The Matrix of Immigration

I will suggest that in the conversation around  immigration, we recognize that it is a complex matrix of interests and concerns.  Just a for instance: we'll do well to avoid a simplistic scriptural approach.  While Jesus directs his followers to love neighbor as oneself, he also directs them to be shrewd as snakes while remaining innocent as doves.  Human traffickers ruthlessly prey upon victims on both sides of the border.  To pretend that all who cross borders illegally are innocents is a  dangerous denial of the truth of the matter.  This denial costs human lives  of a variety of national origin. 

In addition, I think it bears  noting that some businesses and business owners in the U.S., as well as some  homeowners, have a decidedly mercenary interest in perpetuating the current  system.  Undocumented workers are far less costly to the employer, though  far more costly to the society at large.  Here in Austin, Texas, my vestry  and I have been part of an effort to expose the City Council's refusal to  enforce existing labor laws in this city. 

Enforcement of these laws would  help to ensure that any and every worker receives a fair wage, regular rest  breaks, lunch breaks, proper safety equipment, a safe working environment, and  medical attention in the event of injury.  These laws are on the books and  are written to apply regardless of citizenship status of the laborer.   Because these laws are not enforced, illegal immigrant laborers continue to be  cheated, to suffer untreated injury on the job, and even to die due to unsafe  working conditions.  If a municipality, state, or nation truly intends to  see to it that laborers are safe, rather than simply choosing to enforce or  ignore the laws around immigration, they would do better to focus on enforcement  employment laws. 

Where it is indeed illegal to employ undocumented workers, and where these laws against employment of undocumented labor are enforced, employers will find it much more difficult to prey upon the undocumented for cheap and 'disposable' labor.  This would help to provide genuine protection and safety for all parties.  The question is why is the current system seldom challenged?  Why is our attention to the real well-being of people continuing to be distracted by this politicization of their citizenship status?

I note that laws prohibiting illegal crossing of  borders are, in theory, racially neutral.  In practice, this may be  different.  The fact is, though, that the language used in the new Arizona  law is precisely that used at the Federal level.  Federal immigration law requires a non-citizen to carry on his or her person documentation proving his or her legal status as legally present in this country.  Yes, this  requirement may be abused to against Hispanics.  But my guess is that once  the law goes into effect, news outlets will soon be reporting that an  Anglo-looking person of European descent was found to be here illegally, perhaps  an expired visa, due to this new law.  We're going to see that Arizona law-enforcement is particularly careful to apply this law to all, regardless of  apparent ethnicity.  

Technically the law is race-neutral, and we all need to be careful about equating the term 'illegal' or 'undocumented' with 'Hispanic.'  This practice seems to me inherently insulting and also quite inaccurate.  Where race is illegally used by law enforcement personnel and race discrimination is applied, then the pertinent laws prohibiting same must be brought to bear.   I also think it insulting, though, to make the assumption that all or most law enforcement folks are going to use this new law to nefarious ends. 

The fact is, state and local law enforcement do not have automatic permission to ask about a criminal suspect's status of legal or illegal presence in the U.S.  It may seem counter-intuitive to most of us, but apart from specific statutory  directive, they are not allowed to ask.  Without specific statutory  directive, they may not use incidental knowledge of a suspect's status, and in  some cities, like Austin which is a sanctuary city, they are forbidden by  ordinance to report or to act upon knowledge of a suspect's legal status as  citizen or as undocumented.  This conundrum continues to create scenario in  which a suspect later convicted of a serious criminal offense is found to have  been in this country illegally and thus to have been subject for years or even decades to a remedy that may well have prevented the crime that has since victimized innocent persons.   

This brings  to mind an important distinction in both the Federal law and in the new state  law in Arizona.  Law enforcement officials are forbidden in both arenas  from using race as a criteria for questioning a potential suspect.  We all  know, sadly, that people still are detained for 'driving while black' or  'breathing while Latino.'  Profiling by appearance of race or by socio-economic status is a sick reality that needs specifically to be challenged.  Anglos driving into a borough that is predominantly Hispanic or African-American, or, as was true of my past in Boston, people whose appearance was not clearly Gaelic hanging out in the Irish boroughs caught the attention of law-enforcement personnel.  Thus, a burnt out tail light or, as in Texas, the obscuring of some portion of the car's license plate, would provide technical cover for the police officer or the sheriff to question someone who is now a suspect of a minor traffic violation. 

Thus, the  informal practice of profiling enables police to discover and discourage such things as Anglo predatory behavior that perpetuates the illusion that the fastest most reliable way to prosperity for African-American young men is selling crack to suburban white kids in their BMW's, and busting the 'white' kids who drive over to purchase.  But, this is quite distinct from the  blatant abuse of simply stopping someone for walking while Hispanic.  And it is the latter that wider society and the Church will do well to challenge. 

I think specificity about just what it is that we believe to be  draconian about either or both the Federal law and now the Arizona law will be helpful for our discourse.  Illegal immigration as it is is a tool that  preys on those least able to defend themselves.  Predators on both sides of  the U.S.-Mexico border are victimizing people who are falling victim to myths  about automatic prosperity in the States. 

Further, the Mexican government  needs to do far more to stimulate its own social and economic environment for the good of all who work there, both citizen and immigrant alike.  The same is true for the U.S.  Currently, the argument is well-made that the legal pathway to citizenship for working-class immigrants is virtually prohibitive.  The incentive to cross the border illegally simply in order to give birth here to a baby who is automatically born into U.S. citizenship is a dangerous incentive to circumvent the otherwise prohibitive legal pathway to  U.S. citizenship for working class people.  

At the  same time, the U.S. would do well to encourage and diplomatically incentivize Mexico to modify its own immigration laws.  Mexican immigration law is vastly more restrictive than are immigration laws in the U.S., and so Mexico is able to discourage, violently, illegal immigrants from Central and South America  from attempting to remain there.      

Finally, we need to  consider, I think, the trolling for votes that is going on this political debate  around illegal immigration.  Altruism is not the primary motivation, I'm  afraid, behind the political debate.  And the Church is uniquely positioned to hold this truth in front of all political parties and challenge them to higher considerations than simply using people's misfortune to drum up votes for a political party or for a personal political career.  The reality is that Hispanic persons are not of one mind on the concerns around illegal  immigration.  To contend that they are is a dismissive and insulting stereotype, and the Church would do well not to participate in that, but instead to honor the diversity of insight and opinion that transcends ethnicity. 

Recognizing that  illegal immigration is a matrix of concerns and interests may help the Church be  able better to provide some helpful challenge to some hazardously simplistic reactions to a very complex matter. 

Jim +