now seems part of another life, … a life that has no continuity with the present.” Finally, the realization strikes you: “They [are] wreck[ing] the greatest country in the world.” They’re nothing like you—they need to be stopped.…¹

It does not take a stretch of the imagination to see how the above narrative (using direct quotes from the infamous 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast) could easily be tomorrow’s leading news bulletin concerning this country’s alleged immigration crisis.² Following increased domestic oversight and arguably isolationist sentiments after September 11, 2001, media,³ political,⁴ academic,⁵ and would-be academic⁶ figures have effectively caused a furor, almost to the point of panic, over the issue,⁷ using virulent attacks aimed largely against the Latino and Latina immigrant groups crossing the Mexican border.⁸ FBI reports on domestic hate crimes after 2001, for instance, indicate that such crimes against Latinos and Latinas surged from 2003 to 2006.⁹ The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) blames anti-immigrant sentiments for the surge.¹⁰ Surprisingly, the verbal assaults on the immigrant community, which are often bigoted and thus shameful,¹¹ have thus far gone largely unaddressed in public opinion circles, in part because the alleged basis for limiting immigration is often couched in vague language of “national security” and “the war on terror.”¹² While some view the concerns as mudslinging aimed at stirring racist and xenophobic fears,¹³ sadly many Americans have accepted and expressed agreement with the anti-immigrant attacks.¹⁴

Several questions arise from tales like the one above—as well as the tales heard virtually every day from the media, including from figures like Lou Dobbs and Bill O’Reilly: are these all-too-often unseemly accounts and tales of woe accurate? Or is it that this country has abandoned the noble ethos of inclusion that is engrained in the spirit of our laws?

On the one hand, this country demonstrates an inclusive and welcoming ethos, iconically engraved on the tablet of Lady Liberty. Yet, repeatedly throughout this country’s history, there have been less than proud moments of hate targeted against the immigrant community.¹⁵ In a land that is self-proclaimed as a land of immigrants, there exists a history of slavery against Africans, attempted genocide against its indigenous peoples, and anti-immigrant efforts such as the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, Operation Wetback of the 1950s, race-based immigration quotas, and denials of equal rights based upon sexual orientation.¹⁶ Noble notions of sanctuary have often brushed up against fear and hatred of the “other.” This tension is witnessed not only in legal moments but also in consequential statements of who we are as a people, in both our proclamations and our literature.

Compare, for instance, the inspirational statement of America’s inclusive credo, perhaps also our immigration mantra, in Emma Lazarus’s 1883 poem “New Colossus”:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”¹⁷

These welcoming words are in stark contrast with the sentiments of others, both during Lazarus’s period and during recent xenophobic moments. For instance, Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s 1895 poem “Unguarded Gates” offers a very different vision of how we should view ourselves and immigrants:

Wide open and unguarded stand our gates,

And through them presses a wild motley throng—

Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes,

Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho,

Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav,

Flying the Old World’s poverty and scorn;

These bringing with them unknown gods and rites,

Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws.

In street and alley what strange tongues are loud,

Accents of menace alien to our air,

Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew!

O Liberty, white Goddess! Is it well

To leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast

Fold Sorrow’s children.¹⁸

Slightly more than a century later, a similarly unkind picture of immigrants occurred in a ditty that made its way around the Internet:

I come for visit, get treated regal,

So I stay, who care I illegal?

Cross border, poor & broke,

Take bus, see Customs bloke.

Nice man treats me good in there,

Say I need to see welfare.

Welfare say “You come no more,

We send cash right to your door.”

Welfare checks, they make you wealthy,

Medi-cal, it keep you healthy!

By & by, I got plenty money,

Thanks, American working dummy.

Write to friends in motherland,

Tell them come as fast as you can.

They come in rags & Chubby trucks,

I buy big house with welfare bucks.

They all come, we live together

To live off America and make life better!

Fourteen families now move in,

Neighbor’s patience growing thin.

Finally white boy moves away,

I buy house and then I say,

“Find more aliens,” house I rent,

In the garden I put a tent.

Send for family (they just trash)

But they draw more welfare cash!

Everything is mucho good,

Soon we own the neighborhood.

We have hobby, it’s called breeding,

Welfare pay for baby feeding.

Kids need dentist? Wife needs pills,

We get free, we have no bills.

American crazy, he pay all year

To keep his Welfare running here.

We think America damn good place!

Too damn good for white man race.

If they no like us, they can go,

Got lots of room in Mexico.¹⁹

Today public opinion on immigration seems to have shifted to the side of the anti-immigrant advocates.²⁰ Anti-immigrant attitudes are widely disseminated in political circles, on talk radio, and in countless television depictions. Indeed, it appears one cannot go a week listening to talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh or watching cable television stations like Fox News or CNN without witnessing offensive statements concerning undocumented immigrants.

Politicians also take advantage of the defenseless and make similar comments in order to appear tough on crime and national security. These now-common attacks against immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants, are not unlike criticisms against virtually any other minority group in this land at one point or another in this country’s history. As will be demonstrated in the pages to come, much of the anti-immigrant attacks are so utterly racist and offensive that one would think they would not be tolerated. As witnessed by the condemnation of the talk show host Don Imus for his shameful attack against the Rutgers women’s basketball team, our society tends to have little tolerance for openly racist diatribes, yet such diatribes are regularly launched against undocumented immigrants. Could it be because this group is considered “illegal” and therefore deserving of any criticism, no matter how unfair? Such a poor excuse to spew hate and intolerance needs to be challenged and ended. This book undertakes that noble but daunting task.

The hateful rhetoric often associated with undocumented immigrants, more commonly known as illegal immigrants,²¹ has virtually silenced those in favor of rational proposals for reform. Factually flawed and baseless anti-immigrant venom, often spewed unchecked, is what this book aspires to be the antidote for. While logic, decency, and humanity could be the sole basis to challenge contemporary vitriolic attacks against undocumented immigrants, attempts are made here to undertake what has yet to be undertaken—to engage in an informed and factually based retort to the unfounded speculations, assumptions, and attacks made against undocumented immigrants. The current popular rhetoric positions the status of immigrant as a “social identity [that] has been plagued by the mark of illegality, which in much public discourse means that they are criminals and thus illegitimate members of society undeserving of social benefits, including citizenship.”²² While the pro-immigrant effort is much needed, given the lack of informed engagement, it is not an easy one. In part because studies addressing the cultural and economic consequences of immigration are numerous and often driven by a variety of interest groups, providing an informed analysis is challenging, to say the least.

Policy makers will hopefully be informed by this in-depth analysis of the leading credible studies on what is one of the most contentious, yet important, public policy debates of this generation. Another important goal here is to identify the legal consequences of basing public policy on factually flawed reports or, worse yet, baseless anti-immigrant rhetoric.

As a final step, an economically sound and humane proposal for change will be made. Among other things, this proposal will stress the need to end the obfuscating and unsound rhetoric associated with the value of undocumented immigrants. It will also address the concern of the national government as well as state and local communities concerning the costs and fears associated with immigration. The free rider problem associated with domestic business sectors that actually create the demand for undocumented immigration will also be confronted. In particular, the domestic business sectors that create the demand for immigration without being responsible for the consequences will be asked to take up their respective obligations to our society.

Finally, this project will propose comprehensive immigration reform that will illustrate how to address three important groups of immigrants: (1) young adults seeking to attain a college education but often denied because of their “illegal” status as a result of their “crossing the border” as children with their parents (who were themselves seeking employment), (2) the rest of the approximately eleven million other undocumented immigrants residing and working in this country, and (3) all future immigrants seeking to work in this country.

Those on either side of the national and state immigration debate as well as leaders all along the political spectrum may very well become annoyed or even angered by both the examination undertaken here and the solutions proposed. The reason for this prediction is that this project is not undertaken to merely point fingers. Rather, a primary goal here is to address the fact that with issues as controversial yet important as immigration—which touches upon a host of other issues, including the economy, national security, and foreign relations—the differing sides tend not to address each other. In the end, everyone tends to preach to the converted on their respective side of the issue. Apparently, each side hopes that if they repeat themselves long enough, they will attract more followers. That is not the goal here.

What will be undertaken in the forthcoming pages is more than merely engaging in retelling tales of woe. In terms of an overview of what is forthcoming, and perhaps at the risk of oversimplifying this herculean endeavor, this project aims to undertake and achieve what no single work has yet accomplished. It attempts, in one document, to first identify the leading attacks against undocumented immigrants; then, using empirical data, it will examine the validity of those attacks, demonstrating how such attacks are far from new in this country’s history; subsequently, it will establish how such attacks have shaped policy in the past and will likely shape policy in the future unless exposed. Finally, this project will propose a means to resolve the current immigration stalemate.

This introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the entire project and its goals. In addition, this chapter will begin to explore the current debate concerning undocumented immigration, and ultimately provide the reader with the author’s vision for proposed comprehensive immigration reform. Chapter 2 will examine in greater detail the dominant narrative concerning undocumented immigration, which is largely negative. The chapter will explore the leading anti-immigrant attacks in the media, by politicians, and others who claim that (1) immigrants are part of a cultural and population overthrow; (2) immigrants are part of a crime wave entering this country, and (3) immigrants are hurting our national economy by, among other things, stealing American jobs and lowering domestic wages. Chapter 3 will respond to the allegations raised in chapter 2, through the use of empirical studies from a broad selection of sources, including the federal government, leading immigrant rights advocacy groups, and conservative think tanks that have examined the v...

Table des matières

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric
• 3. Empirical Data on Immigration
• 4. Immigration’s Effects on State and Local Economies
• 5. The Conflicted United States–Mexico Relationship: Invitation and Exclusion
• 6. Sociological and Psychological Insights on Anti-Immigrant Bias
• 7. A Pragmatic Proposal for Immigration Reform
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author