Faces in the Immigration Debate
posted by Frank Pasquale
States are passing more immigration laws, and the federal government has done some extraordinary raids recently:
[On May 12] [f]ederal immigration agents raided the Agriprocessors factory, arresting nearly 400 workers, most of them men, for being in the United States illegally. Within minutes of the raid, with surveillance helicopters buzzing above the leafy streets, the wives and children of Mexican and Guatemalan families began trickling into St. Bridget’s Church, the safest place they knew. . . .
Father Ouderkirk [of St. Bridget's] said in an interview . . . . “This has happened after 10 years of stable living. These people were in school. They were achieving. It has ripped the heart out of the community and out of the parish. Probably every child I baptized has been affected. To see them stunned is beyond belief.”
I have no idea what our general policy on immigration should be–suffice it to say that the Wall Street Journal editorial page’s emphatic support for nearly open borders leaves me leery of that kind of extremism. But I also agree with Father Ouderkirk that sudden interventions like the Iowa raid are in no one’s best interests. The dream of providing a better life for one’s family by working hard is the most genuine and pervasive form of heroism available today, as artist Dulce Pinzon writes:
The Mexican immigrant worker in New York is a perfect example of the hero who has gone unnoticed. It is common for a Mexican worker in New York to work extraordinary hours in extreme conditions for very low wages which are saved at great cost and sacrifice and sent to families and communities in Mexico who rely on them to survive.
The Mexican economy has quietly become dependent on the money sent from workers in the US. Conversely, the US economy has quietly become dependent on the labor of Mexican immigrants. Along with the depth of their sacrifice, it is the quietness of this dependence which makes Mexican immigrant workers a subject of interest.
The randomness of raids like that on Agriprocessors seems to make them less about realizing the rule of law than about striking fear into those at the bottom of America’s economic pyramid.
Photo Credit: Dulce Pinzon, Image of Bernabe Mendez, who “works as a professional window cleaner in New York [and] sends 500 dollars a month” in remittances back to Mexico. As her website explains, “Her latest project “The Real Story of the superheroes” . . . reintroduce[s] the Mexican immigrant in New York in a satirical documentary style featuring ordinary men and women in their work environment donning superhero garb, thus raising questions of both our definition of heroism and our ignorance of and indifference to the workforce that fuels our ever-consuming economy.”
Hat Tip: weather pattern.
July 19, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Posted in: Immigration, Law and Inequality
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Responses (3)
TLB - July 19, 2008 at 4:26 pm
There are too many things missing from this post to detail all of them, but how about some questions?
1. Is it good policy for two countries to become dependent as described above?
2. When companies – and even the FederalReserve – want to take a cut of the money that IllegalAliens send home, what are they doing?
3. When those entities use monetary or other influence to encourage politicians to look the other way so they can make more money, what is that called?
JP - July 21, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I don’t think these raids are about either “realizing the rule of law” or “striking fear into those at the bottom ….”
The vigorous and random enforcement of previously under-enforced immigration laws seems designed to strike fear into those at the top. That is, the Administration wants to compel big business to lobby in support of comprehensive immigration reform / amnesty. Notably, the raids began only after the Administration’s reform effort failed in Congress (after a fight that business interests largely avoided).
(BTW, I support the end but not the means)
Brett Bellmore - July 21, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Why would a raid on illegal immigrants strike fear into those at the bottom who are here legally? And isn’t law enforcement at least partially about striking fear into those engaged in illegal activities? I think they call it deterence…
That said, I think JP is probably right, the raids are supposed to motivate businesses to lobby against enforcement of immigration laws. IOW, I support the means but not the end…
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