Author: Michael J. LaRosa

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Opinion The Last Word

Fenced In

CREDIT: Mati Parts | Dreamstime.com

Donald Trump’s flight to the border — six days after the Capitol insurrection — focused the nation on the foundational lie (and enduring failure) of his administration: the border wall. While extolling the virtues of the mostly imaginary wall in south Texas, an actual wall, or fence, was under emergency construction in Washington, D.C., to protect the nation’s capital from the president and his insurrectionists.

Some segments of Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” went up during his administration — maybe as much as 450 miles. He had promised to build 2,000 miles of wall and told us that Mexico would pay for it. He convinced many in his party that immigrants from the global south were terrorists, yet we found out, sadly, that the terrorists are from right here in the USA. He challenged his party to re-script the entire history of the United States: Trump’s USA was a dark, dystopian place where immigrants were dangerous criminals. Protecting America meant denouncing immigrants and separating ourselves from them both physically and psychologically.

Mati Parts | Dreamstime.com

Trump’s unfinished border wall was built on a lie, and stands as a monument to a cruel and divisive moment in U.S. history.

Trump, during his four-year rule, wrecked the asylum laws — laws and norms through which people with a “well-founded fear of persecution” in their home nations could seek asylum in the USA. But Trump forced an agreement with Mexico whereby, essentially, Central American asylum seekers to the USA now must “wait” in Mexico before being offered a hearing with a U.S. judge. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, all such court appearances have been canceled — stranding thousands of Central Americans in Mexico. That country, reeling from political and social violence, economic decline, and COVID-19, is not necessarily a hospitable place for Central American asylum seekers. There was a time when the USA was universally admired for its asylum laws and policies: Our current “Wait in Mexico Indefinitely” asylum policy is hardly helping our sinking standing on the world stage.

We educators, after virtually every crisis, call for “more” education. Looking at and listening to that angry mob on January 6th made me wonder what we’ve done wrong in the education community. Something we must do, immediately? Stop teaching patriotism and start teaching truth. My students — good kids at Rhodes College here in Midtown — are generally amazed to learn about the role of the USA in toppling legitimate governments in Latin America: The list is long, and U.S. actions in Brazil and Chile helped usher in cruel, violent military dictatorships in those places, in 1964 and 1973 respectfully.

Many newscasters on January 6th, so astounded at what was occurring in real time, went to the “banana republic” comparison. They didn’t name specific nations, but they were probably thinking about Guatemala. Guatemala is Guatemala because we helped make it that way. We pushed forward the overthrow of a legitimate, democratically elected government there in 1954, and the nation has never quite been the same. Our political and military leadership was involved, including President Dwight Eisenhower. So too were religious figures such as Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York. Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Honduras (some of the other “B” Republics) have all suffered under the influence of the USA.

Teaching “American exceptionalism” is another part of the problem: Like every powerful nation or society of the past, other more powerful nations will eclipse us, and we ought to have a clear, sound, historically truthful understanding of how (and why) this happens. It happens for many reasons, but a unifying characteristic of every great society’s stall involves leadership that becomes disconnected from reality. Think of France in the late 18th century or Russia in the early 20th century. Think of Trump now.

I suspect we’ll survive the current crisis, wholly manufactured in the USA. Politicians should tell the truth all the time, but they don’t. Educators must tell the truth always because what happened on January 6th suggests an existential failure, and we’ve all rushed in to blame the … Capitol Police. And of course President Trump. But we’re all to blame. The horror show of the Capitol riot represents a failure of our education system, a failure to understand who we are as a society, and a basic failure of imagination. And a failure to speak clear truth to power. It all started with an absurd lie about a wall that never got built — a wall that now surrounds our capital city and just might encroach and suffocate our nation, unless we help take it down. With the truth.

Michael J. LaRosa is a professor at Rhodes College.

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Language and Leaders: Trump, Castro, and Stalin

President Trump’s impeachment proceedings focused on his abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was not impeached for bad language, which, as we know, is protected by the First Amendment. Yet, any leader in America who sounds a lot like Fidel Castro and Joseph Stalin probably should be impeached on a language violation, or at minimum, strongly censured.

Trump has recently resorted to referring to his political enemies (the Democrats) as “scum.” When he made this verbal assault — and he has said it more than once — I thought, “Where have I heard this before?” I answered my own question with two memorable words: Fidel Castro.

Castro, who ruled Cuba from 1959 until (essentially) his death a little more than three years ago, used that word frequently in his long, undisciplined, unscripted speeches in Havana. He famously called his political enemies — those who opposed his revolution — escoria. Scum. It’s not a pleasant-sounding word in either Spanish or English, and Castro used it as an adjective, together with gusanos (worms) in a sort of blanket denunciation of anyone who disagreed with him.

There was plenty to disagree with: Castro murdered many political opponents in the early days of the revolution; he always seemed to win re-election (sometimes by more than 100 percent of the vote); and he put gay people in prison/re-education camps.

He wasn’t, in my estimation, as bad as the truly terrible tyrants of Latin America (Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, the Argentine generals of the late 1970s and early 1980s, or the noxious General Pinochet in Chile), but he was pretty bad. He communicated mostly via long speeches that were repetitive, rambling, and represented the official word of the regime.

Trump’s speeches are also repetitive and rambling, but his preferred communication method, the tweet, is the modern-day Castro speech — only much shorter. The communication is similar in style and substance. The Trump tweet is one-directional, not to be challenged, and represents (evidently) Trump’s policy plans and ideas, as well as his impulses. There is no room for debate, commentary, or retraction in either a Trump tweet or a Castro speech.

Recently, I’ve heard Trump refer to the United States press as “the enemy of the people,” and I thought “Where have I heard that?” The term, which dates back to Roman times, was popularized by former Russian leader Joseph Stalin, who referred to anyone with whom he disagreed as the “enemy of the people.” You’d think that the democratically elected leader of the United States could lift language from leaders who were not Castro or Stalin, but we live in a new age where people forget about history. It translates into a sad reality, where the tyrants of times past seem slightly less terrible when emulated by the elected leader of the free world. But let’s face it, when it comes to a top 10 list of reprehensible leaders of the 20th century, Stalin probably comes in second. Hitler set a high bar.

The truth is, Trump’s political opponents are not scum, and the U.S. press is not the enemy of the people. All tyrannical leaders hate critics — journalists, artists, writers, free-thinkers — because the tyrant, by definition, has no new or innovative ideas and fears exposure as a fraud by those who inhabit the world of innovation and ideas.

Those who support this president and don’t or won’t see the historic danger of his language are refusing to acknowledge a powerful reality: Leaders who dehumanize their political opponents have rarely been democratically inclined. They also signal to their supporters — subtly and not so subtly — that scum should be cleansed away and such enemies should be vanquished, politically or otherwise.

Language matters, and though the dangerous vocabulary used by President Trump might seem to be the least of our troubles right now, it’s likely he’ll be president for another 12 months — maybe longer. The United States needs and deserves a president who sounds more like an aspirational leader and less like Fidel Castro — and a lot less like Joseph Stalin.

Michael J. LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College.

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Tale of Two Miracles

The Virgin of Guadalupe and Roy Moore’s political defeat in Alabama are two miracles that share more than a common date.

Guadalupe appeared December 12, 1531, in Mexico, and some 486 years later, people there, in Central America and even parts of the southwestern United States still give thanks for her 16th-century intercession.

Two weeks ago, on the Day of the Virgin, much of the U.S. and the world breathed a sigh of relief when Judge Moore’s planned ascendance to the U.S. Senate was interrupted by the electorate. 

While election clerks counted ballots in Alabama, our city’s changing and dynamic demography was on full display at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Central Avenue. The packed cathedral celebrated the apparition of the Virgin with songs, prayer, processions, and a Catholic mass spoken and sung solely in Spanish.

Rev. Francisco González, an auxiliary bishop from Spain who is based in Washington, D.C., delivered a sermon that was peaceful yet political. He reminded the crowd that “God doesn’t ask for a Green Card when he invites you into Heaven.” On a cold Tuesday night, the warmth and tranquility within the building was moving, memorable — particularly to this writer, a lapsed Catholic of divergent doctrine, beyond redemption.

According to legend, Guadalupe, the Virgin Mary incarnate, appeared to a poor boy named Juan Diego on a hillside outside Mexico City. She arrived in Mexico at a time of existential political crisis, exactly 10 years after the Aztec Empire collapsed due mainly to a Spanish military incursion. Through Juan Diego, she instructed the Mexican people to persevere, and to accept the new social order with resignation.  

By today’s standards, that message sounds defeatist. Cynics see the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe as one of the great hoaxes in history. Others offer a more nuanced view and accept the Virgin as part of the long term restructuring of society that continues to this day. Miraculously, Mexico has held together, for better or worse, since the Virgin’s visit 486 years ago.

Some of the same dynamics were present in Alabama, where Moore’s loss is still nothing short of miraculous. Few people expected Moore, an Evangelical Christian dogged by sexual abuse allegations, to lose. But the voters there were more motivated by Christ’s “Sermon on the Mount” than the candidate’s mandates against gay people and against Muslims. And then there’s the truly zany speech by Kayla Moore on the eve of the election when she told a bemused crowd, “One of our attorneys is a Jew!”  The statement — the delivery — must have been lifted from central casting on a Mel Brooks movie set. But it wasn’t. 

The strong turnout and organization by the state’s African-American voters was no miracle. It was the result of a fed up electorate unwilling to accept Moore in the U.S. Senate. With 26 percent of the state’s population, these voters delivered Doug Jones’ victory and left Moore seething. He has yet (as of this writing, on December 20th) to concede the race. 

The lessons from Alabama are simple and clear: People who have been pushed to the margins in a political system that favors the rich and the well-connected can and will fight back. People don’t need Moore’s brand of disapprobation and false moralism. They need better public schools, a higher minimum wage, and wider access to effective, affordable health care.  

The 16th century Mexican miracle taught resignation after an overwhelming military defeat followed by the gradual development of a new sociopolitical structure. The December 12, 2017 miracle in Alabama offers a different set of lessons. It shows people will organize and resist through the established political process. When astoundingly unfit candidates appear, it’s only a matter of time before the voters make them disappear.

Michael J. LaRosa is a Rhodes College professor.

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Texas Roadway Blues

Sandra Bland’s tragic, untimely death has revived questions about racial profiling, police conduct, and civil rights in the U.S.

We’ll never know all the facts about that incident, but I know a little about what Ms. Bland and countless other Americans have experienced. Seven months ago, I was stopped, detained, and released outside Houston in an arbitrary but probably legal procedure by an officer of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

I was alone, driving east on Interstate 10, when the officer drove beside me in a gray, unmarked SUV and signaled for me to pull over. He approached my five-year-old Toyota Corolla on the passenger side, hand on his sidearm. He asked if I had a weapon (I didn’t) and politely ordered me to step out of my car and stand between his vehicle and mine. I followed all commands and handed over my license and registration. He ran the plate and asked a few perfunctory questions. All this took about 12 minutes.

“Terry stops” — so named after the defendant in a 1963 Ohio case — have been legal in the U.S. since a U.S. Supreme Court decision of 1968. They allow police to stop, detain, and search anyone if they have “reasonable suspicion.” Reasonable suspicion is a catch-all that can include refusal to establish eye contact with an officer, too direct eye contact with an officer, or, in my case, driving the legal speed limit, alone, on I-10, a corridor frequently used by drug smugglers, in a car with an “unusual” tag. My car is registered in Memphis, where I have lived for nearly 20 years.

Since 9/11, policing powers in the United States have expanded dramatically, and local police departments have become militarized. A law passed in 1994 allowed the Pentagon to “donate” surplus military equipment to local police departments. As a result, officers in small communities are equipped with combat rifles, riot gear, and armored personnel carriers. Nearly 90 percent of U.S. cities with at least 50,000 people now have a SWAT team.

Police officers are heavily armed in direct proportion to America’s weapon fixation. There are about 310 million firearms in the U.S., or roughly one for every citizen. Americans hold about 114 million handguns. Naturally, police are worried, and they do get shot and killed. The starting salary of a federal DEA officer (between $50,000 and $55,000 a year) hardly seems commensurate with the dangerous work. Americans are generally not interested in paying more taxes to push up salaries of our public officials, even those in law enforcement.

As traffic whizzed past on Interstate 10, the officer quickly established I was no “El Chapo” Guzmán. I sensed he was ready to move on, so I asked, carefully, if he would explain the detention. He told me that my out-of-state tag was suspicious and the I-10 corridor is used by drug smugglers. He also explained that I had “failed to establish eye contact” when he pulled up beside me. This was true, but we were both wearing sunglasses against a bright, morning sun. I let it go. What else could I do?

I wasn’t quite done. I asked, using English and Spanish, “seguramente Usted habla español, given that many people who travel here only speak Spanish, right?” He waved his hand, dismissively, and said, “Nah, I don’t speak that shit.” My cross-examination had ended. But the language question made me realize just how badly this whole detention might have turned had I not spoken careful, respectful English. What if my only language was Spanish, Hindi, or Vietnamese? What if I hadn’t answered any of his questions because of a language barrier? What if I decided to answer in an ironic, sarcastic, or evasive manner?

Or, what if I chose to question why he decided to stop me in the first place when I was breaking no law?

Finally, he asked to look in my trunk, which I agreed to open; hiding there was a small statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, purchased a day earlier at an East Austin ceramic shop. He looked, shrugged, and closed the trunk. He said “thank you” and walked to his cruiser.

Police in America are stressed out, underpaid, and in many places deeply resented. Innocent people who are detained can avoid danger, arrest, and death by listening more and talking less. As a history teacher, I spend most of my day talking. In Texas, this past January, I decided to play it safe and spent 12 minutes beside I-10 mostly in silence.

Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

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It’s the Demographics, Stupid

George P. Bush visited Memphis last month to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month and to help raise funds for “Latino Memphis,” the Memphis advocacy group that supports the local Latino community. The Texas-based attorney with the famous last name (his grandfather is George H.W. Bush, his uncle is George W., and his father is Jeb) said nearly nothing in a 14-minute speech designed to be apolitical.

Given the big news out of Washington three days prior to Mr. Bush’s speech concerning Hispanics and President Obama, Bush missed an opportunity to engage in one of the nation’s most complex, controversial, and politically miscalculated social issues: our desperate need for comprehensive immigration reform.

President Obama’s decision on September 6th to delay any decision on unilateral action designed to help Hispanics allowed Republicans to (correctly) claim that the president is “playing politics.” Hispanic groups and others loyal to the Obama agenda reacted as if the president had issued a militant fatwa. “Bitter disappointment,” “sold out,” and “shameful” was some of the calmer language used to characterize the president’s decision. Since a comprehensive overhaul of our outdated immigration laws is not going to happen this year, and is unlikely during Obama’s term, executive action is the only path left for a president who has been outflanked in the immigration imbroglio.

Over the past 10 years or so, we’ve recognized deep flaws in our immigration system, and people are probably willing to wait a couple of months, if executive action is bold and effective. The election of a Republican president in 2016 could immediately undo an Obama executive action. In the meantime, let’s hope the president slows his deportation program to focus on supporting and strengthening families living here, working here, seeking educational opportunities here, and contributing to our economy and society.

The vast majority of the 11 million undocumented persons in our country has aspirations of a better life, either here or back home, and presidential action should focus on supporting struggling families rather than the current deport and divide model.

It’s suprising to still see Republican inaction and hostility toward our immigrant neighbors. Republican maniacal insistence on “border security” has become almost comical, given the vast sums spent already (about 18 billion per year) and the evident inability of technology to solve all our problems. This summer’s northward migration of tens of thousands of undocumented children and women arriving at our border to seek political asylum represents a refugee/humanitarian crisis that no amount of “border security” could have prevented or adjudicated.

In his Memphis speech, Bush cited some well-known statistics from the venerated Pew Research Center but offered neither context nor political perspective to help his party navigate the looming Latino political imperative. For example, Bush noted that Latinos account for 15 percent of the national population but account for 50 percent of the nation’s population growth. Though Bush failed to acknowledge it directly, Hispanics have political power in this nation, and that power will increase with time.

Hispanics in America know this, but national Hispanic leadership cannot come from Marco Rubio or Bush, both of whom have to contend with a political base that sees only repressive solutions to the immigration issue: vast and expanding numbers of security officials, more drones, taller fences, longer detentions, and more division of families.

What would work better is a comprehensive immigration package, such as the bill that’s been sitting for 14 months in the Senate, awaiting some future House action. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, tasked with “scoring” bills to access/predict their overall impact on society, has stated that the Senate immigration bill would cut the budget deficit by $197 billion over the next decade and $700 billion one decade later through more transparent tax-paying. They predict a 5.4 percent growth in the economy and higher wages over the next 20 years, if we pass the Senate bill. But we won’t, thanks to Republican intransigence.

Republicans can only win on this issue when they embrace reality, when they face the stark numbers, when they stop genuflecting to their angry, myopic leadership that refuses to acknowledge a simple certainty: It’s the demographics, stupid!

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The Guantanamo Dilemma

As President Obama works to secure his legacy, the Guantanamo quagmire all but guarantees that greatness and Obama will never be synonymous. As president, Obama has the ability to close down our Caribbean prison camp, — where currently 149 individuals reside — but he has refused to do so. Leaving Guantanamo open demonstrates the limits of President Obama’s political savvy, but more significantly, Guantanamo irreparably damages our democracy and dramatically shrinks our ability to lead internationally.

In 1903, the United States leased the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as a way to protect U.S. economic interests on the island of Cuba and refuel naval ships. The U.S. essentially “took” Cuba in a brief 1898 war with Spain. We continue to lease this territory from Cuba, and the arrangement can only be terminated if both parties agree. Since the 1959 Cuban revolution, Cuba and the U.S. have agreed on virtually nothing, so Guantanamo remains contested. But like all U.S. military bases on foreign territory, no one disputes that the United States holds “complete jurisdiction” within the perimeters of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

According to the logic of the G.W. Bush administration — which opened the camp in early 2002 — “enemy combatants” (the term used by the Bush administration to classify detainees, which was dropped by President Obama in 2009) had no rights under international law. The U.S. Supreme Court challenged that view, and in a 2006 decision, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, declared that Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to all people, everywhere, at all times, including enemy combatants. Article 3

prohibits indefinite detention and torture and calls for access to fair trials.

The previous administration hoped to use on-site “military tribunals” to dispatch “justice” in Guantanamo, but, once again, they were stymied by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2004 [Rasul v. Bush] that detainees had the right to challenge their detention in U.S. (civilian) courts.

President Obama, in early 2009, promised to shut down Guantanamo in a year, but politics intervened. Congress essentially defunded all efforts to transfer the detainees to the U.S. mainland, and many of the individuals held at the base have been renounced by their own nations. Thus, these detainees float in legal limbo, stuck on a contested U.S. naval base in the Caribbean while tenacious attorneys and frightened politicians determine their fates. Seven detainees have died in captivity, many have gone on hunger strikes, hoping to die as the world watches this national horror show with bitter derision.  

So the United States has found a way to imprison people indefinitely, on U.S. territory, while suspending the most important notions of habeas corpus. This happened because we allowed it to happen. We don’t like to compare our nation to Argentina, but our practices at Guantanamo are very much analogous to the worst behaviors of the military junta in Argentina during the dark days of that nation’s Dirty War (1976-1983). Of course, when the Argentine generals were elected out of office in 1983 and relinquished power, the most egregious abuses ended. With the current “War on Terror” mentality firmly ingrained in American society, we’re dug in for permanent war, and evidently we’re comfortable as a nation with infinite detention of certain individuals.

Since 2002, Guantanamo has cost U.S. taxpayers roughly $4.7 billion. The real cost, though, is to our reputation abroad. We wonder about U.S. power eroding internationally; part of the uncomfortable answer is found in Guantanamo.

Keeping that prison camp open keeps us less free and less safe. It also threatens our democracy. We try to ignore our contradictions and legal sins while living in a dangerous, collective amnesia, but the rest of the world remembers.

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Obama and Guantanamo 

As President Obama works to secure his legacy, the Guantanamo quagmire all but guarantees that greatness and Obama will never be synonymous. As president, Obama has the ability to close down our Caribbean prison camp — where currently 149 individuals reside — but he has refused to do so. Leaving Guantanamo open demonstrates the limits of Obama’s political savvy, but more significantly, Guantanamo irreparably damages our democracy and dramatically shrinks our ability to lead internationally.

In 1903, the United States leased the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as a way to protect U.S. economic interests on the island of Cuba and refuel naval ships. The U.S. essentially “took” Cuba in a brief 1898 war with Spain. We continue to lease this territory from Cuba and the arrangement can only be terminated if both parties agree. Since the 1959 Cuban revolution, Cuba and the U.S. have agreed on virtually nothing, so Guantanamo remains contested. But like all U.S. military bases on foreign territory, no one disputes that the United States holds “complete jurisdiction” within the perimeters of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

According to the logic of the George W. Bush administration — which opened the camp in early 2002 — “enemy combatants” (the term used by that administration to classify detainees, but dropped by President Obama in 2009) had no rights under international law. The U.S. Supreme Court challenged that view, and in a 2006 decision, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, declared that Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to all people, everywhere, at all times, including enemy combatants. Article 3 prohibits indefinite detention, prohibits torture, and calls for access to fair trials.  

The Bush administration hoped to use on-site “military tribunals” to dispatch “justice” in Guantanamo but, once again, they were stymied by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2004 (Rasul v. Bush) that detainees had the right to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

President Obama, in early 2009, promised to shut down Guantanamo within a year, but politics intervened. Congress essentially defunded all efforts to transfer the detainees to the U.S. mainland, and many of the individuals held at the base have been renounced by their own nations. Thus, these detainees float in legal limbo, stuck on a contested U.S. naval base in the Caribbean while tenacious attorneys and timid politicians determine their fate. Seven detainees have died in captivity, many have gone on hunger strikes, hoping to die, as the world watches this national horror show with bitter derision.  

So the United States has found a way to imprison people indefinitely, on U.S. territory, while suspending the most important notions of habeas corpus. This happened because we allowed it to happen. We don’t like to compare our nation to Argentina, but our practices at Guantanamo are very much analogous to the worst behaviors of the military junta in Argentina during the dark days of that nation’s Dirty War (1976-1983). Of course, when the Argentine generals left office in 1983 and relinquished power, the most egregious abuses ended. With the current “War on Terror” mentality firmly ingrained in American society, we’ve dug in for permanent war, and evidently we’re comfortable as a nation with infinite detention of certain individuals.

Since 2002, Guantanamo has cost U.S. taxpayers roughly $4.7 billion. The real cost, though, is to our reputation abroad. We wonder about U.S. power eroding internationally — it’s no mystery why this is happening, and part of the uncomfortable answer is found in Guantanamo.

Keeping that infamous prison camp open keeps us less free and less safe. It also threatens our democracy. We try to ignore our contradictions and legal sins while living in a dangerous, collective amnesia — but the rest of the world remembers.

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Time for Tuition Equity

Nineteen U.S. states offer undocumented people tuition equity at state colleges and universities. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, Tennessee isn’t one of them.

Some states with Republican governors — including New Jersey and Texas — have passed laws offering in-state tuition to undocumented students. It’s time for Tennessee to move into the fold and make every educational opportunity available to all students.

Tuition equity means anyone who lives in the state, regardless of their immigration status, pays in-state tuition to study at our state institutions of higher education.

As a rule, out-of-state tuition is paid by people who live … out of state. It is similar to a tax against those who do not pay into state coffers but hope to use scarce and expensive educational resources. On average, out-of-state tuition is three times more expensive than in-state tuition.  

By forcing the undocumented to pay out-of-state rates, Tennessee essentially applies a double tax, because — it’s important to remember — they already pay taxes. Undocumented people pay sales tax just like the rest of us. And, their rents help cover landlords’ annual property tax bills. Those with taxpayer identification cards pay into our social security system with almost no opportunity of ever receiving the program’s benefits.

Since 31 states require undocumented people to pay a 300 percent markup over the book tuition rates at public schools, it should come as no surprise that just 10 percent of the roughly 45,000 kids who graduate from high school each year without proper documentation — the so-called “Dream Act kids” — actually enroll in college. Private banks typically won’t loan these young people money, and federal financial aid is unavailable, thus creating serious structural hurdles on the road to higher education.

The Dream Act kids, the young people who came here as children in the arms of their parents, must be given equal opportunity for educational advancement. Sooner or later, these people’s immigration statuses will be regularized — hopefully soon, through congressional action. Moderate House Republicans, including Speaker John Boehner, would like to pass some sort of immigration reform before the November 2014 election. However, they’ve been thoroughly thwarted by vocal, reactionary members of their own caucus.  

Regardless of what happens in Washington, The Tennessee Board of Regents, the entity tasked with setting fiscal policy for many of our colleges and universities, should align our state with the 19 states that already offer in-state tuition to undocumented students. We need more, not less, access to higher education for all people living in Tennessee. State officials need to work creatively to ensure affordable education for the people of this state, without resorting to discrimination. Where people were born or how they arrived in the U.S. should never prevent access to higher education.

In addition to opportunity, tuition equity offers hope for a better life. Offering tuition equity to the undocumented represents no additional cost to the state since students pay the same state-sanctioned tuition rate as everyone else. Right now, there are about 14,000 young people who could benefit from tuition equity in Tennessee.

As of this writing, about 4,000 Tennesseans have applied for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — a program authorized by President Obama in 2012 by executive order. This order offers undocumented people the opportunity for work and freedom from fear of deportation — but only for two years. Only Congress can write a new law permanently regularizing the status of these kids, and we believe that will happen soon, though unfortunately not through a large, comprehensive immigration overhaul.   Young people who would benefit from passage of a Dream Act will soon be entering the workforce. They deserve and need the training of our higher education system. The embattled governor of New Jersey apparently knows this, and so does the memory-challenged governor of Texas.

Let’s pull away from the pack of 31, join the enlightened 19, and move into the 21st century by offering tuition equity for all who want to study here in Tennessee. Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and board member at Latino Memphis Inc. Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

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Beyond Reform

Since comprehensive immigration reform is now officially dead — President Obama all but declared this in a November 25th speech in San Francisco — it’s time for a new approach to energize noncitizens who want to live and work in the U.S.

A comprehensive approach is critical to immigration reform that’s workable, serious, and humane, but the current Congress won’t act on a so-called pathway to citizenship for those living here without proper documentation. Obama, during his 2012 campaign, claimed comprehensive immigration reform as a top domestic priority, but he’s apparently given up.

In San Francisco, the president said he’s willing to accept a piecemeal deal that does not include a pathway to citizenship, thus guaranteeing that we continue living in a bifurcated society with a permanent underclass of cheap labor — not exactly analogous to South Africa before 1994, but the comparison is too close for comfort.

So the best we’ll get from “noncomprehensive” immigration reform is more visas for highly skilled individuals (because wealthy, well-connected high-tech firms want this), more border security (because law-and-order Republicans in border states insist on this), and more funding for drones, electronic surveillance, and other such nonsense, because wealthy corporations that manufacture these gadgets (Raytheon, for example) want this.  

Republican House members have been demonstrably hostile toward immigrants — particularly poor Hispanic immigrants, and their scorn for undocumented workers is easily documented.

Newly reelected New Jersey GOP governor Chris Christie’s 51 percent capture of the Hispanic vote should not be read as a reversal of Hispanics’ traditional alliance with the Democratic Party. The second- largest community of Cuban Americans resides in and around Union City, New Jersey, and they have traditionally favored more conservative candidates.

Many older, hard-line Cuban Americans still blame John F. Kennedy for the failure of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion designed to oust Fidel Castro. Thus, by extension they see Cuban communism and Kennedy as essentially synonymous. Miami’s Little Havana, where the largest concentration of Cuban Americans reside, is partially bordered by Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan Boulevards. Other streets in the neighborhood are named for George Bush and … Jose Canseco.

Of course, only Congress can pass a comprehensive immigration reform package, but President Obama, true to Democrat tradition, has folded too quickly. The fight must continue.

Census data from 2011 suggests that approximately 8.5 million people are eligible for citizenship. Many never formally apply, because the paperwork is daunting and intrusive, the fees are high, they must pass a civics test, and some people prefer to retain their citizenship of origin.

Lawful permanent residents can generally apply for citizenship five years from the date of receiving their “green card” — the document that certifies permanent resident status. Let’s build a national campaign in support of citizenship, a campaign to facilitate the process by which millions of people eligible for citizenship file the paperwork and take the oath of citizenship before a judge. People need support in this process, and the following three-part plan would help.

First, attorneys should set up permanent clinics at all of the nation’s law schools, particularly those subsidized by taxpayers, to help lawful permanent residents understand the paperwork, analyze their options, and offer legal guidance. Law students should earn academic credit for this pro bono work.

Second, teachers and translators are necessary to help permanent residents write their essays, prepare the documentation, and study for the civics test they must pass to achieve citizenship. Undergraduate and graduate students and other compassionate citizens could help.

Finally, we’ll need money. In 2007, during the administration of President George W. Bush, the fees to file the paperwork leading to citizenship increased from $330 to the current $680. For many, this fee represents an insurmountable burden.

The solution is simple. There are many billionaires out there — Bloomberg, Buffett, and Gates, to name a few — who have vowed publicly to give away at least half their fortunes during their lifetime. Lawful permanent residents who complete the forms, pass the civics test, and take the oath of citizenship should receive a full $680 refund from what I’ll call the BCI — Billionaires’ Citizenship Initiative.

Who could possibly be against this plan? One group comes to mind: members of Congress responsible for crafting the nation’s laws and who live in fear of voters who don’t look like them, speak like them, live in their neighborhoods, or earn (nearly) the same money.

This is an American irony that’s painful to consider but too tragic to ignore.

Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

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Opinion Viewpoint

A Dream (Act) Deferred

Eighty-four years ago, the American poet Langston Hughes wrote a simple, politically prescient essay titled “A Dream Deferred,” which expressed the author’s lament at the lack of socioeconomic progress of his fellow African Americans 61 years after emancipation.

In 2010, the struggle for civil rights continues. Last month’s victory for gay Americans (the repeal of the military’s divisive, damaging “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy) came two days after a major setback for immigrants’ rights activists, who watched 41 U.S. senators kill “The Dream Act.”

Only three Republican senators supported the Dream Act, which, in its latest incarnation, would offer young people who arrived in the United States as children the opportunity to work toward U.S. citizenship by graduating from high school, having a clear police record, and agreeing to attend at least two years of college or serving for two years in our armed services. Republican senators who fought against the legislation included the fractious Southerners Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. They reflexively labeled the bill as “amnesty for lawbreakers.” Graham stated that the Dream Act should form part of a comprehensive immigration reform package which “might” be considered only after tough enforcement measures are achieved at our border with Mexico.

Amnesty, as commonly defined legally, is a simple act of forgiveness for past offenses. We’ve allowed Republican politicians to turn this benign legal term into a monstrous category of sin, but offering amnesty to minors who have committed no crimes (many young people who would benefit from the Dream Act came to the U.S. as infants in the arms of their parents) is reasonable, responsible, and humane. We don’t want to define the U.S. as a nation that punishes kids who have committed no crime, but that’s exactly what the U.S. Senate did in December by voting down the Dream Act.

Graham’s disingenuousness on the issue is clear to all who have been following the Dream Act. Since early last year, the Obama administration has been beefing up border security, cracking down on workplaces that employ undocumented workers, and deporting by the thousands undocumented persons who run afoul of U.S. law. President Obama was convinced that a greater emphasis on “border security” would please Republicans, allow him to pass the popular Dream Act, and pave a legislative pathway to much needed comprehensive immigration reform. But the sometimes naive president was outmaneuvered by a group of slick Southern senators who — let’s face it — are uninterested in supporting any of Obama’s legislative agenda.

It’s important to note that the Dream Act that failed in the Senate last week was a thin, anemic version of the original Dream Act. The latest Dream Act (unlike previous versions) put in an eligibility age cap (29) and insisted that only people who were 15 years of age or younger when they arrived would benefit from the law. It offered no repeal of a ban on in-state tuition benefits to the undocumented and would have prevented undocumented students from applying for Pell Grants or other assistance to finance college. For progressives, the current incarnation of the Dream Act is discouraging, but it’s certainly better than nothing.

We must continue to fight for the Dream Act. Young people who could benefit from passage of this legislation should begin a massive letter writing campaign to representatives and senators in Washington. The good citizens of this country, the teachers, coaches, clergy, and the millions of others who work with and love these Dream Act kids need to become vocal on the matter and show the Senate that we’re paying attention. We can start by reminding senators that Hispanics, who are disproportionally affected by this issue, are becoming an increasingly significant force on Election Day, and the numbers are growing. They will remember the mean-spiritedness with which the Dream Act was voted down in December 2010.

We need national leadership on this issue. Unfortunately, we don’t have the poetic voice of a Langston Hughes or a unified, sustained commitment within the Hispanic community, so we allow people like Sessions and Graham to define and misrepresent the issues. These — and 39 other senators — might not know what we know as readers of the great poet of the Harlem Renaissance: A dream deferred can indeed explode.

Michael J. LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College.