Author: Michael J. LaRosa

Here we go again. It seems like an eternity since immigration reform was part of the national dialogue: Back in 2006-2007, George W. Bush was president, and Senator Ted Kennedy was leading the push for a bipartisan immigration reform package in the Senate with the collaboration of Senator John McCain of Arizona. Their proposal ultimately failed, and the 2008 presidential campaign halted all forward movement to reform our outdated immigration system.

Now the issue is back front and center, but much has changed in the past four years, and no one should be surprised that discontent and frustration have led the Arizona legislature to pass a draconian (and certainly unconstitutional) anti-immigration law that harkens back to the late 18th century — more specifically to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. In Arizona, any law enforcement official can now demand “papers” from anyone suspected of being in the state illegally — i.e., anyone with brown or brownish skin tone.

Here in Memphis, where tens of thousands of immigrants reside, mostly Spanish speakers from Mexico and Central America, there are clear and compelling reasons to adopt the exact opposite approach of our distant neighbors from Arizona. Memphis, like many cities its size, faces serious challenges including a dwindling tax base, a projected demographic decline, and industrial development that has flat-lined over the past five years.

The Immigration Policy Center in Washington, D.C., recently reported a close correlation between economic growth (in metropolitan areas such as Dallas, Houston, and Phoenix) and growth in immigrant share of the workforce. Memphis should begin an aggressive campaign to embrace legal immigrants in a clear and purposeful repudiation of Arizona-style myopia and meanness.

In Memphis, an inexpensive, five-part program could be coordinated that would help attract immigrants to our city: “Welcoming Memphis” would encourage immigrants and their families to make Memphis their home, and local businesses could help support an aggressive ad campaign, locally and internationally, designed to show Memphis as a diverse, tolerant, and cosmopolitan city that offers affordable housing, safe schools, and job opportunities.

The campaign would feature five key initiatives:

1) Increased funding for English Language Learners programs in schools, to help children of immigrants quickly integrate into our public school population and achieve academic success together with their peers. The funding would support teachers, teachers’ aides, and after-school programs.

2) An innovative scholarship fund for qualified, hard-working immigrant students to attend college at one of the many excellent Memphis universities. This effort would encourage young immigrants who live in our community to study locally and would bring new immigrants from abroad to our city. In exchange, these individuals would be expected to commit to a year or two of service in our public schools as counselors, teachers, or administrators.

3) Creation of a “clearinghouse” by partnering with local immigration law firms, whereby Memphis businesses and other hiring entities could receive much needed legal and technical support in hiring high-skilled immigrant and temporary workers through current employment-based visa programs.

4) Explicit rejection of any and all attempts to turn local law enforcement officials into federal immigration officers. All residents of Memphis should feel comfortable reporting crimes to local police officials and participating fully in society without fear of reprisals based on their immigration status.

5) Facilitating access to job training. Our city government could develop innovative, inexpensive partnerships with local unions, community colleges, and technical schools to help willing and able immigrants to move into apprenticeship trade programs.

With strong, visionary leadership and a minimal financial investment and collaboration between government, schools, and businesses, Memphis has the opportunity to lead by attracting and encouraging work-eligible immigrants to contribute to our city.

At a time of hostile, dehumanizing Arizona-style anti-immigrant rhetoric (and laws), Memphis can offer leadership in stark contrast to the law-enforcement-only model displayed in other communities.

A Welcoming Memphis initiative can generate greater economic prosperity and help build a more culturally vibrant city, while welcoming, embracing, and uplifting our immigrant brothers and sisters.

Michael J. LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College; Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney.

President Carter was correct to characterize Congressman Joe
Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s health-care speech as
racist. Racism is at least part of the fuel that detonated the
reflexive, angry two words —”You lie!” — shouted at Obama
during his nationally televised speech to a joint session of Congress
on September 9th.

But few commentators have reflected on the 16 words spoken by Obama
immediately prior to Wilson’s reaction. The president, in attempting to
win over moderate Republicans and independents to his
health-care-reform proposal, said, “There are those who claim our
reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants; this too is false.”

Let us not forget that it is the “Latin factor” that forms much of
the racism represented by Wilson. Brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking
people, who make up 78 percent of all undocumented aliens in the U.S.,
represent the real challenge to the South Carolinian legislator and his
allies. In Wilson’s world, denying 13 million people health care
becomes a political virtue rather than what it really is: divisive,
cruel, and completely against the founding principles of our
nation.

We’ve tried this before. In 1994, during a period of anti-immigrant
activism, voters in California passed the Proposition 187 ballot
initiative, which sought to deny education and any health care (except
for emergency) to the undocumented. Proposition 187 was never
implemented, and by 1999, the California Supreme Court declared it
unconstitutional. California voters then rebuked some of the
politicians who supported the anti-immigrant legislation. (Governor
Pete Wilson was one such politician; he is now a political
afterthought.)

The question for President Obama is clear: If he can manage to
squeak through some sort of health-care reform in the next few months,
will he then have the political capital needed to begin the fight for
comprehensive immigration reform? Considering the current political
climate, real immigration reform might elude this president, just as it
did his predecessor. And that’s a shame.

With unemployment in the U.S. hovering at about 10 percent, many
claim that illegal immigration is responsible. In fact, the
undocumented laborers who work in occupations that U.S. citizens abhor
(in chicken processing plants in the Carolinas, in the strawberry
fields of California, in the apple orchards of New York) have brought
vitality and relative economic prosperity to many cities and towns
across the nation. New Orleans after Katrina; Galveston and Houston
after last year’s Hurricane Ike; Riverside, New Jersey, Hartford,
Connecticut, and hundreds of other communities have recently witnessed
the direct economic benefits of immigrant labor.

With our economy in crisis and our overall sense of American
exceptionalism seriously challenged by recent economic realities, it’s
time to act on comprehensive immigration reform by recognizing the
economic and social contributions immigrants (documented and
undocumented) make to our society. Regarding health-care reform, it’s
clear that forcing people to visit the local emergency room as a last
resort is grossly inefficient and cost-prohibitive.

Comprehensive immigration reform would make life more peaceful and
secure for millions of people who live and work in this country and
contribute their energy to our society. The reform legislation must
include the “Dream Act,” which would regularize the immigration status
of hundreds of thousands of young people who are citizens but are
effectively denied both the dream of education beyond high school and
true social mobility in the U.S.

Frightened racists sit in the hallowed halls of our legislatures,
but racism is far more complex and insidious than the two-bit words
used by a white Southern congressman. Millions of Hispanics among us
have felt unkindness and prejudice in a nation that prides itself on
celebrating diversity and supporting the ambitions of those who hope to
make a better life here. Comprehensive immigration reform must become a
national priority. President Obama should tune out the shouters and
haters and move a more rational nation forward on this critically
important enterprise.

The parameters of a new (and probably soon to be surreal)
immigration reform battle were drawn up last week in Washington, D.C.
On Thursday, June 25th, President Obama appointed Janet Napolitano as
the administration’s “point person” to help develop bipartisan,
sensible legislation which will overhaul our long-outdated immigration
system. Two hours before Obama’s announcement, his chief of staff, Rahm
Emanuel, admitted the administration does not have the votes in
Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year.

Most Americans still underestimate the political, economic, and
cultural significance of the 45 million Hispanics who live in the U.S.
The national and local media have been cautious and parsimonious in
dealing with Hispanics — documented and undocumented alike. Most
Memphians already have noticed that thousands of our neighbors —
the undocumented workers in our community — are forced to live in
the shadows. These people pay rent, support local businesses, and pay
state sales tax but enjoy few rights and only the slightest opportunity
for true social mobility. They fill a vital role in our local and
national economy, but anti-immigrant zealots in our country would
prefer to forcibly send them all home.

Obama, in a June 19th speech at the Esperaza National Hispanic
Prayer Breakfast, articulated a clear plan to “regularize” undocumented
workers who want to stay in the country. Under his plan, undocumented
residents will pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, and step to
the back of the line for consideration as citizens, behind those who
have obeyed all of our nation’s baroque immigration laws. Lamentably,
the far-right position characterizes all undocumented workers as law
breakers, pure and simple. Yet, our immigration laws are so
anachronistic and unfair (discriminating disproportionately against the
poor, unskilled, and unschooled) that reasonable people would conclude
the system is in fact broken. For example, each year, the U.S. issues
66,000 H-2B temporary work visas, yet the U.S. economy (even in its
current recessed phase) requires 400,000 to 500,000 unskilled foreign
workers, mostly in agriculture.

Anti-immigrant disciples, bolstered by the previous administration’s
“get-tough rhetoric,” which featured televised immigration raids and
mass deportations, created a national climate of fear and mistrust
among Hispanics. The resultant political shift this past November
— Obama picked up about 63 percent of the 11 million Hispanic
votes cast nationwide — led to victory for the Democratic
candidate in at least four crucial states: Colorado, Florida, Nevada,
and New Mexico.

Hispanics in the United States are watching carefully as the
administration cautiously rolls out its immigration reform strategy.
They’re also keeping an eye on recent overtures the president has made
toward Latin America and Latin Americans. Obama has lifted meaningless
travel and financial restrictions between Cuban Americans and their
families in their homeland, and this past April, the president
literally reached out to mischievous Venezuelan president Hugo
Chávez at the Summit of the Americas. Obama has had fruitful,
earnest dialogue with the presidents of Mexico and Brazil, and he’s
floated the idea of naming the popular Brazilian leader, Luiz
Inácio “Lula” da Silva, president of the World Bank when his
mandate expires at the end of 2010.

Obama’s efforts in Latin America have paid off: In late May, Rio de
Janeiro’s leading newspaper, O Globo, published a poll conducted
in six Western countries showing Obama as the most popular leader in
the world. (The president’s 78 percent approval rating was eight points
higher than the Dalai Lama’s.) But the president’s world popularity,
his outreach to Latin America, and his prudent changes to the previous
administration’s policies and attitudes in the region will quickly fade
from memory if he cannot secure lasting immigration reform in the
U.S.

The critical concerns of Hispanic and non-Hispanic Americans are
fundamentally the same and include the expectation of equal protection
under the law, access to economic security, stability and protection
for families, and opportunities to delineate one’s own destiny. These
fundamental aspirations are out of reach for the millions who live in
America undocumented. Rational, prudent, and comprehensive immigration
reform would strengthen community and justice in America.

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