I’ve spent 27 years of my life involved in international education, either as a student studying abroad or as a foreign student adviser to students studying here in the United States. Whether advising student visa holders or undocumented students or recent immigrants, I’ve dealt with the holes, gray areas, mishaps, and long wait times and ultimately the frustrations of our broken immigration system. At one point I toyed with the idea of becoming an immigration attorney, but I quickly realized that I would only become more frustrated. It’s not that lawmakers don’t know what needs to be done; it’s that they lack the political will to do it. I believe people want to come here legally, but our country’s nonsensical immigration laws and excessively long wait times force people into illegal immigration. Our current crisis at the border and our inability to deal with undocumented immigrants is indicative of a nation unsure of its own identity. Especially today.
We must again ask ourselves if we continue to value our identity as a nation of immigrants. I know I do. We must ask what meaning the Statue of Liberty holds for us today? Persons in the Trump administration are acting trying to rewrite the meaning of that great lady. On August 13 they put forth the assertion that the poem inscribed was only welcoming Europeans. Wow!
The thing I love most about shopping at my local California Costco is seeing the diversity of human beings surrounding me, many of whom are speaking in their native tongue or in heavily accented English. My Costco caters to the tastes of people from Latin America, China, Japan, India, and the Middle East and I happily cook a diversity of dishes I came to enjoy in my travels or through relationships with recent immigrants. There are only a few states in the country that can boast of the great diversity of immigrants living together from around the world. My life and this country are enriched by the diversity of human experience, perspectives, and multicolored hands contributing to our workforce and the economy every day. But this Administration is trying roll back diversity through it draconian immigration policies, many of which everyday Americans are not even aware of. But I’m encountering these new policies everyday in my work.
At the root of our political problems with immigration reform are white nationalist who fear demographic change. Unfortunately these people know that it is simple to convince people with limited exposure to human beings who look different from them to believe that their lives are being threatened by these brown outsiders. It’s no surprise that Donald Trump announces his presidential candidacy by describing Mexican immigrants as rapist and murders. He feeds into a pre-existing narrative of those sensitive to the fear of being “replaced” or “displaced” by brown and Jewish immigrants. To these people, immigrants are an economic, political, and physical threat. They have forgotten the benefits of immigration to their families and to the nation as a whole. They have forgotten that their families came here just like immigrants today, seeking a better life and with a great willingness to contribute to the country. Their once foreign foods became everyday American dishes.
I recall a conversation with a white female student who had a Mexican American boyfriend whom she loved. Her fear was that their cultures were too different. I helped her to see what a great opportunity now presented itself to her to become bi-cultural. I helped her to frame the relationship with his family as additive to her life rather than something that would detract from her own sense of culture. You get to add Spanish. You get to add new foods. You get to venture into new experiences and new ways of seeing the world. Once her thoughts moved from seeing the relationship as a threat to her own culture and as an addition of a culture, her entire attitude towards his family changed and they happily got married, enjoying the best of both traditions at the wedding and then into their marriage and family life.
All that said, I believe we need to put more money and resources into hiring more immigration judges and more application adjudicators at USCIS to end the incredibly long processing times for immediate families trying to reunite. I believe we need to pass the Dream Act to give permanent legal status to undocumented children and create a path for legal status to their otherwise law-abiding parents. There should be a fine attached to their breaking the law by crossing the border. I believe illegal border crossings and visa overstays should be a civil matter rather than a criminal offense. I believe we need to increase the green card lottery numbers, H1B visa numbers, and the number of temporary workers for farmers and other seasonal workers.
At the same time, I believe we need to do a much better job of deporting actual criminals and fining employers who hire undocumented workers. Our borders should be stronger and for the moment, we need to handle the crisis at our border by calling more judges to adjudicate asylum claims. And we need to treat asylum seekers and refugees the way we would want to be treated. Dignity, respect, food, shelter, and safety are what are humanity requires of us. These Christians supporting Trump might do well to ask themselves what Jesus would do. Mary and Joseph were refugees. It is also in our interest to provide greater aide to the countries these distressed people are fleeing.
In short, until we as a nation can get on the same page about the benefits of immigration, we will continue to encourage illegal immigration by refusing to pass immigration reform that addresses the actual labor needs of employers and the nature of all human beings that demands safety and opportunity. Our success as a nation has always been attributed to immigrants. The 2020 election will determine who we are and who we are going to be.