Amy Taylor

Disconnecting the Link

In the most recent edition of The Nation, Roberto Lovato calls 2006 "the year marking the Al Qaeda-ization of immigrants"

His point is that our country's overemphasis on national security in the immigration debate has turned what should be a debate about our nation's immigrants into one about terrorism. This has happened through both a militarization of our immigration policies (stepped up enforcement mechanisms, contracts for employing war zone technology on the border, unprecedented workplace raids, etc) and the difficulty that the immigrant rights movement has had in addressing the attack on our civil liberties without being called unpatriotic and dangerous.

Immigrants are being linked to terrorists in too many ways to recount. Immigration law has been used since 9/11 as an anti-terrorism weapon. Immigration charges have been filed against scores of people (mostly for overstaying visas) when ultimately no terrorism ties have been found in the vast majority of cases. DHS officials have admitted on occasion that immigration laws can provide a quick easy way to detain people when terrorism charges are hard to prosecute. "It's an incredibly important piece of the terrorism response," said Michael J. Garcia, who heads Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. And legislation like the Patriot Act makes its way through Congress with limited debate in the name of national security.

Senator John Kyl's website states that one of his highest priorities is securing the borders of the U.S. "to protect against the entry of terrorists, drug smugglers and illegal aliens" in that order.

The ultimate example of this phenomenon occurred when a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released an ad discussing illegal immigration with images of Osama Bin Laden and other terrorists.

Illegal immigration is a very real concern for our country but it is not a looming threat to our national security. The immigration reform movement has a long battle ahead --to separate the very real concerns of immigrant communities living here with the very real concerns that the nation has regarding national security. But we must keep the two issues separate.

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Posted at 8:00 AM, Nov 01, 2006 in Immigration
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