Tag: immigration reform

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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

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.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Immigration: The Local Angle

One of the core tenets of journalism is to “find the local angle” for a national or international story. If, for instance, there’s a big, destructive hurricane in Florida, Memphis media might do a story on a Midtown family trapped in a Destin hotel or maybe an article on MLGW workers being sent to help reconnect power. Like that.

One of the national stories that’s been brought to the forefront in the past three years is immigration. Our president has made the demonization of refugees and immigrants a core element of his doctrine. Irrational fear of immigrants — especially brown ones — is stoked on a near-daily basis.

That’s why it was so gratifying to read about Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s refusal to be cowed by his party’s leader into denying refugees, well, a refuge, in our state. Lee is a self-avowed Christian who apparently believes Jesus meant it when he said, “Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Jesus also preached that Christians should serve “the least of these … feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.”

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And it was equally gratifying to read last week about Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris signing a commitment to continue the county’s participation in the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program. Harris said, “The U.S. is an inspiration of hope around the world. When we have the ability to act, we have a moral duty to help those in need, those in dire circumstances.”

Lee’s and Harris’ actions were taken in response to an executive order from the president that allows state and local governments to opt in — or out — of the program.

There is already dissent brewing in Nashville from the usual GOP troglodytes in the General Assembly. They are upset with Lee’s actions and say they plan to do whatever they can to stop the horde of scary brown folks from getting into our fair state.

I use the word “horde” loosely, because the number of refugees coming into the U.S. — and into our state — has declined drastically in the past three years. Tennessee accepted 692 refugees in 2019. Around 40 are expected to settle in Shelby County this year. I think we can handle it.

The Trump administration is limiting the total number of refugees allowed into the country this year to 18,000, down from 30,000 in 2019 — and down from traditional levels of nearly triple that number in prior years. This administration’s commitment to erasing the Emma Lazarus poem at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty is unwavering. We don’t want none of your “huddled masses,” buddy.

In addition, the Trump administration and its Justice Department are continuously tweaking regulations and requirements for refugees and immigrants who are in-country seeking to file for asylum or citizenship, making the process more difficult and more expensive. It’s a “death by 1,000 cuts” policy, designed solely to discourage immigration and assimilation.

That’s why Lee’s and Harris’ actions were so gratifying. Good leaders aren’t afraid to stand up for what’s right. They seek out ways to unite us, ways to carry on the proud tradition of America as the world’s melting pot. They urge us to welcome the stranger, to honor our best instincts.

Bad leaders seek out our fault lines and exploit divisions; they sow fear and ignorance; they even tweet photos of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi in Muslim garb and accuse them of supporting terrorists, a level of loathsomeness that seems unfathomable, even for this president. But, apparently, it is not.

The choice is clear, in Memphis and nationally, and in this case, the guys with the local angle got it right.

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Opinion Viewpoint

ICE on Fire: The Immigration Mess

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has earned the condemnation of many Americans for aggressively capturing and detaining people in our country.

The administration’s overreach on immigration has resulted in images many of us have been trying to unsee: kids in cages, squalid, crowded conditions at detention facilities, some facilities operating at 10 times beyond capacity (in San Diego, for example), kids (six this fiscal year alone) dying in detention, and now the possibility of indefinite detention. ICE, to add to human misery, is now determined to go after immigrant children receiving life-saving medical attention at premier medical facilities in the U.S. — treatments that are not necessarily available in their home nations. How did all this happen?

We’ve spent the past two and a half years focused on the Ionesco-inspired Theater of the Absurd that is the Trump Administration. The show is endlessly distracting, but the behind-the-scenes story involves a potent power grab by a nativist far right, which has found an enemy in immigrants who have no real political power and barely any political representation. Undocumented folks and green card holders don’t vote. In theory, these individuals have rights, but in practice, the onslaught against them has been unrelenting.

Congress won’t act; they don’t have to. So we, the people, must act. But how do we manifest resistance to such inhumanity when it comes from our own federal government?

The vote in 2020 is the most obvious starting point. In the face of what we are seeing at our border, there can be no excuse for rational, decent people not engaging in the next election.

On a local level, the Mariposa Collective here in Memphis has offered a hand in the form of food, clothing, and kindness to migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees, who pass through our city on buses from detention centers. This work continues and still needs committed volunteers and supporters.

Advocates and attorneys at organizations like Latino Memphis, the Community Legal Center, and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition are on the frontlines battling to preserve basic rights and the futures of those under siege. Their work is not free, and they deserve our financial support so they can continue and expand their efforts.

We cannot rely on the work of others to fix these problems. Every resident of Memphis needs to understand the full ramifications of what this administration has done and plans to do. Churches, book clubs, and community associations should be educating and informing “the average citizen” about our immigration laws and the rights that all of us have — yes, even those here without documentation. We need good old-fashioned 1960s-style “teach ins” so we all understand that Trump’s efforts to attack our immigration system don’t end at the border, but have real effects on our friends and neighbors here.

We need to continually ask whether our local government is doing enough to protect our fellow residents. Our public officials need to be questioned, continuously, about any collaboration between ICE and our local police force. The City, the Memphis Police Department (MPD), and the Shelby County Sheriff have all gone on record as opposing such collaboration, yet the MPD, Shelby County Sheriff, and the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office are all participants in the so-called West Tennessee Multi-Agency Gang Unit or MGU.

Included among MGU’s participant agencies is at least one Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer. MPD officers such as those working in MPD’s Homeland Security operations communicate with ICE and share arrest reports with ICE officers. The full extent of this relationship is unclear.

Thus, we wonder whether the walls of separation between federal law enforcement and the local police are as firm as the local agencies have previously declared. This dividing line is critical. If people in our city refuse to report crimes to the police out of fear for their own safety/possible detention and deportation, it threatens the safety of our community as a whole. We should demand that our local officials obtain the clarity we deserve as Memphians as to the extent of ICE’s participation with the MGU.

Just when you think the theater is over, a new act begins. The only way to tune out this sorry, surreal production is to take action, collectively and individually, because a nation that allows all of this to occur — including indefinite detention of fellow humans — has taken the turn from the theater of absurd to tragedy.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Trump l’oeil: Seeking Asylum Isn’t a Crime

President Trump’s frustrations with immigration and his inability to build (or even finance) a wall at our southern border has led to the unimaginable: the United States military at the border firing teargas at asylum seekers — most of whom are women and children. It was disconcerting to watch from the comfort of our Thanksgiving holiday as the gas drifted toward Tijuana into the eyes of the innocent.

But it did happen. It’s almost all illegal. And it’s a crisis created entirely by President Trump.

The United States, since the conclusion of the Second World War, has led the Western world in offering protection to asylum seekers. The horrors of the European holocaust forced America to listen more carefully to the pleas of those running (literally) for their lives. Current asylum law, encoded in international treaty and national law, mandates the United States government to consider asylum pleas from people who fear for their lives in foreign lands.

The president and his team of nationalists/nativists have declared, in certain violation of international and federal law, that asylum seekers from Central America shall not set foot on U.S. soil, which makes it impossible for people to file a petition. An asylum petition can only be made upon arrival in the United States.

To deter people from filing, Trump has sent active duty military troops (deployed on U.S. soil) as a sort of shield. But even before deploying troops, the Trump administration had been laying the groundwork for this inhumane spectacle by stalling the procedure and refusing to process families seeking asylum along the border.

The president, of course, would be fully authorized to send the military to defend against an invading foreign army or other bellicose actors, but no one believes that a few thousand unarmed, poor Central Americans represent any sort of threat to this nation’s sovereignty or democracy.

There is a long history of hostilities and disproportionate responses at the border: In 1916, Pancho Villa raided the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and some innocent bystanders were killed. The U.S. responded by spending $130 million to send a cavalry force (under the command of General John Pershing) that could never capture the wily Mexican revolutionary. Seventy years prior, the U.S. government annexed half of our neighbor’s territory in a war declared after the Mexican government refused to give up their territory voluntarily.

President Trump is the only serious threat to our democracy, not poor and desperate immigrants from Central America. The Trump administration (and all administrations) are prohibited by the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act from using the army for policing activities within United States territory. Soon, we believe, the courts will hear challenges to the president’s use of the military and judges will certainly question how long-standing, settled asylum laws and traditions can be tossed aside based on the whims of a capricious president, a rogue government.

We can drown in this sea of lawlessness, or we can fight back. We don’t recommend responding with violence, but these times require action and we draw inspiration from the civil disobedience developed in 19th-century New England. Henry David Thoreau famously went to jail for refusing to pay the taxes that he knew would be used to finance the 1846 war against Mexico (mentioned above); Thoreau — rightfully — declared that war immoral and illegal.

Good people in Memphis, right now, are fighting against the madness; they’re still paying their taxes but have adopted the role of the good Samaritan by helping people (mostly women and children) who have faced illegal family separation and dubious detentions here in America. This group known as “Migration Is Beautiful” (a.k.a. The Mariposa Collective) consists of about 25 people here — most of whom speak Spanish. They organize, and meet the five buses that arrive to Memphis each day carrying people recently released from detention. Released to relatives across the country, the U.S. government forces these travelers to wear ankle monitors, and most have no possessions, no money, and no food.

Greeting these weary families with sandwiches, medicine, and toys for the children, the best of Memphis meets those who have seen and suffered the worst of the federal government. These Memphians are the people who define and sustain our democracy; these are the people who, again and again, make America great.

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

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Opinion The Last Word

Immigration Struggles: What Gives You Hope?

CREDIT: Latino Memphis

Three weeks ago, I sat down with three inspiring folks in a panel on activism and advocacy. Chris Sanders had driven in from Nashville to represent the Tennessee Equality Project. Shahidah Jones from the Official Black Lives Matter Memphis Chapter sat to my right, and next to her was Justin Davis from the Memphis Bus Riders Union.

It felt like home, as if we were just about to have a regular conversation, the only difference being the 50 or so students sitting in rows in front of us and the fact that we were sitting next to each other instead of across a table or in a living room. Home, of course, is relative. It was not the physical elements of that space that made it home but rather the shared ánimo (energy) that I felt being in conversation with them and the students in the room, all of whom are involved in community service.

Latino Memphis

Everyone should have a reason to hope.

We covered a range of topics. Mostly, we defined activism and advocacy and were speaking on privilege, allyship, and sustainable change in order to problematize community service — because community service, particularly in higher education institutions, is often over-simplified. In other words, we are not grappling with historical and systemic conditions that create, and most importantly, sustain, inequity, but rather we engage in a short-term exchange of services through which, typically, while not intentionally, we as outsiders of xyz community are receiving greater benefits through knowledge and/or experience. All of that is to say, it was an incredible conversation that could have gone on for hours, especially given the breadth of experiences we could have pulled from through our various, intersecting backgrounds in community organizing.

One of the things that I left with that evening, that continues to linger in my mind, was this question that one of the students presented to us: What gives you hope?

I wasn’t surprised by this question. I even think that I expected it. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it asked at a panel or guest speaker event, and I would venture to say that it won’t be the last. We get asked about hope a lot. By “we,” I mean folks like the ones in the panel who are queer folks, black and brown folks, women, queer women, queer women of color, queer women of color who are immigrants, etc. The combinations of identities in just our four-person panel are probably endless if we go further into experiences shaped by race, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexual orientation, ability, and so on. But I list just a few to offer a glimpse into the intersectionality of identities that shape our experiences and thus shape the work we do in fighting against dominant systems that negate if not erase these experiences.

I think that’s why that student asked this question about hope. How do we keep pushing when there are larger structures, laws, and policies that continue to qualify structural racism and gender violence and limit our economic and physical mobility? The student didn’t add that much to the question, but that is what went on in my head and what I believe went on, if not in some form or variation, through the minds of Chris, Shahidah, and Justin.

We sat on that question for a little bit longer than the rest. The thing is, there’s no simple answer. Hope is complicated. It’s not as if we exchange our cup of coffee for a cup of hope each morning and we’re good to go. If anything, I would say that survival kicks in every hour, every day more than hope. When we lobby in Nashville, for example, it’s not because we’re passionate about politics. We understand the immediate effects that politics and policy have on the lives of people, and so we will travel miles to address immoral and unjust laws.

For the past month, both of my parents, along with about 50 volunteers in the Migration Is Beautiful group, have been getting up as early as 4 a.m. to meet refugees who have been recently released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers. Each day, they’re gathering and organizing supplies and resources for individuals, adults, families, and children who come into Memphis on Greyhound buses, many who haven’t had a real meal in days and are ill-equipped for cold temperatures. Folks in the Migration Is Beautiful group are responding to a crisis created by unstable refugee and asylum policies with no foreseeable end in sight.

While hope motivates many, the immediate response to this crisis is to offer support as much as possible for people to make it through in a healthy and safe way to the next city in their stops.

These action and response movements that exist locally, nationally, and internationally aren’t rooted as simply passions, extracurricular activities, or hobbies for people who are in some way connected to communities that consistently are under attack. This is about surviving this day in order to see the next. This is the ánimo that carries us.

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona and Memphian pursuing an Urban Studies and Latin American and Latinx Studies degree at Rhodes College.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

DACA Dilemma

The nation has just witnessed another orgy of political partisanship on steroids — the 69-hour governmental shutdown resulting from a standoff between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, with the GOP members carrying water for the immigration hardliners in President Donald Trump’s White House.

The ostensible issues involved in the standoff were hardly trivial, with congressional Democrats basing their position on a determination to see the passage of enabling legislation for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) and Republicans being just as determined to keep anything involving DACA out of the continuing resolution bill that was being prepared to maintain the operations of the federal government.

What underscores the absurdity of the conflict is the fact that, by general consent, clear majorities existed in both parties favoring DACA, which would shield from deportation and other penalties the children, many of them now grown and active participants in the economic and civic life of America, who were brought here by parents who were themselves illegal aliens. 

Legislation to restore DACA was made necessary when Trump last year arbitrarily revoked the executive order by his predecessor, President Barack Obama, that had established the program. Trump, who has an obvious fetish for eradicating any possible vestige of Obama’s two terms, claimed (and claims) that he, too, favors the concept of DACA but contended at the time that only Congress should authorize the program and set a deadline of March 4th for legislative reauthorization.

Basing their stand on a distrust of Trump’s long-evident proclivity for reversing his stated positions regularly and whimsically, the Democrats obviously wished to nail the issue down as far in advance of the President’s arbitrary deadline as possible.

Republicans, taking their cue from the aforementioned administration hardliners, resolved to resist dealing with DACA without a clear go-ahead from Trump, who has insisted on coupling DACA reauthorization with Congressional appropriations to enact his Great Wall fantasy on the border with Mexico, as well as on approval of an assortment of other harsh anti-immigrant positions. Hence, after some typical back-and-forthing from Trump that made hash of attempts to negotiate the matter, the impasse.

Disagreements are inevitable within a democratic framework, but they should be based upon legitimate divisions of opinion, not on Us-Against-Them invocations of party loyalty, which was so obviously the cause of the DACA standoff. The governmental shutdown was fairly quickly ended when the Democrats blinked and concurred with a GOP formula for a continuing resolution to extend to February 8th, at which time the DACA issue will still need resolution, and more urgently. To everybody’s shame, party was put before country.

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Opinion The Last Word

Wonder Wall

CREDIT: Vaclav Lang | Dreamstime.com

Humans start lying at about age two. I caught my otherwise angelic niece in the most minor fib — about whether she’d been to the potty. What struck me wasn’t the ease with which she lied right to my face, but how quickly she realized her mendacity would catch up to her. It’s as if I could see the gears turning in her head as she weighed her options. Take the praise and continue the lie, only to later be exposed as full of crap, both literally and figuratively? Or tell the truth and avoid whatever potential messes await? She looked at me, she looked at her mom, and she blurted: “I’M JUST KIDDING! HA HA HA.”

If only our nation’s president could be so reasoned and mature. Imagine being so committed to an idea that you’re willing to shut down the federal government over it. Now imagine it’s an idea that everyone has told you is simplistic, impractical, and ineffectual. Listen, hear me out — it’s a wall. But not just any wall. A big beautiful $20 billion dollar wall for keeping the brown people out. Mr. Deal Man never expected Democrats to say “Sure, we’ll do your wall, whatever” just to watch him and his band of nationalists and neophytes blow it again. Get your big beautiful wall, but get owned by libs in the process? Talk about a catch-22.

Vaclav Lang | Dreamstime.com

The Wall

For a few years now, I have wondered how no one has sufficiently explained to Mr. Trump that planes can fly over walls, even 55-foot-tall ones. One would think someone who owned an airline would have considered that. Overstays, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, have outnumbered border crossers every year for the past decade. These are people who come here legally and allow their visas to expire, for whatever reason. Maybe war broke out or a natural disaster happened back home. Maybe they like the food better. A wall isn’t going to keep them out. Most unauthorized immigrants have been here more than a decade, and a third of them didn’t come from Mexico. The number of apprehensions at the border between the U.S. and Mexico dropped by about half last year, with virtually no changes in enforcement. Maybe people are “flooding in” from elsewhere. Maybe they’re flying. Maybe they don’t want to live in a shithole where that guy is in charge.

To hear the president tell it, the border is like Texarkana, where you can just hopscotch between countries. “Tee hee! I’m in Mexico! Tee hee! Now I’m in Arizona!” And drugs are imported by a guy throwing a bag of drugs to his buddy on the other side. If it were that easy, it wouldn’t be called smuggling. In reality, most illegal drugs arrive by vehicles, with the product hidden in creative ways. Some drugs arrive disguised as cargo. Maybe your cheap Mexican produce made its journey alongside some hollowed-out watermelons full of heroin. Again, nothing a wall could contain.

He knows these things. He could have ended the charade on day one by saying “Folks, the wall is a metaphor.” But the lie has consumed him and there’s no turning back. Chief of staff John Kelly gave his boss the perfect out, saying Trump’s views on the wall had evolved since he was a candidate. He could have said (tweeted, probably) “General Kelly is right. As president, I have more information at my disposal. Coming from a more knowledgeable place, I’ve concluded a wall is a bad investment. I know this will disappoint some people, but I took an oath to lead the entire country, and I hope you’ll understand that I feel this is in our best interest.”

He could have instead pledged to address the opioid crisis in a meaningful way beyond declaring an emergency — a move that would actually help the white rural voters I keep reading about in The New York Times. He carried four out of the five states with the highest rates of opioid-related deaths — and lost by less than half a percentage point in the fifth. Addressing the root cause would stem demand for those backpacks full of heroin that allegedly keep hitting people over the head.

But that’s not what any of this is about, which makes last weekend’s shutdown so much more enraging than the previous. Holding children’s health care and DREAMers’ futures hostage in exchange for hardline and heartless immigration policy isn’t about priorities or responsible spending or even keeping the country safe. It’s catnip for the GOP’s new base of white-grievance rage-aholics, who are the only ones troubled by the presence of immigrants in this once-welcoming nation.

There were so many ways to compromise without looking like a weak loser who sucks at deals, but now the party that controls both houses of Congress and the presidency is so committed to half-baked soundbyte strategies they can’t even keep the government from shutting down. What a time.

Jen Clarke is a digital marketing specialist and an unapologetic Memphian.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Against the Wall

Ten years ago, the United States Congress passed H.R. 6061 authorizing construction of a 700-mile “wall” along our southern border with Mexico. Funding for the bill, which President George W. Bush signed into law on October 26, 2006, was not nearly enough (at $1.2 billion) to satiate our American wall fixation. Between 2007 and 2014, the government sunk another $5.2 billion into a Homeland Security account called Border Security Fencing, Infrastructure, and Technology.
Now, the leading, but receding, GOP candidate for president has campaigned vigorously on the promise of building a wall. When someone at Rhodes College anonymously chalked a sidewalk with the message “Trump 2016: Build a Wall,” many students were offended and dismayed. But “wall politics” have been with us for a while here in America, and walls, we know, never solve problems or bring about social peace. If you don’t believe us, ask the Israelis. Talk to some Berliners. Study the rationale and history behind the construction of China’s “Great Wall.” 

Shouting at wall advocates is counter-productive. Thinking creatively about ways to engage those who truly believe in the benefits of border fences is a better strategy.

Most people in America are not mean-spirited, nativist know-nothings. But many are generally confused by an outdated, impossibly complex immigration system that can only be modernized through an act of Congress. Since this particular Congress takes the cake for fecklessness, fear, and inaction, it’s unlikely we’ll get authentic immigration reform any time soon. This means that the people with the biggest mouths, the deepest pockets, and the skills to manipulate the national media have taken control of the immigration issue. What to do? Here’s a game plan to prevent that foolish barrier:

First, register to vote, and work to elect a new Congress. It’s not impossible, but it won’t happen easily or quickly. It will take more than signing a passive, online petition. It will require much more time and energy than goes into posting a message or two on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr.   

Second, study up. Good, careful articles dealing with the fence, the technological glitches, the politics and funding of the fence, and the negative international reaction have been published recently. It’s imperative to fight those who manipulate the fears of others with information, statistics, and historical analysis. 

Immigrants — documented and undocumented alike — make our cities more vibrant; they provide invaluable labor and services to our economy; and they contribute billions of dollars in taxes and to social security. Unauthorized workers pay about $13 billion a year in social security and take out less than $1 billion. Over the past 10 years, they’ve paid $100 billion into that fund. In other words, the undocumented are helping to float our social security system.

Third, allow artistic expressions to animate your thinking on immigration. Focusing only on the soul-draining political details minimizes the time we have to read literature, watch films, and listen to music. Carlos Fuentes, Yuri Herrera, Ana Castillo, and Oscar Casares have all published works that help us see the debate in a distinct dimension — creatively, metaphorically. 

Two important films — El Norte and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada — are worth watching to help humanize the issue. These stories add depth and beauty to a dispiriting, dour debate that’s increasingly playing out on social media rather than face-to-face. We don’t debate anymore; we argue on Facebook, using a medium where we choose our friends and stare into a computer screen rather than into a person’s eyes. 

Finally, any of you remember Lou Dobbs? We’ve forgotten about him, too. Dobbs was a CNN media star for many years and focused his nightly reports on the dangers of immigration. He carefully selected, collected, and reported the crimes and other deprivations committed by immigrants. It worked for a while, but, by 2009, people grew tired of his campaign, his ratings fell, and he was pushed out. Musician/activist Steve Earle concluded the liner notes to his 2007 album Washington Square Serenade with the memorable “P.S. F—k Lou Dobbs,” an addendum that sort of sums up that unfortunate era.  

Let’s take back the immigration debate and force Congress to act. Let’s stand up to those wishing for a wall not with lachrymose-laden laments but with real action predicated upon study and preparation. If we hope to retain our nation’s bedrock values, we’ll have to engage the wall advocates in this war of ideas and ideals. Retreating out of fear or behind dismissive labels is not the answer, and if the wall actually gets built, we’ll have only ourselves to blame.

Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and board chair at Latino Memphis; Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

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Opinion Viewpoint

DAPA on the Docket

On April 18th, the Supreme Court will hear U.S. v. Texas, an immigration case that has emerged out of continued and increasingly pernicious immigration anger enveloping American society.

The case is complex, and the ruling could affect 5 million people living in America, with direct implications here in Memphis. U.S. v. Texas reflects growing tension between the courts and the executive branch — tensions rooted in the political polarization that defines our nation at this time in history.

In November, 2014, President Obama announced a new program called DAPA — Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (and Lawful Permanent Residents). This executive action would allow about 5 million people — parents of children who are United States citizens — to apply for a three-year work permit upon successful completion of background checks. The program is designed as an extension of the popular and successful 2012 executive action called DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. More than 1.2 million DACA applications have been approved, which means youngsters are obtaining work permits (working and paying taxes) and seeking post-secondary educational opportunities.

The day before DAPA was to go into effect, in February 2015, federal District Judge Andrew Hansen, from Brownsville, Texas, issued an injunction which immediately halted implementation of DAPA. Hansen, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, has been a strong critic of federal immigration policy and leans toward anti-immigration nativists in his writings and opinions. The 26 states that brought the legal action — led by Texas — essentially “shopped for” and found a sympathetic judge and venue to plead their case.

The Obama administration argues — reasonably — that it has been forced to act via executive action because Congress has refused to fix what all sides concede is a badly broken immigration system. In 2013, Obama supported a moderate, comprehensive immigration reform that was passed by the Senate but not even considered by an increasingly partisan, anti-Obama House, controlled at that time by Speaker John Boehner.

Three years earlier, the Senate defeated the “Dream Act,” which would have allowed youngsters brought to the U.S. by their parents to seek citizenship upon completion of high school, on the condition they would agree to spend two years in either college or the armed forces.

We’re hopeful that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the administration and against the 26 fractious states that seem motivated by politics, determined to characterize Obama as a sort of emperor-president who rules by fiat. These same states did not file any similar lawsuits against Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush when they committed to “family fairness.” The Family Fairness (1987-1990) law prevented the deportation of children and spouses of folks who had been offered a pathway to citizenship under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, signed into law by President Reagan.

Assuming the court rules in favor of the administration, about 50,000 individuals will be affected in Tennessee — thousands of whom reside here in Memphis. Mayor Strickland can lead by preparing for this eventuality, supporting the residents who hope to apply for DAPA. Folks will need to prove that they’ve resided here permanently since 2010, which can be demonstrated through documentation —utility and cable bills, for example. The mayor and others can and should facilitate this process by setting up clinics and organizing teams of attorneys and other concerned citizens to support those who hope to apply for DAPA. Supporting DAPA makes political and economic sense: It is estimated that, over a 10-year period, DAPA could add an additional $2.65 billion to the state’s GDP.

In this season of political irrationality, where fear of immigrants and a return to nativism has taken hold, we hope the Supreme Court can tune out the national noise, the anti-immigrant churn that’s absorbed us at this moment. Moments, thankfully, are only temporary, but the difference DAPA provides — for millions — would endure.

Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and board member at Latino Memphis; Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.