What role does racism play in the American anti-immigration movement?

Great Debates
41

One of the differences in current immigration compared to past immigration is the percentage of immigrants who send money home, and who spend part of every year in their homeland, and the amount of money leaving the country as a result. Back in the boat-ride-and-snail-mail days, it wasn’t as easy to do.

It’s not going to bankrupt the state any time soon, but we can ill-afford in our current situation to have millions of dollars flowing out of this country every year, never to return.

Of course, there’s room for some immigrant workers. Sometimes, there’s a need for immigrant workers. Around where I live, I don’t think we could currently meet the demand for skilled masonry, for example, without importing labor.

But what galls me is to see contractors picking up “undocumented” day-laborers at the Chevron station by the Home Depot to hang drywall, and paying them undercut wages below the table. I know for a fact there are citizens who would do this work, but hiring them would require paying Social Security, possibly workers’ comp, etc etc.

And when I see illegals going on “freedom rides” in a bid for amnesty, it makes my blood boil. It’s a slap in the face to everyone who’s been waiting to enter legally.

When I see other states granting benefits to illegals, or changing the laws so that documentation is not required to receive benefits (which amounts to the same thing), and hear of efforts around here to follow suit, I get angry. We might as well hang a sign at the border saying “Ignore the law, come on in!”

I’ve lived overseas. And do you know what benefits I would have had in those countries had I been illegal – zip, zilch, zero, nada. I would have had the right to go to jail or be deported. And that’s how it should be.

42

I have no problem you speaking out against illegal immigration. But that’s not what you were doing in your initial post.

Actually, all Irish people who enter this lottery are given preferential treatment simply by virtue of the fact that they are eligible to apply for it. Nobody in their right mind would suggest that the Irish are really under-represented in the US. They are eligible for the Diversity Visa simply because they have a stronger lobby on Capitol Hill than most groups.

Sorry, but it just seems to be a common Irish disease these days. “There’s too much immigration.” “What about all the Irish who’ve immigrated all over the world?” “That’s different.”

43

Perhaps because that wasn’t the OP’s original question.

There was a preference at one point though this preference has been removed. There was also a preference for Indians and Pakastanis. Again though, I obyed the law and followed the rules which I would like to think makes me a little different from an illegal entrant.

A disease? That’s more than a little sanctimonious. Irish immigration to the United States was curtailed on several occasions so it’s not like there was a permanent open door into the United States. Irish immigration to England and Australia was a function of colonialism. Moreover, most Irish immigrants were not opportunists who ‘forum shopped’ for the best country to emigrate to.

Times have changed. America and Australia were wide open, developing countries that needed immigrants to both populate and develop the countries. There were, however, little or no government subsidies to immigrants entering either country. Times have changed and immigration patterns should mirror that change.

Ireland is a very small country so a large number of immigrants, whatever the source, will have a profound long-term demographic affect on the country. It’s inappropriate to suggest that just because Irish immigrated we are now obligated to take any and all immigrants. If you feel that we owe a “debt” then why not just limit ourselves to immigrants from countries that we emigrated to in large numbers? The Irish also starved themselves to death, should we go back to that too?

I’m reminded of the story of Vietnamese boat people who were literally stranded in no-man’s land (sea) and without a port to land in. The Irish government offered them sanctuary and they turned it down.

44

I still plan on responding to your post Kozmik as I think I will enjoy the discussion. Pushed for time at the moment. Whenever I see a fellow Dubliner however, I feel the need to respond right away :smack:

45

Lochdale’s situation highlights one of the things that OP misses; most of the anti-immigration sentiment current in the US is about illegal immigration. To talk about anti-immigration sentiment in the US, and then say that you’re not talking about illegal immigration is disingenous in the extreme.

I submit that people are much less concerned about Dr. Gupta and his family applying for and getting their green cards and much more concerned about unnnamed and uncounted people sneaking across the border. The absolute defiance of the law shown by the latter is what so enrages people: it’s exactly the feeling one gets while you’re stuck in traffic and you see some guy passing people in the shoulder.
I want as tight border as can be done. If a fence is feasible, I want a fence. If a razor-wire topped wall is feasible, I want that. If, with warning, the border patrol announced an “illegal entrants may be shot” policy, I wouldn’t mind. I think the minutemen, as a whole, are doing a good thing. Am I racist?

Consider also that I want the process for *legal * citizenship made easier. I want a guest worker program that is fairly easy to get into if the demand is there. And I want those guest workers to be paid either the going minimum wage, or if not, then they should be exempt from federal income tax. If that means I pay $.50 more for lettuce, so be it.

The current policy of more-or-less open borders for anyone to come in hurts:
[ul]
[li]America, by providing an open door to anyone who wants to come in; criminal, terrorist, whatever. It also hurts America by creating a semi-permanent racialized underclass; something we’re trying to get rid of. [/li][li]The people who wait in line, by cheapening their patience and creating more generalized anti-furriner sentiment than would otherwise exist. [/li][li]Mexico, which loses many of its most ambitious and hardest-working citizens to El Norte. These are also many of the same people that would likely support real reform to Mexico’s quasi-democratic oligarchy.[/li][li]The illegal immigrants themselves, as they are trapped in a limbo, largely poor with little hope of increase, ripe for exploitation, always vulnerable to those willing to exploit their fear of deportation.[/li][/ul]
The only ones who benefit from our current immigration policy are:[ul]
[li]Large corporations and the wealthy, who get a cheap source of labor that they can use with relatively little accountability.[/li][li]Politicians who enjoy demagoguing any attempts at reform as “racism” while they pay Carlos the gardener $3.50 an hour. [/li][/ul]

46

I wouldn’t go so far as to say “shoot with warning” – consider, for example, the case of a legal immigrant (or naturalized citizen) from Iraq whose English is poor and who has a gut-level distrust of police and little familiarity with American law… could be ugly if he lives in a border area and flees from the BP or INS.

<hijack>

I was very impressed with a Border Patrol officer I saw intereviewed on PBS TV a few months ago. They were doing a story on how the looser areas of the border were being sealed, driving illegals into more dangerous territory.

The interviewer asked the officer point blank about the dangers to the illegals, and the officer answered that, yes, their intention was to cut off access at the easy crossings, thereby forcing would-be illegal immigrants to use more dangerous routes.

The interviewer pressed him, and the officer responded very quickly and directly, saying, yes, they intended to concentrate enforcement on the most accessible areas, and put less enforcement in areas – such as deserts – where the threat of death was high.

No matter how the interviewer tried to manipulate the dialog to portray the policy as cruel and unusual, the BP agent remained straightforward and direct, offered no apologies for the policy, and gave no indication whatsoever that any softening should be expected.

</hijack>

47

Eh? Where does the OP specify illegal immigration?

48

True; just as people avoiding traffic tickets run from cops and end up dying in a wreck. Do a stupid and illegal thing, and there are consequences.

49

Bona fide immigrant into Canada. It strikes me that those who criticise others for being anti immigration for whatever reason should consider the plight and consequences that accrued to native Americans as a result of the first wave of immigration in the 16 century from exotic lands.

50

You’re talking about killing someone because they flee from a uniform and don’t understand English (and perhaps French or Spanish).

The Border Patrol can’t simply shoot people because they avoid officers and don’t respond to a verbal warning in English/French/Spanish.

Your reply above was thoughtless and flippant. My only worry is that I believe you’re serious.

51

Of course, the immigrants in that case had technology centuries in advance of the natives, and carried a variety of pathogens against which the natives had no immunological defense. So, I don’t think I’m going to worry to much about that until ebola-ridden Mexicans wielding ray guns start streaming across the border.

52

You and Dubya both, Bwana!

53

You’re getting kind of off-topic here. The contemporary American “immigration reduction” movement is only incidentally about illegal aliens; it is mainly about setting lower and stricter limits for legal immigration; and the issue is, what is the real motive for that?

54

My only worry is that you seem eager to put words in my mouth “shoot without warning” is your term, not mine.

There is a large gulf between mowing down illegals from helicopters and the current policy of sending out one guy with a pistol in a bronco to face heavily-armed drug traffickers and corrupt Mexican army units.

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That sort of lawless no-man’s land is a direct result of the failure to assert any semblence of control over the border; when you invite contempt for a law by one group, you end up inviting it to all groups.

When an unidentified person is seeking to violate the borders of a sovereign nation, and refuses to recognize the proper authorities (and sorry, “stop” and “alto” are quite sufficient; if any russian-only speakers attempt illegal entry, they do so at their own risk). I see no reason that an agent has to assume he has good intentions. I would certainly hope that he would act with great restraint; but if a few Coyotes were shot, it wouln’t break my heart.

That and an easily-enrolled-in guest worker program would eventually lead to a better situation for everyone.

55

Except for Americans.

56

:confused: “Coyotes”?

Hasn’t Bush already instituted such a program?

57

The people who smuggle illegals across. By and large, criminal scum who have no compunction at collecting exhorbitant fees and then abandoning the illegals in the desert, or crowding them into the back of semis till they die of dehydration or asphyxiation.

No. He’s proposed a program that would involve reapplying every six years, but there’s opposition on both the right and the left.

58

I don’t think official racism plays all that big a role. However, the immigration votes and actions of some individuals certainly might result from it.

At any rate racism certainly has played a big role in the past. Orientals were welcomed to do work on the transcontinental railroad and menial labor of all kinds but were denied citizenship. In fact that policy was even held up by Hitler as an example of what he was after for Germany.

“At present there exists one State which manifests al least some modest attempts that show a better appreciation of how things ought to be done in this matter [i.e. citizenship] It is not, however, in our model German Republic but in the U.S.A. that efforts are made to conform at least partly to the counsels of common sense. … by excluding certain races from the right to become naturalized citizens, they have begun to introduce principles similar to those on which we wish to ground the People’s State.”

*Mein Kampf{/i], Book II, Chap. III

{Screw Godwin)

59

The Chinese Exclusion Act (of 1882, let us note) was racist on its face. Whether Hitler liked it is irrelevant. Hitler liked his dog, too, but that does not help us judge whether dogs are good or bad.

You guys are looking so hard for racism in the modern anti-immigration movement that you’re bound to find it sooner or later (if this thread is any indication, the premise is highly debatable.) The OP states a concern not about racism per se, but only about racism against nonwhites. If you’re really worried about racism, look at the other side. You don’t have to go through mental contortions trying to parse what their real motivations are - they come right out and say it. And, whereas mainstream anti-immigrationists explicitly reject racist rhetoric, the plainly racist designs of many prominent pro-immigrationists come straight from professors, legislators, and school board members - people in high office right now, that many of you have probably voted for.

The fact that the linked thread sank like a rock does not escape me, and strikes me as a racist double standard in itself. Do you think they don’t mean what they say, or do they have special dispensation to be offensive because they’re not white?

60

Nice try at dismissing theChinese Exclusiont Act as old news but it lasted until 1943 when we needed China during WWII.

From the cite: “Passed in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was a climax to more than thirty years of progressive racism. Anti-Chinese sentiment had existed ever since the great migration from China during the gold rush, where white miners and prospectors imposed taxes and laws to inhibit the Chinese from success. Racial tensions increased as more and more Chinese emigrated, occupied jobs, and created competition on the job market. By 1882 the Chinese were hated enough to be banned from immigrating; the Chinese Exclusion Act, initially only a ten year policy, was extended indefinitely, and made permanent in 1902. The Chinese resented the idea that they were being discriminated against, but for the most part they remained quiet. In 1943, China was an important ally of the United States against Japan, so the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed; …”

If you are going to cite the beginning of things in order to denigrate them, the honest thing to do is also cite how long it went on. The thing lasted 61 years with the acquiescence, at least, of the US public.

And no one said that Hitler’s approval of the US denial of citizenship to certain races made that action racist, your hyperactive reaction notwithstanding. It was merely included to point out that even though official racism might not be in vogue in the US for the present, that wasn’t always the case. And it always lurks just below the surface, not only in the US but almost everywhere. I think it pays to be aware of the possibility and not just be fat, dumb and happy.

And I have no power over what Art Torres does or says. However the US government represents me and I’d like that representation to be on a higher road than that taken by a rabble rouser.