Morning, kiddies. This morning's posting takes us into the wonderful world of immigration reform. Ah.... those pesky migrants and their law-breaking. What to do, what to do.I hadn't heard this but there's a Republican proposal to edit the 14th Amendment to deny birthright citizenship to the children of illegal* immigrants. So a person born and raised in the U.S. whose parent(s) crossed the border without a visa would not have the rights of a citizen.
I've actually thought a fair bit about birthright citizenship. I'm not sure it makes perfect sense in a world where people are as mobile as they are today. Not because I don't want to the children of Mexican migrants to be citizens, but because if my American parents are vacationing in Australia when my mother goes into labor, I don't think it ought to entitle me to access the resources of the Australian government for the rest of my life. So I'm sympathetic to the idea of reform in theory, emphasis on the theory.
In practice, if you're born and raised in a place, you're from there. No two ways about it. So I'm over this part of the argument. But the Slate article I linked to does make some really good points about the parts of the debate we're not having while we're talking about amending the Constitution and building super-fences.
Namely, what about Mexico? It always strikes me that no one talks about what having a significant chunk of it's labor force flee the country must be doing to the (under-)development of Mexico. There's evidence that Mexico's population is aging rapidly because of out-migration of younger people. Africana scholars sometimes talk about the developmental cost that the abduction of so able-bodied African people must have taken on West African communities. There would seem to be similar conversations in Mexico's future.
There's also the question of political cycles and the natural pressure that a discontented population exerts on a government. I wonder what might have become of the U.S. if instead of the Works Progress Administration, instead of new parks and murals and bridges, the Roosevelt Administration had facilitated visas to Canada for unemployed American workers during the Great Depression. What then?
There are answers to these questions. And no doubt they're something more complex (and more interesting) than either "Let them come," or "Kick them out." Apparently the European Union countries have figured out a lot of this. Not of lot of hope that we'll follow their lead, but... I've been wrong before.
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* I know "illegal" is a loaded term and some people opt for "undocumented." I make a conscious decision to use this term because I think a) it's accurate, and b) it acknowledges a key part of the counter-argument. An argument that starts with "Yes, John broke a law, but he should be allowed to stay because...", is a stronger argument to me than one that starts with "Let's not focus on the law."
As a historian of slavery, the 14th amendment has a special place in my heart--the place that doesn't want to let individual states decide who deserves access to public services, protection of the law and all the related, and doesn't want to forget that getting rid of it threatens a domino of all the logic that keeps African-Americans from getting further slammed by all of the usual suspects (police, conservatives, school districts...). It boggles me that these same folks (McConnel for godsakes) wouldn't be able to even hold public office without it. That's no solution because the issue is so much more complex and global--the point you are making--but it also is one of those things that is likely to have consequences that reach way past just a right-wing concern with "the Mexicans." We don't get to forget that the amendment was born in one of the bloodiest moment of this particular country's history (and I mean the violence of Reconstruction AFTER the Civil War) when a huge segment of the population was denied protection of the law and their basic civil rights (a la Dred Scott). Folks are up in arms over Paul whining about the Civil Rights Act but I have yet to hear the same gumbo ya-ya over this. Which just reminds me how soon folks forget that slavery was literally just yesterday--I don't give a shit if Obama was elected.
ReplyDeleteThe 14th A. protects all of us, not just the children of immigrants--due process is not a game. And if we start to play with the very structure of what protects all of us then we are going down a very dangerous road where anyone at anytime can change the rules about what, how much, when and how my basic rights are likely to be protected.
I'm not as triggered by the immigration debate as most folks. I'm just not impressed by hysterics over boogie-man Mexicans kidnappings along the border (read: the New Rape Myth of Lynching) and I'm not impressed by labor's temper tantrums over losing jobs. The jobs aren't even here. Considering half the folks complaining about immigration would lose their shit if they lost their brown nanny and had to take care of their own kids during the day, I can't even wrap my mind around a debate that is pretty much the most blatant example of racism (systems of oppression) and prejudice (racist thinking) I'd never hope to be witness to in my lifetime.
yuh. these cats make me mad.