immigration and reactionaries

marjorie says...

Do folks ever read the columns of Cal Thomas? He’s really great for demonstrating reactionary viewpoints. Yesterday his column was about immigration.

His overarching theme is that all 11 million undocumented people in the U.S. should be immediately deported, regardless of how long they’ve been here or how integrated into the community. And he ranted that everyone who walked out of school or off the job should have to prove they are here legally. Following his logic, we should go on a massive manhunt and deport them all.

He really cracked me up when he started talking about Jesus. After attacking Hillary Clinton’s interpretation of the Good Samaritan story, he goes on to say:

“Notice that Jesus didn’t call on a government program for help. As for how this relates to illegal immigration, Jesus never counseled breaking laws.”

Cal, Jesus is one of the most radical people in our history. He counseled people to give up all their worldly possessions and follow him, he threw the moneylenders out, he admonished people to turn the other cheek. He would have been the first person to urge a walk-out. He also was not concerned with laws. In fact, he was an organizer of the people and he threatened the ruling establishment. This is why he was executed.

Please. He would have been in that march...in fact, perhaps he was.

Cal goes on to the crux of the matter, which is that “many Americans believe we are losing our unique national identity,” and he notes that the regional D.C. population will soon be “majority minority”. But then he asserts that the issue isn’t race or ethnicity but the lack of assimilation. “It is our failure to make non-hyphenated Americans out of them,” he says.

Folks, this is what you call reactionary…if you ever wondered about that. It's also a good demonstration of what fear looks like.

Of course, in New Mexico we know what it’s like to live in a “majority minority” state. Come now, good white people, do you feel threatened? Does the fact that there is such a diversity of “language, customs, culture,” not to mention “political agendas” in New Mexico create a problem? No, it does not. Rather, it makes this state vibrant as all hell.

anyhow...

Undocumented workers? The fact is that we occupy the most powerful and wealthy country in the world. It goes without saying that we along with our counterparts in the “first world” will experience waves of immigrants, undocumented or not. If we don’t like it…better to look at the underlying structural reasons for it than to criminalize poor people. In an increasingly integrated world where capital flows freely it goes without saying that labor will flow as well, whether we like it or not.

In terms of jobs being threatened here, it’s true that large numbers of immigrants depress wages. I really cringe when I hear folks saying that undocumented workers do the work that American workers refuse. For instance, the Albuquerque Journal editorialized yesterday about undocumented workers as "holding down jobs that citizens were unwilling to do for the wages they pay." This type of statement misplaces blame onto American workers. These jobs don't "just exist" at a given pay scale. The fact is that large numbers of unskilled workers depress wages. If that pool of workers was smaller those wages would go up.

But from our side, the solution isn’t to attack them and deny them entry…they’re coming whether we like it or not. Rather it’s to support them. There should be no "illegal" human in this country. That is not only inhumane, it's counter-productive to the health of our communities. Only by creating conditions in which there is no fear of deportation can working people in this country unify and organize themselves to push back at exploitative working conditions.