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April 16, 2006

Immigration and eliminationism

Illegal immigration is a complex problem with lots of facets involving millions of people. Historically there's been little political will to address illegal immigration...and in my view rightfully so. This nation was built (literally and figuratively) on immigration. I'm the great great great grandaughter of Irish, Scottish and French immigrants who helped start the tradition of coming to the US to escape an oppressive, desperate land in order to work hard and take care of their families.

The debate heating up in the US is, in my view, the latest in a series of Republican efforts to blow up a problem to massive scale--and use that problem to energize a sector of their base when its time to vote.

In some quarters, this has brought out what Dave Neiwert at Orcinus blog calls "eliminationists". Dave correctly points out that this group is unjustly creating an entire new class of criminals:

Stressing that these immigrants' status as "illegal" begs the whole question of whether the laws on the books are adequate or just. They just create a whole class of criminals out of people who come here to work, and the latter has always been the driving force in immigration throughout our history.

But the nativists don't care. They like simple solutions. It's easier to blame the poverty-stricken pawns in this economic game, and take their anger out on them, than to deal with the core problems. What they're interested in is a scapegoat. After all, that's what they do.

Constantly shouting "illegals!" furthers the nativists' aims by separating these people from the rest of us: they're non-citizens, and thus by extension almost non-entities. Perhaps even non-human.

Dehumanizing groups of people is the beginning of the justification of injustice toward them. If they're monsters..its okay to lock them up like cattle or round them up and expel them. Possibly separating them from their families, even though they've been here working for decades.

There are legitimate issues surrounding illegal immigration. As Chuck Butcher has pointed out numerous times, its hurting American jobs and wages. And despite the fact that illegals work and pay taxes, they do place a burden on social infrastructure. After all, these folks are working for a pittance. They can't generate massive tax revenue because they're not paid enough. While the focus of the current immigration brouhaha is on illegals coming in from Mexico and other point south who come here to work, the issue of people coming into the country illegally to do harm is one of security.

The notion of rounding these individuals up and shoo-ing them over a Great Wall of China style fence being patrolled by fatigue clad, itchy trigger finger "Minuteman project" whackos is not only a visual joke, its exactly what these eliminationists want to see happen.

There is little discussion about why these people come here. That would require generating empathy for the dehumanized. But if we're to solve the problems surrounding illegal immigration we have to address the root issues that bring them here.

The largest issue is money. People coming in from Mexico can make much more money working the US than they can at home ($5 an hour instead of $5 per day for example). They're willing to work extremely difficult and labor intensive jobs for these wages while many Americans can't and won't.

NAFTA has made one of Mexico's main crops--corn--virtually impossible for Mexican farmers to grow and make money. Cheaper, subsidized grown US corn has been dumped into their markets and the Mexicans can't compete. So they give up and come to the US to work.

The Mexican government is rife with corruption and does little to assist its people and its economy.

None of this is addressed by the Bush Administration. Its rarely talked about in the media and certainly not by conservatives who don't want to regulate businesses or levy fines against those who hire illegal workers for cheap labor.

Its all about dumping their version of human refuse over the border.

1. Its immoral and 2. It won't work.

Posted by Carla at April 16, 2006 08:23 AM

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