Immigration II

So I was in a 70,000+ person protest Monday (Well, May 1 -- this post has been sitting in the hopper). But something really needs to be done to advance the message beyond the one that illegal aliens don't like the Sensenbrenner bill.

The Family Research Council, always a pseudo-Christian front for anti-Christian values, found it necessary to poll its members on the immigration issues, and found that its members hate undocumented Mexican laborers almost as much as they do gays who won't submit to curative electroshock therapy. Now that Christian Right leaders know what to think from the science of polling, they will work hard on fixing the intelligence to support the policy, reading new anti-immigration messages into the book of Romans, and making sure the apostles of questionable parentage have their papers in order. Exception: Immigrant fetuses can only be deported to countries allowing abortion once they have been brought to term and birthed; until then they are refugees making a continual, albeit silent scream for asylum.

What are the arguments we need to advance against stupid anti-immigrant legislation? Here's a start:

1) The burden of proof would be on those seeking change. If what we got ain't broke, don't fix it. If we convince people of this obvious fact, we can sit down, because dummies like Senselessbrenner shoot themselves in the brain every time they open their mouths.

2) Immigration benefits the receiving country in almost every measurable way. It's not us versus them. It's us versus stupid legislation. There are a few problems associated with illegal immigration, but they're small compared to the benefits. Immigrants promote and support the economy as workers, consumers, taxpayers, and innovators. Because they are disproportionately willing and able to work, they especially contribute to keeping social security solvent. They benefit us culturally and through their contribution of diversity. Capitalist economic theory supports the notion that the influx of immigrants is a net good to both the sending and receiving countries. To achieve maximum efficiency, labor must be able to flow freely to meet demand. Immigrants receive more than they would at home, and can send back surplus as remittances. But their contribution of productivity is to the receiving country, and they also generate part of its internal market.

3) Immigrants are people. Penalizing them arbitrarily is just harm for harm's sake. I would not reflexively call it racist, but if it has a rational basis it is the burden of advocates to state what that is. So far, they look pretty damned racist. The argument that they are here illegally and that alone should justify punishment is actually a pretty lame argument. Illegal immigration is a wink-wink crime, like speeding. The fact is, and I've said this before, prosecution of crimes is both discretionary and rare. If all crimes were enforced and punished, there would be no one left to keep the country going, because we'd all be in prison. There's always something. Most criminals don't even know they're criminals. Of course, in the case of immigration, we frequently enounter families, and we always encounter communities, whose members differ in status and would be arbitrarily sundered by enforcement. To the extent one is pro-family and pro-community, this is a particular value of staying the hand of enforcement. Moreover, immigrant status is already disadvantaged in so many ways, it seems bizarre to go out of one's way to attach additional disadvantages.

4) Various sources of hypocrisy. Apart from the real First Nations, we all came here from elsewhere, as settlers and invaders. We took 1/3 of Mexico, and many Mexicans migrated freely before the Mexican War between these lands, and those to the south, so that many immigrants have longer ties to the land than those born here. We have promoted immigration to America by propaganda claiming to offer greater wealth and opportunity and fewer social problems than is true. And we promoted it by NAFTA, which destroyed the Mexican agricultural economy, forcing Mexicans out of their traditional occupations, and homes.

Well, this is just a few points. Someone needs to do the research and come up with a big ten list of points. C'mon somebody, I wanna see it.