Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles
Restrictionists
Nativist Group Twists Facts on Effectiveness of Arizona’s Immigration Law
01 week ago
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has outdone itself when it comes to shoddy research. In a recently released report on “demographic changes” in Arizona, FAIR utilizes an almost random assortment of statistics to make its case that the state’s unauthorized immigrants are fleeing in droves thanks to get-tough immigration policies. The report occasionally pays lip service to the impact on unauthorized immigration of the 2008-2009 recession, as well as persistently high unemployment rates that continue to this day. Yet FAIR concludes, without evidence, that state-level immigration enforcement has been the single most important factor causing the decline of the unauthorized population. In reality, this conclusion is not supported by the data which FAIR presents.
FAIR’s report is painfully self-contradictory. It opens with the bold statement that the “efforts of Arizona policymakers to deter the settlement of illegal aliens in the state and to encourage those already in the state to leave have made major advances in their objective.” To bolster this statement, the report offers a bountiful supply of numbers on declines over the past few years in the size of the state’s foreign-born population, foreign-born Latin American population, and unauthorized immigrant population—not to mention reductions in the poverty rate, birth rate, and crime rate. Strangely enough, some of these statistics—such as those on the drop in crime—document trends which began before Arizona had enacted any harsh immigration laws.
The report does mention, offhandedly, that punitive state immigration policies may not account for all of these demographic trends given the presence of other factors, such as “the effects of the recession, loss of jobs and growing unemployment.” Yet this acknowledgment of reality is immediately followed by the muddled argument that “the confluence of all of these factors constituted a strong message that Arizona was no longer a desirable destination for illegal aliens and that already settled illegal aliens faced increased exposure to identification and deportation.” At the very end, the report is back to making the sensational and unsubstantiated claim that the state’s demographic changes “resulted from local law enforcement activities as well as legislative changes designed to make Arizona less accommodating for aliens seeking illegal work in the state.”
While FAIR is certain that get-tough laws in Arizona have provoked an exodus of unauthorized immigrants, other observers with a less fanciful attitude towards data sound a note of caution. For instance, Juan Pedroza of the Urban Institute has pointed out that “it’s tough to tell whether (and how many) immigrants have left a community if you are looking right after a state passes a law. It can take years of evidence to test claims of a mass exodus.” Moreover, “growing evidence suggests that most immigrants (especially families with school-age children) are here to stay, except perhaps where local economies are particularly weak.”
In a related vein, a report released last year by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) evaluated the impact of the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA), which made it mandatory for the state’s employers to use the federal E-Verify employment-authorization system. The report found that, while the law did motivate some unauthorized immigrants to leave the state, it also pushed many of those who remained “into less formal work arrangements.” As a result, “policymakers must weigh the sought-after drop in unauthorized employment against the costs associated with shifting workers into informal employment.” In other words, reality is more complicated than FAIR’s misinterpretation of demographic statistics would suggest.
FAIR’s numerical screed against unauthorized immigrants in Arizona does not rise to the level of serious research. Too many variables go unaccounted for, too many assumptions are made, and too many conclusions are predetermined. State-level immigration enforcement is one among many factors that influence the decision of an unauthorized individual or family in Arizona as to whether they should stay or leave. Untangling those factors involves complicated research of a kind that FAIR cannot provide.
Photo by Tania Zbrodko.
Romney Uses Restrictionist Code Words to Describe Immigration Policy
01 week ago
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney stole a page from the restrictionists’ playbook this week when he promoted the idea of “self-deportation” during a presidential debate. “If people don’t get work here,” Romney stated, “they’re going to self-deport to a place where they can get work.” Rather than initiate a constructive solution to our nation’s immigration problems, Romney is jumping in bed with immigration restrictionist groups who support policies that tear American families and communities apart, devastate local economies, and place unnecessary burdens on U.S. citizens and lawful immigrants.
Romney’s use of the term “self-deportation” is not at all surprising given his recent collaboration with Kris Kobach, the current Secretary of State of Kansas who continues to serve as chief legal counsel to the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), an arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Kobach, the self-professed author of several state and local immigration-control bills, advised Romney on immigration during his 2008 presidential bid and has long-promoted the strategy of “attrition through enforcement”— the immigration-control strategy to drive away the unauthorized population by making their lives so miserable that they will choose to “deport themselves” rather than remain in the U.S.
“Attrition through enforcement” laws—like Arizona’s SB1070 and Alabama’s HB56—were explicitly designed to interfere with the everyday activities of immigrants and go far beyond denying unauthorized immigrants work. These laws deny access to housing, school, work, and even water and electricity to anyone who can’t prove legal status. The laws’ supporters have made it clear that making people miserable and encouraging them to leave the state is the intended consequence of their policies.
It’s troubling that a serious Presidential candidate would adopt the code words of extremist immigration control organizations and propose that making people’s lives miserable so that they’ll leave is an acceptable policy goal. By using the term “self-deportation,” Romney is making it clear that he is on board with restrictionists groups’ strategy to force all unauthorized immigrants to leave the U.S., regardless of the time they have spent here, U.S. citizen family members, and their years of tax contributions.
Doesn’t this country deserves to hear more detailed and thoughtful approaches from politicians and policy makers—approaches that offer a way forward rather than divisive and punitive so-call “solutions” to unauthorized immigration?
Photo by Gage Skidmore.
New Report Draws Connections Between Anti-Immigrant and Tea Party Movements
02 weeks ago
The lines between the anti-immigrant movement and the Tea Party movement are blurred. That is the most important finding of a new report from the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR), entitled Beyond FAIR: The Decline of the Established Anti-Immigrant Organizations and the Rise of Tea Party Nativism. As its title suggests, the report finds that the revenue and membership of traditional anti-immigrant groups have declined in recent years, at the same time some of the Tea Parties have become hot beds of anti-immigrant activism. The report, however, overstates its case in concluding that “to a significant extent, the Tea Parties have usurped the Nativist Establishment and in the process swallowed up many of its activists.” This conclusion discounts the large amount of money and political power that some of the traditional anti-immigrant groups still possess. After all, it is the anti-immigrant groups and not the Tea Parties that have been moving anti-immigrant legislation through state legislatures and town councils from Arizona to Alabama over the past few years.
Nevertheless, the report thoroughly documents a trend which has also been noted by other human rights and immigrant rights advocates. As the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPCL) observed last spring, the Tea Party movement “has become home to many nativist extremists…The lines between the movements have become increasingly blurred, with leaders making official appearances at each other’s events.” This cross-pollination has been most apparent in the case of the Minutemen. For example, according to the IREHR report, leaders of the Minuteman Project went on to run a Tea Party faction.
Aside from the Minutemen, the report defines the “nativist establishment” as all of the “local and national anti-immigrant organizations that were established prior to the presidency of Barack Obama.” This includes the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Americans for Immigration Control (AIC), NumbersUSA, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee (ALIPAC), California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR), Californians for Population Stabilization, and the Federal Immigration Reform and Enforcement (FIRE) Coalition, as well as various local anti-immigrant groups.
Based on federal tax filings and other sources of data, the report concludes that there has been “a significant decline in support for the Nativist Establishment, with the numbers of donors/members, organizational financial support, and the number of local anti-immigrant groups all decreasing since a peak in 2007-2008.” However, one must keep in mind that 2007-2008 was a period of intense political activity surrounding the introduction of immigration reform legislation in Congress. Higher levels of involvement and support are to be expected at such a time. Moreover, despite the decline since 2007-2008, groups such as FAIR still have many millions of dollars per year in funding, not to mention the ear of highly placed elected leaders in Congress and in statehouses around the country. In contrast, the Tea Parties have far less money at their disposal and have only a marginal influence on the anti-immigrant legislative agenda.
Lack of political power notwithstanding, the report finds that there has been “both an increase in anti-immigrant activism by national and local Tea Party groups, as well as a measurable number of anti-immigrant leaders who have joined the Tea Parties and consequently accelerated the rate of anti-immigrant activism by those Tea Parties.” While some political observers have proclaimed the Tea Parties to be in a state of decline and disarray, the authors of the report disagree. They write that “rumors of the death of the Tea Party…are greatly exaggerated. The core of the Tea Party movement has continued to expand in size during 2010 and 2011. And it has continued to expand its reach into the anti-immigrant universe.” As the report notes, the Tea Parties have always been fertile ground for anti-immigrant activism because they promoted “a brand of nationalism that defined immigrants, people of color, poor people, liberals, trade union members, etc. as wholly un-American parasites.”
The authors of the report conclude that:
The newly configured anti-immigrant movement described in this report has developed a new activist constituency, the Tea Parties, even while it has lost some of its established funding sources and membership. Human rights and immigrant advocates now face a civic opposition which has a larger constituency, and an opposition which is harder to delineate and thus more difficult to oppose.
In other words, pro-immigrant advocates who have grown accustomed to tracking traditional anti-immigrant organizations should also be keeping a close eye on the Tea Parties. However, advocates would be wise to keep in mind that the traditional anti-immigrant groups are far from dead. It is these groups, not the Tea Parties, which have the greatest sway in Congress and state legislatures, as well as the biggest bank accounts.
Photo by katerkate.
Advocates Call Romney’s Relationship with Anti-Immigrant Hawk “Political Suicide”
03 weeks ago
As if Mitt Romney’s repeated promise to veto the DREAM Act wasn’t alienating enough, advocates warn that Romney’s continued relationship with famed anti-immigrant hawk Kris Kobach is killing future support from Latino voters, especially in key states like New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida. Kobach, co-author of Arizona and Alabama’s extreme immigration enforcement laws, appeared in South Carolina Monday night to spin for the Romney campaign following the GOP debate.
Following Kobach’s endorsement of Gov. Mitt Romney last week, the Romney campaign issued a statement accepting Kobach’s endorsement and supporting his leadership on extreme immigration enforcement last in Arizona and South Carolina. Now, however, with Kobach actually appearing on Romney’s campaign trail, advocates say Kobach will damage Romney’s image among Latino voters.
Dee Dee Garcia Blase of the grassroots Republican Latino group Somos Republicans said “Romney committed political suicide” when he welcomed Kobach’s endorsement. Outspoken immigration advocate Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) called Kobach’s affiliation with the Romney campaign “appalling” and characterized Kobach as the “Dark Lord of the anti-immigration movement” on a teleconference. And earlier this month, Hispanic Leadership Fund’s Mario Lopez said Romney’s approach to immigration was hurting him as a candidate and the Republican party in general.
As previously reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Kris Kobach has built a long and varied career out of attacking immigrants—first in the Bush Administration targeting legal immigrants from Muslim and Arab countries and later as the architect of city ordinances and state laws targeting unauthorized, mostly Latino immigrants.
But the addition of Kobach to Romney’s campaign is just the latest in Romney’s hard line on immigration. Romney again indicated yesterday that he would veto the DREAM Act should it come up in Congress, arguing that “aiding those eligible under the DREAM Act”—a bill that puts undocumented students who were brought here by their parents on a path towards citizenship—“would only encourage more people to enter the country without documentation.”
Appearing tough on immigration may not hurt Romney during the GOP primary, but come general election time, many wonder how Romney plans to win the Latino vote. Matt Barreto of the University of Washington said that Romney will not win the presidency without at least 40% of the Latino vote, a vote Congressman Luis Gutierrez believes Romney will not receive given his current approach to immigration.
“There is no route to the White House that does not go through a Latino neighborhood. Any winner in either party needs a significant proportion of Latino voters. When you say you want millions of us to leave the country … we will vote against you.”
When it comes to immigration, American voters have established that they want solutions not smears. Politicians, however, continue to read from a different playbook written by a narrow group of voters and commentators.
Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Is the Romney Campaign Embracing Anti-Immigrant Extremism?
03 weeks ago
Today, Mitt Romney’s campaign heartily accepted the endorsement of renown anti-immigrant activist, Kris Kobach. As Mitt Romney emerges as the leading contender for the GOP nomination, he and those he affiliates with will garner closer scrutiny, making it critical for Romney’s campaign to understand who Kobach is and why his policies engender such strong emotion.
Kobach and his anti-immigrant cronies are behind much of the draconian anti-immigrant legislation wreaking havoc on the business and economies of Alabama and Arizona. They are driving an extreme ‘attrition through enforcement” immigration agenda that is bad for business and seeks to make life in America so unworkable for the foreign-born that they will pack up and leave. However, the strategy is backfiring and this experimental legislation is driving state economies deeper into recession, locking them into long and costly legal battles, and diminishing state reputations and business opportunities.
The Romney campaign needs to understand that while these anti-immigrant initiatives have served to advance Kobach politically and financially and are supported by the extreme anti-immigrant movement in America, virtually all of them have ended up being costly failures for which taxpayers ultimately foot the bill. Romney touts his pro-business bona fides, however these anti-immigrant policies are anti-business and are should be taken from the state to the federal level or allowed to take hold in other states.
Being anti-immigrant and pursing costly, anti-business policymaking does not appeal to a majority of Americans and will do nothing to repair our economy and bring our nation together.
In the world of political campaigns, the more support you get the better. But it’s important to remember that you are judged by the company you keep. The Romney campaign should carefully consider the impact of embracing extremists and what those budding relationships signal to a range of audiences who are weary of anti-immigrant posturing.
Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Anti-Immigrant Crowd Cries Wolf in Response to Administration’s Family Unity Policy
04 weeks ago
The Obama administration’s recent announcement that it intends to change regulations allowing the children and spouses of American citizens to stay together while processing applications for legal permanent resident status has the immigration restrictionists crying wolf—or more accurately “amnesty”—once again. They are characterizing the administration’s rule change, as they do any and all actions that are not enforcement related, as a “backdoor amnesty.” Some are also characterizing the change as a strategy to bypass Congress.
Congressman Lamar Smith, for example, said in a statement that the Obama administration was bending long-established rules to put the interests of “illegal immigrants” ahead of U.S. citizens. Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, called the announcement “part two” of the amnesty plan first announced last fall when the Obama administration said it would review current cases in deportation proceedings to see whether they were really priority cases. Calling this new proposal any kind of amnesty is not only inaccurate, it’s tired.
As reported on Friday, the administration plans to issue a regulation that would address a long-standing problem in immigration law—a Catch 22 created by requiring those spouses and children of U.S. citizens who have been in the country unlawfully to depart the U.S. before completing the processing of their application for lawful permanent residence. The trouble is that once they leave the country, they are subject to a three or ten year bar for unlawful presence and need a waiver to get back in. The new proposal would allow them to submit the waiver application before departing the U.S., thus reducing the time, anxiety, and sometime danger inherent in waiting abroad for a decision.
This Catch-22 is one of the most notorious problems in the immigration system and the regulatory change is long-overdue. Due to processing backlogs, uncertainty of outcomes and violence in cities with key U.S. consulates—such as in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico—the prospect of becoming a lawful permanent resident has become an uncertain and frustrating affair for some applicants. Recognizing this problem, which arises in part from regulation, is an example of USCIS acting responsibly to address a problem of its own regulatory making in an expedient and lawful way.
USCIS’s proposed change, or “notice of intent”—which will be subject to the full range of public notice and comment—is intended to change a processing requirement set out in a regulation, not in the statute. If anything, offering a notice of intent to issue a rule gives the public even more warning that the government intends to undertake a the regular process of adopting a new regulation.
The truth is this rule change will not open the doors for more immigrants, or provide relief for the millions of undocumented immigrants in this country without the necessary family and work relationships to obtain status. Therefore, calling it “amnesty” is nothing short of hysterical.
The public is tired of knee-jerk responses to all things immigration. Polls consistently show that people want solutions, not political wrangling. The fact that opponents of immigration reform paint everything that isn’t enforcement as “amnesty” isn’t surprising. Their responses, just like their solutions, are limited and short-sighted. In this case, the policy they are calling “amnesty” we call common sense.
Photo by katerkate.
Washington Post Lists Treating “Immigrants as People” as “In” for 2012
01 month ago
You wouldn’t know it from listening to the ridiculous anti-immigrant rhetoric over the past year, but treating immigrants like actual human beings is a concept some hope catches fire in 2012. The Washington Post recently added “immigrants as people” on “The List: 2012”—their annual zeitgeist-inspired list of ins and outs for the new year. Granted, “peacock feathers” and “Margaret Thatcher” also made the “in” column, but dialing down the immigrant bashing—a message Republican presidential candidates clearly missed during previous debates—is an idea that GOP political strategists are now embracing.
Republican strategists are apparently growing nervous as GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, continues to alienate Hispanic voters. While Gov. Romney has flipped back and forth on his approach to immigration policy over the years, he announced this past weekend that he would veto the DREAM Act—a bill that puts undocumented students who were brought here by their parents on a path towards citizenship—if Congress were to pass it.
According to Mario H. Lopez, president of the Hispanic Leadership Fund, Romney’s approach isn’t going to sit well with America’s fastest growing voting demographic—Latinos.
Romney’s tin ear on this topic, on immigration, will hurt him should he be the nominee, is hurting the Republican Party and is hurting every conservative who cares about passing conservative legislation in the future.
But Romney’s not the only one. In fact, anti-immigrant rhetoric has increased over the past few years—from Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s “beheadings in desert” to Republican Congressman Lamar Smith’s portrayal of immigrants as stealing jobs from Americans. More recently, however, GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachman said she would deport every undocumented immigrant in the country while former GOP contender, Herman Cain, “joked” that he would electrify the border fence as a deterrent for unauthorized crossers. Not exactly rhetoric that warms Hispanic voters’ hearts.
Nor, however, does the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement strategies. According to a recent Pew poll, an overwhelming majority of Latinos (59% to 27%) disapprove of the Obama administration’s deportation strategy, which hit an average of 400,000 since 2009—double the annual average of George Bush’s first term.
Perhaps people are just tired of the same failed enforcement strategies and constant immigrant bashing that’s plagued the immigration issue for the last several years. Poll after poll shows that most Americans—even those who consider themselves conservative voters—favor a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living and working in America.
Maybe it’s time for those holding the microphone to take a step back and listen to what American voters really care about—comprehensive solutions to our immigration problems, not just more empty and hate-filled words.
American Heritage Dictionary Redefines “Anchor Baby” Term as “Offensive” and “Disparaging”
02 months ago
The firestorm around the inclusion of the term “anchor baby” in the new edition of the American Heritage Dictionary has led to a dramatic reversal in the definition. Not only did the executive editor, Steven Kleinelder, emphatically apologize for the initial definition, he promised swift action to change it. By Monday morning, the term was labeled as “offensive.” By Monday afternoon, a new definition appeared online, one that was crafted to reflect more accurately just how artificial a term it really is:
anchor baby n. Offensive Used as a disparaging term for a child born to a noncitizen mother in a country that grants automatic citizenship to children born on its soil, especially when the child’s birthplace is thought to have been chosen in order to improve the mother’s or other relatives’ chances of securing eventual citizenship.
This is the kind of controversy that doesn’t fade away quickly, and many argue that the term is so offensive that it shouldn’t appear in the dictionary at all. I understand but disagree with that position, largely because the term, however offensive, exists as a political and practical reality. I think the new definition validates what many outraged voices in blogs, on Twitter, and in the press have been saying all along: “anchor baby” is a term that shouldn’t exist but does because immigration restrictionists are really good at creating words that generate fear.
While the origins are not reflected in the definition, characterizing the term as both “offensive” and “disparaging” says volumes about how it is used in real life. I would much rather have a curious student or citizen have the ability to look up the term in the dictionary and find this definition than to find no guidance and accept the meaning and agenda of restrictionists who used it.
And of course, that agenda is the repeal or amendment of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate citizenship at birth. The Immigration Policy Center has published numerous articles on the legal and practical problems inherent in that position. This position, in turn, arises from the misplaced notion that the problems plaguing our current immigration system would somehow be eliminated if only we could prevent persons here without legal status from having children.
It’s not solely the dictionary’s job to lay out the politics behind words. It is the job of advocates and scholars, policy-makers and politicians, community leaders, people of faith, and everyone else who values a constructive solution to immigration reform.
We must not only monitor how terms are used and defined, but must work to make hateful terms archaic. If we challenge the people who prefer fear to solutions, and direct our energies affirmatively towards an immigration system that is thoughtful, fair and reflects our country’s needs as well as our values, then hateful terms like “anchor baby” can become part of the past.
Photo by Péter Gudella.
Report Debunks Myth that High-Skilled Immigrants Steal American Jobs
02 months ago
It is an article of faith among anti-immigrant activists that immigration results in fewer jobs and lower wages for native-born workers. For instance, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) recently released a report in which it claims that native-born workers with science and engineering (S&E) degrees are being driven en masse into non-S&E occupations due to competition from foreign-born workers willing to accept lower wages. However, in its rush to blame immigrants, FAIR misses a highly salient detail: a growing number of jobs in non-S&E occupations require or reward S&E skills. In other words, native-born workers with S&E degrees aren’t being driven out of S&E occupations by immigrants; they are being lured into non-S&E occupations where their S&E skills are in high demand and command higher salaries.
These are among the findings of a report released last month by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. The report, entitled STEM, presents a comprehensive analysis of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) occupations in the United States that is a far cry from the grim portrait painted by FAIR. Where FAIR sees an immigration-induced glut of S&E workers who earn low wages, the authors of the Georgetown report see just the opposite. According to the report: “High and rising wage premiums are being paid to STEM workers in spite of the increasing global supply. This suggests that the demand for these workers is not being met.”
Moreover, this demand is not only coming from industries that traditionally hire STEM workers. It’s coming from industries like Professional and Business Services, Healthcare Services, Advanced Manufacturing, Mining, and Utilities and Transportation. Employers in these industries are willing to pay top dollar for workers with STEM backgrounds, which has the effect of “diverting” many STEM graduates into non-traditional career paths.
According to the Georgetown report, native-born STEM graduates are the most likely to be “diverted” into non-traditional career paths for a variety of economic, social, and cultural reasons. And this “diversion” of native-born STEM graduates “will continue and likely accelerate in the future.” As a result, there is likely to be “an increasing reliance on foreign-born STEM talent among American employers.” But this is a reflection of high labor demand, not low demand, as FAIR would have us believe.
The findings of the Georgetown report cast serious doubt upon those of the FAIR report. It would seem that FAIR is misreading the nature of the S&E, or STEM, workforce. Native-born S&E workers and recent graduates are moving into non-traditional industries because S&E skills are valued by so many different employers. In other words, they face a wide range of opportunities, not a shortage of options.
How to Talk Turkey on Immigration: Redux
02 months ago
Washington, D.C. area schools participate in the Urban Debate program, which gives middle school children the opportunity to learn the art of debate. My sixth grader signed up right away. She was surprised to learn, however, at her first tournament that many people have no qualms debating either side of an issue, no matter how they personally feel about it. She also discovered that a few kids had no problems saying whatever they had to say to win. She was in tears because another twelve year old insisted that American lives were more valuable than others in a debate over U.S. military involvement abroad.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that in the debate over immigration we see far worse nearly every day. The misinformation that is routinely spread and the disregard for human lives is common in the immigration debate. Whether it is politicians calling for electrified fences, schoolchildren herded in to gymnasiums to determine their legal status, or blatant misuse of statistics to scare the public, immigration is hardly a genteel topic.
This year in particular, as the Alabama law unleashes a civil rights crisis in that state, I can only imagine that there will be some very difficult conversations around the Thanksgiving dinner table. Although proponents of immigration reform are armed with more anecdotes and statistical information than ever, the increasingly preposterous stories coming out of Alabama will make some people shake their heads and say—it just can’t be so.
So what to do? We offer a list of tips for making the case, politely but firmly, for a rational immigration policy.
- Be prepared. The Immigration Policy Center’s (IPC) website contains numerous short fact sheets on immigrants and the economy, crime, unemployment, immigration reform and more. At a minimum, download your state fact sheet. And since Alabama is all over the news, check out IPC’s recent publications and blog posts that detail some of the absurd consequences of HB 56.
- Be sympathetic. The evidence is mounting that most people who fear immigrants are really afraid of the change that immigrants represent. This is particularly true in states that have relatively little immigration, such as Georgia and Alabama. The number of immigrants is small, but the percentage of growth can seem huge. Try to figure out what is really irking your relative—are they angry that their favorite restaurant has changed hands? Ask them what they would do if that same restaurant closed. Are they afraid that there will be no jobs for Americans? Ask them if they believe immigrants, rather than lack of job training and job growth are better targets for their ire. Helping them to see that change can be positive and is rejuvenating many communities can help to reframe the conversation.
- Avoid the blame game. Don’t get trapped into arguments that start out, “well, those people broke the law.” Try to move the conversation forward by stressing that rather than focusing on punishing the past, you want to think about how we make the future better for everyone. I often say—because I believe it—“I can’t get the jobs back that may or may not have been lost in your community. All the economic studies show, however, that immigration is essential to further economic growth. So, if we want a better future for everyone, we have to find solutions that work right now.”
- Know your audience. There are issues you just shouldn’t touch and maybe immigration is one of them. But it might also depend on the way your present your arguments. A deeply religious person could be unmoved by your crisp economic analysis, but genuinely touched by the biblical call to aid the stranger. There are so many different reasons to support immigration reform—you don’t have try to list every one of them in one breath. Less, in fact, may be more.
- Be practical. You are not necessarily going to win your loved ones over with a single brilliant analysis. But you can ask questions that get them thinking differently. Ask them what the solution is from their perspective? Can we really afford to deport 12 million people? How can legalization be an amnesty when it requires people to register, pay taxes, stay right with the law and “earn” citizenship? Wouldn’t you rather have folks paying taxes at their full potential than being paid under the table and not paying their full share? These kinds of questions really do start the dialogue.
- Find common ground. The fact that most of us have an immigrant past—no matter how distant—sets the stage for a conversation. How was grandma or even great-grandpa treated when they came over from Italy, Germany or Ireland? What did they want for their future? Where would America be today without those immigrants who took a risk? The more people realize that they have a personal stake in keeping those opportunities alive for others, the more they might listen to your point of view.
- Find the exception to the rule. No matter how anti-immigrant someone is, they will have at least one friend or colleague who defies their stereotypes of immigrants. If you let people talk for a while, the story of that friend will inevitably come up. Start asking questions about that exceptional immigrant’s life.
- Have another piece of pie and a cup of coffee. Food is a universal facilitator of conversation. It’s much harder to yell at someone with pumpkin pie in your mouth.
Sooner or later, Urban Debate will probably tackle the question of immigration, but when it does, I want my daughter to be able to draw a distinction between arguments grounded in reality and compassion and those that are motivated by nothing but fear or a desire to win. There are legitimate policy debates to be had on the immigration question, but for many people, the conversation never gets that far. If you can get past square one, I’m convinced that most people will see that immigration reform is in the country’s best interests. And if that happens, then maybe next year’s feast will be a bit more pleasant.
Photo by moonrat42.