Author: Bryce W. Ashby and Michael J. LaRosa

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Immigrant Stories: Manuel Rivera Martínez

Manuel Rivera Martínez (Photo: Bryce Ashby)

Editor’s note: This is part four in a five-part series focusing on immigrant contributions to our nation and city. 

Thirty-one years ago, Manuel Rivera Martínez, from Morelia, made the difficult decision to follow his father to California. He was 15. Morelia, the capital of the state of Michoacán in Central Mexico, is a lovely colonial city that has been ravaged, recently, by gang-related violence.

Martínez grew up in a house with seven siblings and developed his entrepreneurial skills from his mother. “My mother, who recently passed, would sell menudo [a traditional tripe soup] and quesadillas out of our house to earn a little extra money,” he says.

When Martínez followed his father to California a few years after his dad left, he hoped that an opportunity for an education awaited him. Instead, father and son worked in Pomona for a company that repaired and resold wood pallets. Then Martínez moved to Merced County and worked on a dairy farm. He worked for Gallo picking grapes and made about $180 or $190 per week. “People worked 12-hour shifts — 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and then 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.,” he says. “Hard work, and people worked constantly, there were few breaks in the fields, even for water.”

From California, Martínez moved to the Pacific Northwest and worked in restaurants. He eventually made it to Memphis and found employment in a Japanese restaurant where he met his wife Lisha. Initially, they were just friends, and he did not pursue a romantic relationship because he knew inside that he had “no chance.” When he finally asked her out, she said yes! Years later, they’re raising two children: Preston, who attends Dexter elementary, and Mia, their 2-year-old daughter.

Martínez landed in Memphis about 16 years ago and is proprietor of the popular taqueria Maciel’s. The business started Downtown on South Main; now, Martínez has a restaurant on South Cooper, a newly opened location in Bartlett, and plans are underway for another on Summer Avenue. “Memphis is a welcoming city,” he says. “We have issues, but I want people to see the bright side, and if you love what you do, Memphis has the potential to let you do it.”  

Martínez illustrates this by reminding us of a tragic event at his Downtown restaurant. “In July 2017, the roof caved in while patrons were dining, and I was ready to shutter the business, but the Downtown community came together and held a fundraiser.” No one was seriously injured and approximately $8,000 was raised. “This money allowed me to pay my employees for three months” while the restaurant was rebuilt, he says. The generosity and kindness of the Memphis community gave Martínez strength, encouraging him to stay in business.   

After Maciel’s reopened, Martínez developed a deep love for this community and the neighbors who literally saved his business. He works 12- or 14-hour days to keep the business moving along. And he explains the origins of the name Maciel’s: “It’s my father’s name, Manuel, but they misspelled it on his birth certificate as “Maciel” and it sort of stuck. But we’ve kept the name; in fact, my 9-year-old boy is named Preston Maciel Rivera.”

He credits Lisha, who he refers to as his best friend and most trusted advisor, with pushing him to open the first restaurant. Many advised him against trying to open a business because he had only $40,000 in savings for start-up capital. “In fact, one real estate professional told me to open a food truck,” he says. Martínez wasn’t offended by the off-hand comment; rather, he saw it as a challenge.

While walking down Main Street, Martínez and Lisha saw a “restaurant for sale” sign. They were able to “buy all the equipment from a pizza restaurant that occupied the space.” The landlord was excited about a family starting a business in the location. The stars aligned, or as Martínez says, “I believe we all have a destiny. That there is a book with something written for each of us and that it is designed for you. You have to be sure not to miss the signals. This place was there for me.”

Martínez seems likely to stay put here in Memphis. “People come here because they find what they like to do and you should always follow your passions.” Neither Martínez nor his father, who now lives in Mexico, were able to continue their formal education. “I want my kids to be able to attend college or start their own business or combine the two.” 

For Martínez, the ideal business is one where everyone working makes a decent amount of money and only works one job. Because of this ethos, many of his employees have been with him since he started nine years ago.

“Everyone needs to be treated with dignity, no matter what job they have,” says the man who has worked his way up to ownership of a successful restaurant enterprise here. “I’m really fortunate that I chose Memphis, which is a long way from Morelia, Mexico, but this is a great place to raise a family and run a business.” 

Bryce W. Ashby is an attorney at Donati Law, PLLC. Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Immigrant Stories: María Bracho

Simón Bolívar (Photo: Michael LaRosa)

Editor’s note: This is part three in a five-part series focusing on immigrant contributions to our nation and city.

In 1825, the town of Bolivar, Tennessee, was founded 70 miles east of here, named after the Venezuelan “liberator” of much of South America, Simón Bolívar. Presently, a bust of the Venezuelan leader sits in front of the town’s courthouse as a gift, “from the government and the people of the Republic of Venezuela … to the city of Bolivar on the celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of The Liberator, 1783-1983.”

The exuberance and goodwill between the Republic of Venezuela and our state of Tennessee in 1983 has, by 2024, completely collapsed. Venezuela, a traditional exporter of cacao, coffee, and petroleum, now exports its citizens: About one-quarter of the population of 28 million has left the nation over the past 10 or 20 years, and there seems to be no end in sight to this ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.

Many factors — economic, political, and global — help explain this mass exodus from a once wealthy and influential South American nation. María Bracho’s arrival here in Memphis is directly related to the economic and political chaos of her native Venezuela.

María Bracho (Photo: Bryce Ashby)

Bracho grew up on a farm outside the city of Maracaibo, which is the petroleum capital of the nation. Venezuela, it should be noted, sits on the largest known oil deposits in the world, and about 90 percent of the national GDP is tied to oil. Nine years ago, Bracho decided to come to the USA to join her eldest daughter who had relocated here. Her siblings now call Jacksonville, Florida, home.

“We decided to move here for good about nine years ago,” she says. “We had the property of our business — a mini food market in Maracaibo — expropriated so the government could build a metro that has yet to be built.” The expropriation was followed by threats and extortion. María was forced to flee. Eventually, the family chose Memphis as their permanent home.

The daughters, Arianna Iskeif (age 27) and Orianna Bracho (age 23), are thriving here. Arianna is married with three children and is a homemaker. Orianna works at Independent Bank in the city. María settled in Germantown, and the family has lived there since.

“I love it here in Memphis — the city reminds me of my hometown, Maracaibo; it’s small and friendly,” she says. “I’d love to return to my country, but it’s impossible right now. … There is no electricity and no gasoline in a country whose leading export is petroleum!”

María lives in an apartment on Farmington Road and works full-time in Midtown at Global Café. There she sells and serves arepas — the traditional Venezuelan corn cake that defines and anchors Venezuelan cuisine. She’s worked as a cashier at a Mexican grocery store here and at TruckPro, but enjoys working with the public in the food service industry.

“I work long hours, and the commute is long, but everything I’ve done here has been for the well-being of my family, and I’ve been very lucky here.” María is negotiating to buy a house and plans to sign papers in the next few months.

Food — especially traditional cuisine from home — has always animated María, and she prepares for customers a traditional Venezuelan tamal called a hallaca. She also prepares desserts and other Venezuelan fare on her own. María has obtained residency status in the USA and in about two years’ time will be able to apply for citizenship.

María is grateful for the opportunity to work at Global Café, but her long-term dream is to build a business related to her work there. “I’d like to make and distribute traditional foods and desserts for local Hispanic markets/stores, and I think I’d be good at that type of work,” she says. Chef María is the kitchen manager at the café, a position that puts her at the heart of everything cooked and sold there. “I was so lucky to find Global Café here in Memphis and owe so much to that restaurant … that organization.”

The bust of the great Venezuelan Liberator sits far away from Memphis in a town that history seems to have forgotten — his dream of a unified America unrealized. But the determination and dignity of people like María Bracho connect us culturally and bring hope for peace and opportunity for all Americans.

Bryce W. Ashby is an attorney at Donati Law, PLLC. Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Immigrant Stories: Rajan Thakur

Rajan Thakur (Photo: Bryce W. Ashby)

Editor’s note: This is part two in a five-part series focusing on immigrant contributions to our nation and city

In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville published Democracy in America. The French aristocrat visited America, including Memphis, and found the people a bit provincial, too religious, yet he characterized the young nation as nearly unlimited in terms of economic, political, and social development.

Rajan Thakur from Nepal might not be this century’s de Tocqueville, but as an immigrant to the USA, more specifically Memphis, Thakur’s background has forced a focus on optimism; he doesn’t dwell too much on the prevailing pessimism.

The national mood, now, is sour. People in America are uncertain of the future; the economy seems great for some, not so great for most; politically we’re living in very strange times; and the pandemic demonstrated our interconnectedness and vulnerabilities. Approximately 1.2 million Americans have died from Covid-19 over the past four years.

Yet Thakur’s reflections on his personal American journey place him squarely in the optimistic camp. He holds an M.S. degree in industrial engineering from Virginia Tech University and works as a project engineer at FedEx headquarters here in Memphis. He’s been living in the USA for nine years. “The U.S. right now, concerning AI technology, money, and technology in general, is at a different level from the rest of the word,” says the young engineer. “The American dream is the real thing. I’ve seen it. Here, people are respected and heard; there’s a strong civic sense that you don’t find in other places.”

Thakur grew up in a small village in the Tarai region near the border with India. “There’s an open border between my country and India to the south.” He describes Nepal as a nation whose economy is essentially tied to India’s. “There are few jobs in Nepal and the nation is close to ‘failed state’ status.”

His parents, with little formal schooling, invested in their son’s education, and Thakur attended a prestigious boarding school about 30 miles from his home. “I went there not because we were rich, but because my parents knew they had to invest in their future by investing in my education.” Thakur was sent away as a 4-year-old, returned home infrequently, excelled at all sports (especially cricket and soccer), and was a dedicated student. He spent 12 years at boarding school, followed by two years at a college preparatory school in India — where he studied from early morning to late at night, and gained admission to one of the best universities in India, the highly competitive National Institute of Technology, Warangal. There, he studied mechanical engineering.

Upon graduation from university, Thakur worked for a year in India and a year in Nepal, then began the process of applying for advanced education in the USA. “At university in India, I met a lot of people who took the GRE and GMAT and they helped me study; they taught me about the entire process of going abroad.” Thakur saw that there was a path to the USA “but getting to the USA is not completely based on merit or talent: 80 percent of it is luck.”

Thakur had multiple acceptances from U.S. universities and ended up at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was there on an F1 student visa. He immediately noticed some differences between the USA and home. “It’s quiet here! It’s clean, too, and you don’t see people everywhere you look.” Thakur’s student visa status allowed him to work for minimum wage at the university dining service for 20 hours per week. “At the end of my shift, we were forced to throw away food that hadn’t been eaten — this would never happen in Nepal. Throwing away food is tantamount to sin.” Meanwhile, he and some fellow students in Virginia on F1 visas were struggling to scrape by and feed themselves.

Upon graduation from Virginia Tech, Thakur began a job search in the USA; by the terms of his F1 student visa he had a 90-day window to find a position with a company that would sponsor a more permanent (H1-B) visa arrangement. With persistence and some luck, he was offered a position at FedEx — a global corporation that sponsors/supports talented people from all over the world.

At FedEx, Thakur met his fiancée, and they plan to marry in the next few months. Last week, they returned from a three-week visit to Nepal to meet his relatives. His south Alabama-born future wife was “a bit overwhelmed” by Nepal, the tight-knit social structure, and the fact that four or five hundred people showed up for the engagement party!

According to World Bank data, about 23 percent of Nepal’s GDP comes from remittance payments (people outside the country sending money in). Thakur regularly remits funds back to his family in Nepal. “My dad invested in my education starting when I was a 4-year-old. I’m his insurance policy.”

For our country, welcoming people like Thakur — whose tenacity and optimism are infectious — is our kind of insurance policy, ensuring that we continue to see the good America offers.

Bryce W. Ashby is an attorney at Donati Law, PLLC. Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Immigrant Stories: Dorian Canales

Dorian Canales (Photo: Bryce Ashby)

Editor’s note: This is the first in a five-part series highlighting local immigrants and their contributions to Memphis.

With so much focus in Memphis on high crime and even higher rates of poverty, you could be forgiven for not realizing that our schools — both public and private — and our neighbors serve most of our residents remarkably well.

One such example, Dorian Canales, arrived in Memphis in 2005 when he was just 7 years old, and largely because of Memphis, he’s flourished. Indeed, as a kid fleeing the gangs of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Memphis seemed like paradise.

His mother Oneyda arrived five years before Dorian, who traveled here with his aunt and cousins. Oneyda left Honduras shortly after Hurricane Mitch destroyed much of the north coast of the nation in 1998. Mitch wiped out 75 percent of the infrastructure of the country, decimating nearly all the agriculture in a country where the economy is agricultural dependent. Seven thousand Hondurans died.

Dorian remembers the long walk and innumerable jalones — hitch-hiked rides — from Honduras to Piedras Negras in Coahuila, Mexico (which borders Eagle Pass, Texas). “We crossed the Rio Grande there and I was afraid I’d drown. I was 7 years old and couldn’t swim.”

The migrants turned themselves over to U.S. authorities — seeking asylum from the gang violence and general mayhem in Honduras. They spent three days in detention and were released contingent upon a future court date. Dorian remembers very little, but recalls eating a bologna sandwich for the first time in the detention center. The boy was reunited with his mother in the Nutbush neighborhood of Memphis. She worked at McDonald’s and later as a painter with a commercial/home painting company. Dorian spent a lot of time with his aunt and cousins, who helped raise him during this time.

He was enrolled at Jackson Elementary School. At first, he felt isolated, so he formed a third-grade gang called the “Vatos Locos,” or The Crazy Dudes, ironically seeking comfort in the very structure that pushed him out of Honduras. This earned him a week’s suspension from school and a stern talking-to from the principal. “She told me I’d be deported if I continued my bad behavior.” His principal’s warning set him straight and he left the idea of life in a gang behind.

He spoke no English, but through his ELL classes (English-Language Learner) learned the language quickly. His changed behavior allowed him to win, in the fourth grade, an “accelerated reader award” based on the number of books read. He came to see that education, rather than the Vatos Locos, would help him excel. Next, at Kingsbury Middle School, Dorian joined the art and theater club, learned to play a musical instrument, and played on the soccer team. “I wanted to be at school; there was more to do there than at home and so I jumped into all aspects of Kingsbury and made friends because I’m essentially an extrovert.”

It was at Kingsbury Middle where he met Erin Myers, his algebra teacher, who changed his life. In 2012, thanks to her support, he applied to CBHS (Christian Brothers High School) and was admitted. CBHS represented a new world for Dorian: Nutbush was essentially Latino, African-American, and under-resourced; CBHS was white, affluent, and Catholic. “I struggled socially in this new world, but realized I had an opportunity to grow there.”

He seized the opportunities at CBHS, joined the marching band, played soccer, and focused on academic subjects. But when he returned to his neighborhood, he bolted toward Streets Ministries, which was his home and refuge during these years. As graduation from CBHS approached, Ms. Myers stepped in again, helping Dorian apply to college. He was accepted to Rhodes College, but lacked funds for tuition and, as a DACA recipient, was ineligible for all federal financial aid. Myers set up a GoFundMe that raised $10,000, and Dorian began to think that Rhodes might be an option.

Fortunately, the GoFundMe campaign caught the attention of Rhodes, and Dorian was admitted as a Bonner Scholar — a program that offers full tuition discount in exchange for community service in our city. Dorian graduated from Rhodes in May 2020 and distinguished himself as a student of economics. He was fully immersed in the campus culture, working at outreach to underserved students in Memphis public schools, helping convince them of the benefits of college and furthering their education.

Dorian has forged ahead with optimism, grace, and determination without focusing too much on the tenuousness of his DACA status. A future president’s strike of a pen could lead to his deportation. Presently, he works in commercial banking at JPMorgan Chase. He has a passion for teaching and giving back to kids like himself, yet continues working in finance: “You know, I have to earn money because I’m essentially the retirement plan for my parents.”

The gangs of Honduras never grabbed Dorian Canales. Our schools, plus mentors, family members, and funders — and JPMorgan — have held onto Dorian. It’s worth remembering, despite shortcomings and struggles, our institutions, this community, and people like Dorian Canales continue to make Memphis great.

Bryce W. Ashby is an attorney at Donati Law, PLLC. Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Panic in … El Paso?

We need solutions, not scapegoats for political points. (Photo: Barth Bailey | Unsplash)

Those of a certain age remember 1973 and “Panic in Detroit,” a David Bowie song describing the 1967 riots in the Motor City. The current Panic in El Paso seems different: made by and for the media, fueled by pandering politicians, and wholly related not to a “crisis at the border” but a major humanitarian/refugee crisis metastasizing in the Americas.

America has always been a land of immigrants, and the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty (Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free) are not in the Constitution but they represent a sort of bedrock set of American values. Our nation is wealthy, powerful, and prosperous thanks to healthy and copious immigrant flows. Nations that shut out immigration (think of Japan, Italy, Russia) don’t do well, economically, over the long arc of history.

Right now, the United States economy is in a labor deficit — we desperately need workers. And if you don’t believe us, ask anyone who owns a business. Or needs something repaired at home. There are approximately five million jobs that need to be filled, right now, in America. Why not create a reasonable, bipartisan bill to allow people who want to work, and who have passed a background check, the ability to do so? Presidents Biden, Trump, and Obama have been faced with the unregulated arrival of desperate people at our southern border and all three reacted via “executive action” — not exactly law, and subject to the whims and caprices of “the next” administration.

The American population is aging, our birthrate is low, and has been declining dramatically since 2007, and our populace is not so healthy. This means that, in order to sustain robust economic growth into the future, we need young people to come here and … work. We need nurses and doctors, but instead we get deceptive Canadian Ted Cruz at the southern border telling us we’re being invaded by immigrants. We need serious technological support and innovative solutions. Instead, we get vague mumblings from Chuck Schumer, a nice old man, leader of the U.S. Senate, who still uses a flip phone.

Looking at two neighboring nations — Mexico and Haiti— it becomes clear why we have people heading to the U.S. border. Technically, Mexican nationals are not seeking asylum at the U.S. border, but a drug war there, which began in 2006 and is largely financed by the U.S., has left an estimated 350,000 dead. The Mexican minimum wage is about 11 dollars per day, and there is literally no legal path for Mexican citizens with neither money nor skills to obtain a legal visa to travel and work in the USA. These people, then, are forced to migrate here in a clandestine and dangerous way, and the only ones who profit are the smugglers and other unscrupulous individuals who take advantage of this situation.

Haiti is a wholly different story. It has no functioning government since mercenaries murdered the sitting president about two years ago. Criminal gangs rule the streets of Port-au-Prince and the once proud nation — the first nation in the world to gain independence through a sustained slave revolt in the early 19th century — has descended into chaos. President Biden traveled recently to Canada to try and persuade Prime Minister Trudeau to tackle the Haitian morass: Both leaders walked away without an agreement or plan.

An alternative plan to the disinterest and handwringing of powerful nations is a local organization that has been supporting Haiti for the past 20 years. The “IC Haiti Outreach Ministry” is a not-for-profit that has focused on education, economic opportunity, and healthcare in a rural area of the Central Plateau — a 34-square-mile area consisting mostly of subsistence farmers. The organization, developed by University of Memphis professor and public health expert Debra Bartelli and Bob Lorsbach, MD, has hired a nurse and medical doctor for the region, and has provided dental, eye, and deworming clinics. They’ve also funded and trained a Haitian MD by supporting education opportunities in the U.S. and in Haiti. If the American government engaged in similar collaborative, innovative approaches designed to generate solutions rather than seeking to scapegoat suffering people for political points, the plight of the Haitian people would certainly improve.

This humanitarian crisis playing out at our southern border is neither new nor intractable. We need political action, we need people to tell the truth — including our friends in the media — and we need “real” information about the drivers of this situation. Sadly, many of us are manipulated by the media and our politicians. Tragically, a few take action while the rest of us sit around listening to Bowie songs from half a century ago.

Bryce W. Ashby is an attorney at Donati Law, PLLC. Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Tacos and Labor Abuse

Taco truck immigration diplomacy is not going to cut it. (Photo: Nathan Dumlao | Unsplash)

Everyone loves tacos, but most of us don’t think too much about how they’re made, or who, in fact, makes them. That all changed here in Memphis, thanks to a recent story in the Commercial Appeal by veteran reporter Daniel Connolly, an expert on the local and national Hispanic community.

The Covid-19 pandemic dramatically shifted the labor market locally and nationally; employees asked for protection during the deadly phase of the infection, and many have since declined to return to unfulfilling — sometimes dangerous — minimum-wage jobs. As a result, ubiquitous “We’re Hiring” signs hang in windows across Memphis and the country.

Currently, with about 11 million unfilled jobs in the United States and an estimated 4 million workers “displaced” from the labor market due to Covid and the continued effects of “long-Covid,” employers are scrambling for employees who now don’t want to work under pre-Covid terms. Laborers are not returning to degrading low pay that doesn’t translate to a “living wage” — or at least compensation and benefits that fully acknowledge their contributions to the business.

Americans aren’t lazy — they’re just fed up. As American corporate profits soar, a South African megalomaniac (“the richest man in the world”) buys Twitter for $44 billion, and a Portuguese soccer player grabs $167 million per year in pay and endorsements, it’s understandable why there’s little motivation to return to a $7.25 an hour job here in the U.S. Congress refuses to move on a federal minimum wage, and the Tennessee General Assembly is content with its citizens earning a pittance. Each relies on the same old tired arguments: Raising the minimum wage, they tell us with neither conviction nor data, will lead to unemployment. Reminding our friends in Congress of the 11 million jobs that are unfilled, presently, doesn’t seem to register.

Hence, the long gaze south. Connolly’s report focuses on a local restaurateur/taco operation who, like most restaurant owners in our city, has struggled in the nearly impossible labor market outlined above. Why not open our southern border to allow for labor flow from Mexico? The minimum wage there is currently the equivalent of $8 per day — or $160 per month. Given that grim reality, $7.25 per hour sounds pretty damn good.

No workable legal pathway exists to bring “low-skilled” people from Mexico here. So people cross the border illegally. Many of these people are “pulled” here by unscrupulous business owners in the United States who need a stable labor force to stay in business and by offering, via Facebook, Twitter, or some other electronic medium that penetrates borders, “a 100-percent safe trip, but without a visa.”

Working without proper documentation (a visa) in the United States is not legal, and soliciting workers with offers of a visa-less “safe trip” sounds remarkably close to trafficking. It will certainly attract the attention of the United States Department of Labor in Washington, especially when the pay advertised clearly violates federal overtime laws.

In the end, taco truck immigration diplomacy is not going to cut it. We need leadership from Washington right now because only the federal government can set, change, and update immigration policy. If we want to avoid more potential employer trafficking, reduce the flow of unauthorized border crossings, and make a dent in the 11 million unfilled jobs in the U.S., Biden will need to lead on immigration reform.

The “other side” in Congress has focused on pure nonsense for the past two years: defending a lunatic who once was president of the U.S., spewing conspiracy theories about a stolen election, and working to take rights away from women. There’s no hope they will join in for a real solution, so before losing control of the House, Biden should push for passage of the Dream Act (filibuster be damned!), which would regularize the status of millions while permanently welcoming them into the labor force.

Biden should also work to modernize our 1960s-style (i.e. outdated) visa system to attack the long backlogs of pending applications.

Both moves would require federal action. The benefits: Our contemporary labor/immigration crisis could be managed out of Washington via responsible legislation rather than from the back of a taco truck parked on Summer Avenue.

Bryce W. Ashby is an attorney at Donati Law, PLLC. Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Lawsuits of the Asylum Seekers

A real fix would be an overhual of immigration laws. (Photo: Cole Patrick | Unsplash)

Migration crises — real or imagined — tend to animate voters. So it’s no surprise that a new emergency situation has emerged, manufactured by three Republican governors, two of whom are seeking reelection. The difference this time: The migrants are suing the governors.

First, the migrants in this case are not illegal aliens, or illegal anything. They are asylum seekers, and a class action lawsuit has been engaged by some of these people and their representatives here in the U.S. against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who planned, paid for, and executed the unceremonious dumping of 48 Venezuelans on a tiny Massachusetts island.

The Venezuelans sent from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard are asylum petitioners: They have a right to be here and our nation offers people fleeing from a “well-founded fear of persecution” in their home country physical and legal protection. These types of laws distinguish the United States from places like … Venezuela and Cuba which offer no such protections.

Venezuela’s fortunes changed in 2013 when Hugo Chávez, the charismatic, leftist, a-little-less-loco-than-Trump leader died of cancer. Then the price of oil (which represents about 90 percent of all exports) collapsed on the world market and direct subsidy payments to the poor ended. Chaos has ensued, the current leader there is a grim-faced, not-bright, undemocratic leader named Nicolás Maduro, and relations between our two nations have calcified.

These intrepid Venezuelans trekked from their home through Colombia, through the Darién (the meanest, most forbidden jungle in the world), through Panama, Costa Rica, and the rest of Central America, they crossed Mexico and onto America — arriving in Texas. Why could they be treated like disposable cargo by a far-away Florida governor? Because, simply and sadly stated, they’re not Swedes. Or Ukrainians. They’re dark-skinned, poor people who are not nicely dressed — not out of “Central Casting.” What would any of us look like if we walked to Texas — from Venezuela?

The three Republican leaders who have been shipping out migrants govern Arizona, Florida, and Texas. Their theory: We here on the border (Florida is surrounded by water, Georgia, and Alabama) shoulder a disproportionate burden regarding arriving migrants from the south. It’s true that Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California are the first points of entry for migrants — documented or not — arriving over land from the global South but these states receive billions of dollars in federal grants to help offset educational and health costs. It’s also true that states with high influxes of immigrants are much more economically (and culturally) robust. California versus West Virginia, Texas versus South Dakota, for example.

The stunt of the three governors seems to have worked in the short term: They’ve forced a refocusing on our immigration system at a moment before a decisive election. But to paint this as “Biden’s” immigration crisis is absurd, ahistorical, and unhelpful. The three amigo governors don’t want to help solve problems; they only want to score political points. But the newly announced lawsuit and the fact that DeSantis’ state is home to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who are a little skeptical of this performance — upset at the unkind treatment in America of brothers and sisters from the pátria — might indicate the stunt has stalled.

The irony behind all of this, of course, is that we desperately need laborers in the United States economy right now. The Biden administration could probably offer some sort of temporary, emergency provision to harmonize the present needs of the U.S. economy with the current migratory patterns affecting our southern border. A real fix — a comprehensive overhaul of our outdated immigration laws and provisions — is what’s really needed, but the Democrats’ majority is too thin in Congress and the Republicans are uninterested in any solutions that would inhibit their ability to weaponize the immigration debate.

Mr. Trump began his 2016 presidential campaign with a giant gamble — a mean-spirited, untrue attack on immigrants from Mexico. It worked. Governor DeSantis of Florida has turned to this Trump playbook, but the Florida governor has the charm, grace, and charisma of a different sort of dictator: Nicolás Maduro, president of Venezuela.

Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and past board chair of Latino Memphis. Michael LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

What’s Next? Immigrant Children, of Course!

Could Plyler v. Doe be overturned? (Photo: Rmarmion | Dreamstime.com)

A nation that places immigrant children in cages can certainly (attempt to) prevent those same children from attending public schools. Since 1982, in its decision Plyler v. Doe, the U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited the state from discriminating against and denying children a public education based on their immigration status. That may be challenged soon.

The recently leaked memorandum from the Supreme Court removes any pretense of an impartial, apolitical judiciary. The Supreme Court, we now know, is part of the torn fabric of American political society. And it’s never a good look to see our justices openly mislead the public in sworn testimony before a Senate Judiciary Committee. Justice Kavanaugh called Roe v. Wade (1973) “settled law,” and Justice Gorsuch acknowledged that Roe was the “law of the land.” Now, as appointed justices for life, they’ve determined that 50 years of precedent has no actual value.

The majority bemoans the schism it claims was created by Roe nearly 50 years ago but ignores the damage that the Supreme Court is about to do to our country by rejecting “settled law” and releasing a cornucopia of challenges to every decision that the right finds disagreeable from the past.

For example, Texas Governor Greg Abbott — who joins the other two amigos, Florida’s Ron DeSantis and our own Bill Lee, in a race to see who can undo more rights for ordinary people — is looking closely at Plyler. This is Abbott’s next step on his quixotic anti-immigrant agenda. Last month, he bussed immigrants from Mexico and Central America out of his sparsely populated state to densely populated Washington, D.C., in a pathetic (and cruel) political act that showed his determination to score points with the anti-immigrant base.

Such attempts at cruelty are popular with Abbott’s base, and he’s playing a political card, during a difficult re-election campaign against a viable opponent, a former representative from El Paso, Beto O’Rourke. Abbott needs to convince the “base” that he’s fighting to seal off Texas from migrant waves, caravans, illegals, masses, invaders — you pick the hyperbole that suits you — to prevail in November. He clearly believes that using this retro-activist Supreme Court to revisit free public education to undocumented school children is a way to do it.

Border states like Texas share a disproportionate responsibility in educating children of the undocumented residing in that state as many migrants pass through on their way to “El Norte.” But Texas school districts receive federal education funds on a per pupil basis (not a “per American pupil” basis), and they receive extra funding based on the needs of that particular demographic. Moreover, Texas receives more than $1.6 billion in state and local tax dollars from undocumented immigrants.

The motivation for this anti-immigrant wave is the same as it’s always been. It’s the sense that the nation is changing as we become more diverse. Every time in our history, when we face such change, we strike out at immigrants. Every time.

Texas should forget the Alamo, and “Remember the 187.”

In 1994, the good people of then-Red State California passed a noxious ballot initiative, “Proposition 187” the so-called “Save our State” initiative. The law attempted to remove undocumented children from California public schools. By 1999, the law was declared unconstitutional, and the good teachers of California refused to enforce it. Denying education to children is always bad policy. Offering free public education to all kids is one of the settled provisions of U.S. society, and our society has grown strong because we purposefully (not always perfectly) educate the youngest generations.

We’ve entered strange times — where settled law sits on seismic faults. Demagogues, now aided by the Supreme Court, declare war on American historical traditions — immigration and education — concepts that ought to unify and energize a nation. Maybe the one thing the majority draft opinion in Roe gets right is that the power to change the direction in which we are heading rests in the hands of voters beginning this fall.

Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and the board chair of Latino Memphis. Michael LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Ending Title 42

Photo: Vladek | Dreamstime.com

“Title 42,” an obscure section of a 1944 law authorizing extraordinary [anti-]immigration powers during public health emergencies, was “discovered” by the Trump administration in 2020 as Covid-19 spread globally. They interpreted the title “loosely,” using it to deport people and deny asylum seekers access to the USA. With the election of Joe Biden, most hoped for relief and a return to policies that reflect the generosity and spirit of the United States — a “nation of immigrants.” Yet, the past 16 months have proven difficult in walking back Trump’s inhumane immigration policies, revealing the timidity of Biden and the Democrats’ approach to the ongoing immigration conundrum.

Trump, together with his brash, anti-immigrant senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, genuinely believed that closing off the nation to immigrants (well … certain immigrants) and asylum seekers would win them re-election in 2020. The “Muslim Ban” was one of their first noxious acts upon arrival in office. Trump — sensitive diplomat always — referred to certain African nations and (in our own hemisphere) El Salvador and Haiti as “shithole countries.” He made it clear that the U.S. should do more to promote immigration from places like … Norway.

Trump rejected our obligations under the Geneva Conventions and our own legal and moral obligations by refusing to process asylum seekers, preferring instead to leave them living in squalor on the Mexico side of the U.S./Mexico border. He also cut the number of refugees we accept down to a fraction of our usual acceptance rate, thus undermining our moral standing in the world.

He seized on the pandemic, took authority under Title 42, and expelled asylum seekers, including unaccompanied minors, under the contention that they posed a health risk to the American public.

Most immigrant advocates believed Biden would end the use of Title 42 on the first day of his presidency since it appeared to be an illegal and factually unsupportable use of the law. Many thought Biden would quickly end Trump’s “Wait in Mexico” policy, which has served only to strand thousands of Central Americans, Haitians, and Venezuelans (among others); the policy has benefited smugglers of narcotics and of human beings, and the criminal networks that prey on the vulnerabilities of people who can’t or won’t return to their nation of origin.

What to do? First, let’s change the narrative on immigration. This means being truthful about “why” people are fleeing to the United States. In the case of Haiti and El Salvador, our nation has supported (in recent history) repressive, corrupt “anti-communist” regimes that have not been kind to their people.

Second, let’s stop the racist nonsense about immigrants. Norwegians don’t want to come here! They live in a nicely socialist state of prosperity with full healthcare, long life-spans, and plenty of oil to sell.

Third, our economy prospers thanks to the work, contributions, creativity, and energy of immigrants. The arguments “against” this statement are simply fake news. If we continue to cut off legitimate paths to immigration and immigrants (for short-term political gains), we run the risk of becoming Japan or Italy, with an aging population, political and social hostility to immigrants from the global “south,” all leading to long-term economic stagnation.

The palpable anger and hostility on the far right in this nation does not translate to long-term economic growth and/or social stability. Take a look at January 6, 2021, as a prime example. The “Recent Right” is simply interested in winning; they want short-term political gains, so they can control budgets, power, and money. Period.

The open hostility, last month, of some senators toward an eminently qualified Supreme Court nominee hardly helped bring the nation together, and when our own Marsha Blackburn asked a Harvard-trained judge to define the word “woman,” most Americans rolled their eyes in wonder. The real wonder? How did this unqualified person win statewide office here in Tennessee?

The media has distorted the facts on immigration with sensationalistic reporting and frightening stories of “waves” of migrants heading to our (southern) border. The fact is people are allowed to come here, apply for refugee status, and receive a hearing before a judge — assuming their case is deemed credible. Our nation’s immigration laws are unique in this regard, and rather than bemoan the fact that people want to come here, we should celebrate the story of America as an open, immigrant-friendly nation. An immigrant-friendly nation whose prosperity — culturally, socially, and economically — has centered on the welcoming of immigrants.

If comprehensive immigration reform is legislatively impossible, Biden needs to implement a comprehensive executive policy. He failed to immediately rid us of Title 42, and he can’t win the political argument by attempting to placate the unreasonable right with half-measures and reliance on Trump-era policies.

Biden must reframe the narrative with policies that demonstrate who we are as a people. Immigrants are instrumental to the prosperity of our nation — it’s always been this way. Biden should make this argument; he needs to spend some of his waning political capital to demonstrate a clear commitment to the bedrock ideals that have made America great.

Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and the board chair of Latino Memphis. Michael LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Refugees and Us

Photo: Cunaplus | Dreamstime.com

On September 9th, Mayor Jim Strickland announced that a small number of Afghans — maybe 36 — would be welcome in Memphis; some would be resettled here under a special visa arrangement, eligible for federal funding. Others would have to apply for political asylum and appear, sometime in the future, before a federal immigration judge who will determine their eligibility/status under U.S. asylum laws.

The images this past August of tens of thousands fleeing Afghanistan for “anywhere in the world” were shocking. They reminded those of us of a certain age of the Fall of Saigon in 1975. Many Vietnamese were resettled in Memphis — leading to a small but thriving Vietnamese community at Cleveland and Madison here in Midtown. More robust Vietnamese communities developed in Los Angeles and New Orleans.

More recently, Haiti. The images last month of white men on horseback pushing back dark-skinned Haitian people as they tried to cross from Mexico to the United States were disturbing. But not any more disturbing than the images we “don’t” see of the many brown-skinned people who die of heat stroke, etc. in the Sonoran Desert while attempting to enter the USA. Last year, 113 people died trying to cross into the United States at the southern border. Between 2001 and 2017, 2,833 human remains were recovered in Southern Arizona — 40 percent of those persons have never been identified.

We have, it seems to us, a moral responsibility to help the people of Haiti. What we’ve done is deported 2,000 Haitians back to a Haiti they barely recognize. We’ve admitted about 12,000 into the U.S. to stay with relatives until their asylum petitions can be heard by a judge. The Biden administration has extended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians who arrived in the U.S. before July 29th of this year. TPS is offered to people from certain nations — nations that are too unstable or overwhelmed due to political or environmental catastrophe — to receive deportees.

Haiti has witnessed all of the above. First, there was the devastating 2010 earthquake that measured 7.0 on the Richter scale and struck 14 miles from the capital city, killing more than 100,000 and leveling a quarter of a million structures. Then, political instability leading to the assassination of the sitting president of Haiti this past spring, followed by hurricanes and another earthquake, measuring 7.2, on August 14th.

Haitian nationals have been living throughout South America and Mexico since 2010 (and earlier). Many were employed in Brazil, helping to build stadiums and infrastructure for the 2016 Summer Olympics; some headed to Chile where they were able to find work, but both countries’ economies contracted, and Haitians went from helpful labor force to non-citizen nuisance. Their only hope? The United States.

They assembled at Del Rio — a town about 150 miles west of San Antonio, Texas, and the reaction to so many people huddled under a bridge was hysterical and histrionic. Both the media and politicians stayed with the story — both hoping to gain viewership and political points.

Our nation can certainly absorb 12,000 Haitian nationals. Germany alone, with far less space than the USA, took in more than a million Syrian refugees during the past decade.

We can probably take in 1,000 here in Memphis. Why not try? It will cost some money to resettle, re-train, and set up housing, but remember, we spent about two trillion dollars during a 20-year war in Afghanistan that failed to achieve its stated objective. Even before the U.S. left the nation, the country slipped back into Taliban control.

We would spend far less than two trillion to support our Haitian brothers and sisters, and we have a responsibility to help this Caribbean nation plagued by natural catastrophe, venial and corrupt politicians, and a United States whose meddling often results in troubling consequences. Don’t forget the United States’ engineering of the exit of Haiti’s then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide as a violent coup unfolded in 2004.

Memphis has a history of welcoming neighbors and successfully resettling refugees. Now is the time to act to welcome our brothers and sisters from Haiti; they need our help and our city can always embrace their talents and energy. Building human capacity — by investing in refugees — makes more sense than throwing trillions of dollars at unpleasant, unwinnable wars.

Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and the board chair of Latino Memphis. Michael LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College.