On Immigrant Rights and Immigrant Policy

Protection of immigrant rights is the front line in the defense of civil liberties for everyone. When the Bush administration attacked habeas corpus, they first stripped it from immigrants, and then extended their legal arguments to everyone. Now undocumented immigrant workers are being rounded up by the hundreds and held in prison detention centers. If we don't stand up and oppose these practices now we can be sure they will be used against U.S. citizens in the future.

The current anti-immigrant hysteria is turning immigrants into scapegoats for all sorts of problems. What we need is not to unleash police state apparatus on immigrants and turn our country into a fortress, but rather to adjust to the reality that there always has been and will continue to be substantial immigration and make sure that our legal system and immigration policy are in tune with this reality. For the past few decades, our legal system has been aimed at restricting immigration at low levels while our economic policies, including trade agreements like NAFTA, have encouraged immigration in order to secure a source of cheap labor. This has resulted in pulling millions of undocumented workers into the United States who have little recourse to the legal system and are vulnerable to exploitation by employers. Rather than cracking down on families that are here due to informal but very real government policies, we should enforce and improve our labor laws to make sure that all workers, whether native or foreign-born, have recourse to the legal system. We also should enact a living wage so that no job can be described as one “American workers dont want.” An amnesty program would labor laws easier to enforce by transforming undocumented and easily exploited workers into employees with the same rights and responsibilities as everyone. Those unscrupulous employers who deliberate skirt labor laws by seeking out undocumented workers undermine the wage, health and safety standards for all workers.

Over the past few years there has been Congressional action to build hundreds of miles of a massive wall along our southern border to keep immigrants out. While we want an orderly border, why would anyone want a government that has stripped us of habeas corpus, conducts high-tech spying on us in cooperation with telecom companies, and practically flaunts its use of torture to wall in the country? Another point that it important to remember is that there are millions of Americans who have lived, currently live, or will live in foreign countries. How do we want them to be treated? Remember the Golden Rule and protect the Constitution!