An acquaintance of mine raised a complaint that’s fairly familiar and, so, seemed worth a blog post. He is questioning why some folks call him a racist for being opposed to illegal immigration. He says he’s fine with legal immigration but opposes illegal immigration. What is so wrong or racist about being in favor of enforcing the law?
My response was:
The notion of racism comes from how intensely one reacts to illegal immigration versus other kinds of law breaking. If you support Trump despite his violation of laws against discriminatory housing but then get very unhappy about immigrants who haven’t obtained the proper paperwork, it makes people think that sanctity of the law isn’t the only thing motivating your outrage.
Would you vote for a candidate who promises to permanently revoke driving privileges for anyone who has exceeded the posted speed limit? Probably not. Which raises the question about why you feel so much more passionately about violating immigration laws.
I have mixed feelings about throwing around the label “racist.” It’s sometimes warranted but it’s also a conversation stopper. On the other hand, as I’ve pointed out many times in the past, I’m an upper-middle class white guy, so my taking a more philosophical approach to the question of racism is a privilege I have that others probably don’t.
In any case, on the subject of immigration, illegality, and whether racism might motivate one’s reaction to illegal immigration, I think it comes down to evaluating that reaction as compared to other forms of law-breaking. Do you view immigrating without the proper paperwork as more like a crime that’s malum prohibitum (wrong because it’s prohibited) like speeding or more like a crime that’s malum in se (wrong in itself) like robbery? If Congress legalized the immigration in question, would you be cool with the newly legal immigrants or would you be mad at Congress? The responses to those questions and your reasons for them probably go a long way toward answering whether race is a motivating factor in your views on the subject.
A thoughtful post.
I don’t think that we can look at current immigration issues without considering our past. The US is of course a nation of immigrants, but it’s also a nation where those who arrived a generation or two previously have consistently tended to look down on and indeed abuse more recent immigrants.
A consistent part of that history has been a fear that the newcomers would change American culture. Of course, that’s exactly what immigrants do, but I’ve never understood why there is so much fear of that change. If nothing else, we’d be a poorer culture without all American foods like pizza, chow main and burritos.
Of course I’m also a privileged white guy, which makes it easy for me to embrace change.
Jay
Anti-immigrant sentiment is an old story in American history. See, for example, the “Know Nothings” in the 1850s.
It’s interesting how racism and anti-immigrant sentiments are common threads in our history. You think it’s about this, but it’s really about that. I’m reminded of Charles Whitebread’s presentation about the history of marijuana laws in the U.S., what a mess that’s been and how anti-immigrant sentiments influenced those laws (http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/whiteb1.htm). Jim Wallis has written a recent book entitled “America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to a New America”, reminding the reader of this dredge on our past that interferes with the idea of America. It appears that we haven’t come to terms with the disease that infects our ability to understand what it means to be an American, unless that’s what it really means.
Some questions are diagnostic tests. They look innocent enough, but once someone answers, you understand much more about them than the issue they thought they were responding to. Excellent point that provides good insight into the issue and what it’s really about.
Recently I put up a fairly benign Facebook post about supporting immigrants. A lady (who I didn’t know) replied that a person from her community was recently killed by a drunk driver who was in the country illegally. She was so angry that this person was here illegally and killed her friend. There was not one drop of anger about drunk driving which kills nearly 10,000 people a year and was the actual source of death.
When thoughts on immigration tip into racism, it’s usually targeting a specific group, Trump’s targeted undocumented Mexican’s even though the numbers of those crossing illegally has and continues to drop while in comparison, those coming here from China via plane to give birth are not included.
Additionally, 80% of the laborer’s in farm fields in California are undocumented immigrants that have lived here most of their lives and are good upstanding citizens whose bosses just never got around to filling out the forms for them to attain citizenship.
Why should people in places like Indiana be concerned? Because if all of those 80% are deported by I.C.E., it will affect the U.S. food supply in a dramatic fashion, not to mention foods that would be exported. This is the percent of particular crops that go from California to the rest of the U.S.:
Broccoli 90%
Artichokes 99%
Walnuts 99%
Kiwi 97%
Plums 97%
Celery 95%
Garlic 95%
Cauliflower 89%
Spinach 71%
Carrots 69%
And this is just the beginning of the list.
So it’s worthwhile to ask of what you eat, how much is grown and harvested by those who are “illegal’s,” and if they are deported, will we have a food shortage… and if not, how much of an increase would be seen in your grocery bill?
So is this talk of a border wall racist when ignoring a growing immigration problem from Asia? Yes.
Is this placing blame and rallying for a border wall shortsighted and will leave us, the American people, in governmental hands since food and water are historically the two items that were cut off for a people to surrender? Look at your own communities food security, and ask how long can your community can survive on the crops grown and packaged near-by… your food-shed. Many people think of food security as a poverty issue… again, I think this is short-sighted for the reasons stated above.
-Hoosier living in CA
Folks that were brought to the US as children (before age 16) by their parents, and then grew up here (have lived here continuously at least 10 years), and haven’t been convicted of a crime — that’s who we’re talking about. There is no fault to ascribe to them. Most have only a historical connection with their parents’ nation of origin. There’s nowhere to ‘send them back to’, they’re from here. My question – ‘why even bother making this a big issue?’ I can’t help think it’s mainly red meat for Trump’s ever dwindling base — and, a cynical gambit to drive out people who would otherwise (someday) probably vote mostly Democrat. And as a distraction. However, I doubt that Robert Mueller will be distracted.