Andrea Batista Schlesinger

If an immigration bill passes or fails in the Capitol, does America hear why it matters to them?

As with so many critical issues facing us, it seems that all the country --and most importantly, its media --are capable of handling when it comes to immigration policy is a political horserace.

Will the immigration bill pass? Will it be the Frist version? What a boon for his presidential campaign, if so! Will it be the Sensenbrenner version? Ah, then the right-wing shows its ongoing dominance! Or perhaps the Judiciacy Committee's compromise bill? But what of the party-pooper Harry Reid?

I don't intend to demean the legislative process and its importance in resolving what we all acknowledge to be a broken immigration system. But the conversation about how to confront the many dilemmas that construct this immigration crisis is one that extends beyond which bill passes and which bill stalls. It is a conversation about how we envision our future in the face of globalization. It is a conversation about what kind of economy we want to create for ourselves and how it acknowledges the reality of globalization while reflecting our national values. It is a conversation about the degree to which the debate about national security will influence domestic politics from now on.

When this legislative season is over, will we have succeeded in convincing Americans that their fates are intertwined with those of our nation's immigrants?

Last week I was interviewed by CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight (I didn't make the final cut, but I was going to write about this anyway). I found his producer thoughtful and well-informed, and genuinely interested in the Drum Major Institutess work on the impact of immigration on middle-class Americans. I voiced my concern to her that Mr. Dobbs' insistence on framing the entire debate as one about "broken borders" was an exploitation of xenophobia and post 9/11 fear. She responded that securing the borders was only the first point in Mr. Dobbs' three point plan, which I cannot find anywhere, but which apparently also includes legalizing and assimilating the immigrants who are here in this country. Of course, when I offered that Mr. Dobbs was cynically exploiting point 1 of his plan to get attention, and that a meaningful commitment to integration and assimilation would mean, for example, standing up to do something about the under-funding of adult English as a Second Language instruction, she replied that previous generations of immigrants didnt need such efforts to integrate and assimilate. So then why make this a point of the plan? What would anyone watching Dobbs' lopsided coverage actually gain from watching his program each night beyond the sense that immigrants were a threat?

Due in part to the amazing protests over the last month, the immigrant rights movement is being likened to the civil rights movement, and I think that's an apt comparison. But it is an apt comparison at this point because as when the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Bills were passed, the country had not yet reached a tipping point of change in public consciousness. Instead, the civil rights movement was defined by public protest of a minority, greater media attention to their plight, and legislators' willing to do what was not yet in their interest to do.

The movement that manifests in the streets of Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago and other cities across the country has not yet led to a tipping point in the consciousness of the American people. The shared interest of Americans in progressive immigration policy is not yet understood. While the media played a role during the civil rights movement in telegraphing the reasons for public protest --the violence of police towards protestors, the lynchings, the blatant segregation --the media has only covered the pro-immigrant protests without conveying the reasons for those protests.

While much has been made of the fissures of the right on immigration, so there are on the left. The immigration debate divides labor's traditional rank and file from their members, especially on the service side where the economy is growing, in unions like 32BJ who represent doormen and janitors. Last week a commentary circulated from an African-American activist in the lesbian and gay community who wrote that "Lesbians and gays are not second-class citizens. Our issues should not get bumped to the back of the line in favor of extending rights to people who have entered this country illegally. Bottom line." And the divides between African-Americans and new immigrant populations are furthered as shallow economic analysis leads to the perception that illegal immigrants take jobs from low-wage African-American workers, with this same tired idea that the economy is a zero-sum game.

I recently spoke with D. Milo Mumgaard, who runs Nebraska Appleseed, an incredible public interest and advocacy shop based out of Lincoln. He is in a red state that couldn't really be much redder and he spends his time trying to keep both his constituents and those represented to elect them in line by conveying the shared economic interest of progressive immigration policy. His top priority isn't getting people to come to rallies, it's getting people to consider the possibility that illegal immigrants aren't a threat to their ability to make a living. That's why he was a fan of our paper that makes the case that progressive immigration policy is in the best interest of the middle class, saying

Alan Greenspan says immigrants contribute to the economy. This doesn't matter to Joe Smith in Grand Island, Nebraska. But you can argue with Joe that Alan is right if you talk about it more on the ground. Letss talk about the ways that immigrants contribute to and boost local economies. The ability to be very specific ultimately leads to nice, effective rebuttals to the arguments about the burden of immigrants on our tax and service systems. It is important to have ready arguments along this line. It's all about what leaves people with a blank look in their eyes, and what doesn't. Everybody wants to be a Christian and good moralist, but when you’re talking to people out on Grand Island, they are more interested in talking about crime rate and 'these people' taking jobs away. To have arguments that are well-put regarding the economic interest of greater whole is really strong stuff that we need to get out there more aggressively.

So how do we measure success? Do we measure it based on what bill passes? By how many people turn up in the street? By how many community members in Nebraska internalize that the exploitation of illegal immigrants in the workplace is directly related to their own exploitation in a country in which the government subsidizes the offshoring of jobs, CEO salaries skyrocket while employee wages stagnate, and tax policy continues to benefit the very wealthiest no matter which bill passes?

I don't know exactly. But I do know that if we think this issue will go away when the legislative process ends, we are mistaken. In many ways, our nation's consciousness still lags the legislative victories of the civil rights movement. When it comes to a country with 36 million immigrants, we simply cannot afford that delay.

Andrea Batista Schlesinger: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 9:11 AM, Apr 10, 2006 in Immigration
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