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TechnoratiOn rare occasions humble acts of moral courage awaken our souls and reverberate through history. They touch us quietly and intimately, shed light, and profoundly inspire spiritual renewal: Rosa Parks refuses to sit in the back of a Montgomery, Alabama bus; an anonymous protester stands up to a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square; Anne Frank writes a diary before her deportation and death in Auschwitz.
On August 19, 2007 the US Immigrant Rights movement had its own historic moment destined to inspire future generations of social justice activists. Elvira Arellano, a Chicago cleaning woman and working mom, was arrested outside a church in Los Angeles. The immigration police immediately deported her to Mexico.
Arellano, who worked maintenance at O'Hare International Airport until she was fired in a post-9/11 purge of undocumented workers, became an unlikely human rights hero last year when she sought sanctuary in a Chicago Methodist church. Her simple Christian purpose was to avoid deportation and separation from her son Saul, a US citizen. Saul was an infant when Elvira was mopping our floors and cleaning our airport toilets. Now he was a second-grader, and his mom was a fugitive, on the run from the dreaded migra.
Like millions of other economic refugees, Elvira and Saul have been subjected to the increasingly stringent enforcement policies of a government hard-pressed by its xenophobic fringe. While some immigration reform efforts in Congress hold out promise to immigrants, most have been blocked by hardliners intent on waging a crusade against immigrant families.
The consequences have been catastrophic:
- The militarization of our southern border has caused a dramatic increase in mortality. Over 4,000 corpses have been found in the desert since 1996, with dehydration and heat stroke among the leading causes of death. 2007 is on track to be the deadliest year on record.
- Mass workplace raids and deportations are becoming terrifyingly commonplace. In December 2006, 1,300 Swift & Co. meat-processing workers were arrested simultaneously in six states. It was the largest raid in immigration enforcement history.
- Raids and round-ups are facilitated by a government program called Endgame. Creepily evocative of the Ultimate Solution, Endgame is the Bush Administration's plan to "remove all removable aliens" by the year 2012. Its bite has recently been strengthened by a compliant Congress.
The tightening of surveillance, enforcement and prosecution has created a climate of fear in immigrant communities not seen in this country since the 1954 civil rights debacle, Operation Wetback.
Elvira Arellano's deportation is a wake-up call for America. It's time to say, ¡Basta ya! We've had enough exploitation, abuse and exclusion. It's time to say "SÃÂ, se puede" - We can do it!" to working families' rights to healthcare, education, liberty and legalization.
Immigrant working families deserve our gratitude and respect. Demonizing them as "illegals" only serves to inflame our worst ethnocentric impulses at the precise moment in history when we most need to emphasize our best qualities-generosity and inclusiveness.
Addressing the complexities of immigration issues requires a serious multi-national dialogue. Such dialogue cannot commence in earnest, however, without compassionately and effectively addressing the humanitarian crisis on our borders, in our barrios, and at our detention centers.
We have nothing to fear from legalizing several million working families like Elvira and Saul Arellano who are already productive members of our society. On the other hand, we have plenty to fear if we succumb to ethnocentrism and revert to the intolerance of Operation Wetback.
The Elvira Arellano snapshot of the immigrant worker's dilemma gives us a precious opportunity to reflect inwardly on who we are and what we want to become in the 21st century. Such introspection brings a humanitarian clarity to our political endeavors. It permits us to acknowledge the mothers, fathers and children who are the economic refugees among us. It permits us to love Elvira and Saul. That's the endgame.
David Howard is a teacher, author and member of the board of directors of Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions/CPR. DavidHoward@aol.com
17 Comments so far
Show AllThere is no free lunch in America. Illegal aliens are a growing number of people that have no rights, they have few concepts of civil rights and the people that benefit from thier presence like it that way.
Anytime you don't like your job they will do it cheaper and with no benefits. They will recruit others and exploit them because that is all they know.
I wonder if anyone here has ever had a supervisor from a thirdworld country?
If you were in their shoes? Would you try for something better?
I work with illegals. They have taken the place of some of the alchoholics, addicts and boneheads that normally populate the business I'm work in. Some of them are assholes and some of them are like me, imperfect and lucky enough to be alive and supporting my family (Some of them think I'm an asshole).
Sure they broke the law. You would probably do the same, in their shoes.
Tell yourself you'd turn your back on opportunity when it knocks. Tell yourself that your ideals trump the only opportunity your kids may ever
have to get an education, or just a job that will allow them to meet their most basic needs. Then sit back and let our great country, it's walls, fences, helicopters, guns, and empty-headed politicians keep you safe, sound and blissfully ignorant.
There will always be assholes. To misquote Edward Abbey, "The problem with them (Mexicans, Indians, North Carolinians, New Yorkers...) is that too many of them are assholes, just like us".
She was here illegally. She committed a felony crime while here. She left her son here BY CHOICE. She deserves no sympathy. To compare her to Rosa Parks is an affront to all Americans who are themselves law abiding. Churches who aid and abet people to break laws insert themselves into the political process and should immediately lose tax-exempt status. Church "sanctuary" is an outdated and illegal form of criminal behavior... just like the "so called sanctity of the confessional". Knowledge of a crime and failure to report it makes one complicit in that crime if not an outright accomplice.
They live in one place in fairly large groups. That's how they can send money back home. Which is also why the places in which they live become wrecked in such a short time. Just as over population takes it toll on an area, it does so on a residence also. I'm one to give these people a free ride into citizenship, BUT, you have to take care of a problem first. And that's the illegal hiring which draws them across the border. The companies breaking the laws should be dismantled and ceo's imprisoned for their greedy destruction of our nation. NAFTA was supposedly created to help Mexico better their working conditions and pay scale. Their government and or companies didn't hold up to their part of the treaty. Sad thing is, some of those companies are those that moved from here. More U.S. companies working against us. I hate to see people's lives being sent into such dismay. But as someone above wrote, they were willing to chance that when they broke our laws. There are people trying to get into the U.S. legally that take several years. That's just to get here and be able to stay. Then another several years to work through the remaining red tape. Why should these people get a free ride? Try migrating to Mexico. Unless you have contacts down there, you won't get a job that you can support yourself on. And if I remember right, its illegal to be hired before they hire their own citizens. And their government enforces those laws strictly. Then you'll need contacts here to get you out of their prison. How many more will come until we solve this issue? There doesn't seem to be and end to this as of yet. And being NAFTA has now created the same problems there as we now have. I only see the numbers growing. Mexico is now self destructing due to NAFTA also, with a lot of jobs leaving for China. The only reason they are doing these raids is to silence the people here. Long term, it destroys those involved. Other then the companies, who keep on going. Until you do something about them, it will keep going on.
CV
Who gets to decide what a fair wage is? I work full time just to pay my mortgage, health insurance and expenses and have nothing left over to send to anyone.
If the illegal mexican immigrants have enough money to send home to mexico after they pay their expenses living here how can you say they are underpaid?
What depresses wages isn't just the willingness of undocumented workers to work for less. The Employers that hire at less than livable wages do so because people with no papers are in no position to complain. Ending the "illegallity" of workers prevents that exploitation and thereby raises the floor. Everyone, papers or no, deserves to be fairly paid.
RuthB makes the most valid point here. Everything else is just the same old moralizing. Unlike RuthB and myself most here probably don't have Mexican/Hispanic neighbors or even have daily interactions. I live in New Mexico, I think you'd all be in for a rude awakening if you really had to live among a culturally "diverse" population where "whitey" is the minority.
THe immigration along with the burgeoning latino birthrate is resulting in latinization of entire urban areas regardless of income. Native born hispanics are often the main enablers of the illegals -they're of the same kindship. I can't tell you how many hispanic-owned landscape, construction or cleaning services employ illegal labor.
These employers are then able to move into decent neighborhoods where they bring their lifestyle which , as RuthB described, is not very neighborly.
People do not realize that the hispanic culture does not want to integrate, they want their own culture, language and lifestyle. THe naivety of some of these posters astounds me. The obvious latino posters lie, as usual, about their intent and are barely able to hide their contempt of whitey.
I suggest everyone take a trip to Mexico, not Cancun or the resort areas. Drive thru the interior as I have and you will see what many parts of the US will soon become.
Don August hits a lot of nails on the head. There are alot of people who are not clear about their thinking about this problem and their terminology. If you want to do away with nation-states and borders and let everyone move freely that would be one world, but that is not the world that we live in now. Anti-illegal is not the same thing as anti-mexican. It is true that NAFTA and the like are driving part of this illegal movement. However, that does not make it legal. The rich don't care about the poor American or Mexican.
lporter:
You're right-on. The claim that new immigrants and illegals are taking jobs Americans "don't want" has always been problematic. With median home prices gamed to what they are, huge numbers of occupations today are inadequate to survive -- except perhaps as permanent landless/serf status. All of this has been going on while American companies massively offshored good-paying manufacturing and IT jobs to non-Americans. Let me guess, we didn't like those jobs either?
No.
There ought to be no finger-pointing among the landless, debt maxed-out middle-class and working-class. If any of us want to point fingers, point them a few notches up the social ladder.
I recently sent this letter to the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard:
Columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr, (8/24) claims that Americans feel entitled to "turn up their noses at jobs that wind up being done by illegal immigrants." As a working-class American – that's the class below middle class – I find that offensive.
First, although this is often claimed by liberals to justify their stance on illegal immigration, I've never seen any proof that it's true.
Second, if there are shortages of American applicants for working-class jobs, it is probably because they pay so little and working conditions are poor.
Recently I helped someone with many years of experience in institutional cooking look for similar jobs on the Internet. They all paid in the $8.50 to $10 per hour range. That is not a living wage. A single person might scrape by on it, but you could never support a family on that wage.
Ralph Nader has said that a third of American workers make less than $10 per hour.
All those liberals who want "diversity" and "open borders" need to deal with this. Right now they're supporting corporations in their limitless appetite for cheap labor. Employers' addiction to cheap labor is the real entitlement that needs to be abolished.
This is not a racial issue, it is a class issue.
Lynn Porter
http://lynnporter.wordpress.com/
There are just so many points that are wrong in this article. A point that is missing is that Arellano entered America illegally in 1997, was arrested, and deported back to Mexico. She then returned, illegally,which is a felony when one has already been deported; gave birth to a child, and worked as a janitor. Then she was arrested and convicted of using a false Social Security number to obtain employment and was sentenced to three years probation. She was ordered to appear to immigration authorities, but instead, took sanctuary in a church.
The author uses the term "undocumented". To me, this is a perversion of the english language. If her visa had been destroyed in a fire, perhaps then she could be called an undocumented immigrant, but her lack of documents is due to her deliberate illegal actions.
The author compares her to human rights heroes; this implies either that there is a basic human right to immigrate where ever one desires, or there is a basic human right to defy any law of one's own choosing, or there is something evil regarding America's immigration laws and due process as they are enforced. Just which human right has been violated here?
The author writes that Miss Arellano's "purpose was to avoid deportation and separation from her son Saul". It is her choice to leave her child behind. Neither the US or Mexico governments are preventing her from taking her child with her to Mexico. She perhaps feels that the propaganda value of tearful separation is more valuable than raising her child herself.
The author repeatedly uses the term "immigrants" where what he refers to are "illegal immigrants". I know of no Congressmen that are "crusade[ing] against immigrant families." Conflating the two groups can serve no other purpose but to confuse the issue. All Americans are either immigrants or come from immigrant ancestors, but most of these immigrants came here legally, and wanted to become Americans, unlike Miss Arellano,who said: "I have only two choices, either I go to my country, Mexico or stay and keep fighting."
She also said in a video broadcast by Spanish-language network Univision, at a press conference that the United States "broke the law first" by allowing people to enter the country without documents".
Somehow we are "allowing" illegals to cross the border, and yet, the mortality rate is climbing. If the border patrol efforts to prevent crossings are so fatal, it is false to say we are "allowing" illegal crossings to occur. It is the Mexican government that has printed a comic book with instructions demonstating how to cross the desert, and how to avoid capture. They have no qualms in exporting their poverty problem, the oligarchy is more than happy with the current situation. Emigration is an escape valve that prevents real change in Mexico. One in ten Mexican born workers are currently living in America.
The author alludes to raids and deportations as being similar to the "Ultimate Solution", a reference to the Nazi Genocide, I assume. This is an insult to Jews, Gays, Romany(gypsies), and communists. The enforcement of our laws regarding immigration is not the same as the mass extermination of millions. It is not based on ethnic group xenophobia, as illegals from all countries are sent back. Why is it a "bad thing" if criminals are afraid of law enforcement? I'd like to point out that the raids at workplaces around the country are chosen on the basis of identity fraud,and/or id theft, not skin tone.
As others have pointed out, the exploitation of illegal workers is possible because they are illegal. Legal immigrants feel free to report abuses to the authorities. As Caesar Chavez testified in Congress,1979...
… when the farm workers strike and their strike is successful, the employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike. And, for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking. I do not remember one single instance in 30 years where the Immigration service has removed strikebreakers. … The employers use professional smugglers to recruit and transport human contraband across the Mexican border for the specific act of strikebreaking…
In 1969, Chavez led a march to the Mexican border to protest illegal immigration. Joining him were Sen. Walter Mondale and Martin Luther King's successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Ralph Abernathy.
The Law of Supply and Demand results in lower wages for all workers competing for a finite number of jobs. Current examples are the meat packing industry and construction. Union busting would not be possible without illegals. See:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0329-21.htm by Thom Hartmann
Continuing the flow of illegal immigration ensures that the wages of the poorest Americans will not rise. Do we want an underclass of poor people? Do we want a poverty class supporting lower prices for the wealthier classes?
The author is in support of "working families' rights to healthcare, education, liberty and legalization". I support three out of four when illegals are concerned. This is an old salesman trick. Get the customer to say "yes", repeatedly. Healthcare? YES! Education? YES!Liberty? YES! Legalization? Ye..wait a minute! Why? I believe all humans have human rights. But I also believe only American citizens have all the rights as listed in our Constitution. Non-citizens do not have the right to live here unless they follow the immigration laws.
The author writes:"Immigrant working families deserve our gratitude and respect. Demonizing them as "illegals" only serves to inflame our worst ethnocentric impulses ..."
More spin.
"Immigrant families" does not mean "Illegal immigrant families".
Not all immigrant working families are illegal. Illegals have broken the law. That is why they are called "illegal". It is a factual nomenclature, not a slur. Wetback is a slur. WOP is slur. We say "illegal drug dealer", not an "unlicensed pharmaceuticals distributer"
The author reduces the anti-illegal argument to solely enthnocentrism and intolerance.
He sees the problem in terms of the individual illegal immigrant. A bad basis for policy decisions. Here is a person that is willing to work hard, and is only looking for a better life, he thinks. But what effects does one person have, when one person is multiplied by 12 million? Wages for the poorest Americans are decreased. Housing costs increase. Hospital emergency rooms are forced to close due to being over-whelmed by non-insured patients. Schools require more resources to educate non-english speakers.
As the author asks, truly, "who we are and what we want to become in the 21st century" is the question at hand. Allowing those that manage to cross the border, or get temporary visas, to remain here is not a solution.
Allowing immigration on a mass scale removes those that may have otherwise improved conditions in their home countries. 4.5 billion people are impoverished around the world. The 2 million legal and illegal immigrants to America each year are about one-half of one-tenth of 1% of the 4.5 billion.
The only hope for most of these 4.5 billion lies in their own countries, not here.
I haven't mentioned the ecological aspect of unlimited growth, or the neccessity of reducing our country's resource consumption, but this reply is perhaps already too long, so I'll leave it as it is.
The Multi-national corporations that are encourged to go into Mexico to engage in unhealthy business practice's only favor the elites of Mexico. The net result will produce more Elvira Arellano's of the future.
A new economic theory should be implemented in Mexico which will ultimately benefit the poor perhaps Socialism.
right,history does repeat itself.
"We have nothing to fear from legalizing several million working families like Elvira and Saul Arellano who are already productive members of our society."
Many factors are contributing to the influx of illegals. One is that they are willing to work for less than a livable wage and with no benefits.
Legalizing these working families is the noble thing to do but as newly minted legitimate workers they will then be able to ask for a livable wage and benefits. The employers will then be required to seek out a new batch of illegitmate (illegal) workers and the cycle will continue.
Actually, there is nothing new in this cycle. Irish Americans, Eastern Europeans, Chinese,... there has always been an immigrant population available for exploitation.
Ask yourself why "la limpieza, la cosecha, y la construccion" (cleaning, harvesting, construction) are not being done by legal Americans?
A beautiful essay. At the cusp of what will likely be a new sanctuary movement, whereby people of faith and good will provide sanctuary for undocumented immigrants being hunted down by ICE, or out of work due to Homeland Security pressuring employers on no-match social security number actions. As ugly as the repression will be, Christian love is indeed the true endgame to the madness, and will... indeed must prevail in the end. What joy there will be in leaving behind the shackles of fear and selfishness. And of cours we need to transform the policies, repeal NAFTA, get agriculture out of the WTO, etc... so that people are not forced in unhealthy numbers to abandon their communities in desperation. That we must do also!
I agree with you about NAFTA and, until two years ago, I would probably have agreed with the article. I know longer can.
My older sister and I live in an inexpensive house in a working class area in what is now called a "santuary city". Since I didn't make a lot of money, I was nearly 50 before I felt I could afford even this house. We have lived here for 20 years. It used to be a nice neighborhood - a mixture of black and white (and, yes, some hispanics), young and old, where people knew each other and were neighborly. After Katrina, we had a large block party. It couldn't happen now.
We have been overrun with a new group of hispanics. The crime rate is up. There are so many drugs around that we joke about where the latest "smokehouse" is. Some people have moved out. We cannot afford to.
How can I describe the day to day harassment? The new neighbors next door have not only trashed their house but some of ours. They use by yard as theirs. They park their cars on part of my grass (ruining it). They leave there cans and garbage around. I end up picking it up. They use their garage as their clubhouse and their driveway as a trash dump. What I tried to explain that they were taking my property, their response was that "But you're not using it."
When they first moved here, their teen-ager asked if he could borrow the lawn mower. Yes, of course. He didn't want it for his grass. He spent the day with it going around the area looking for yards to mow. When I told him that he could borrow it only for his yard, he was really angry about it. After a month of so of this, the mower was in bad shape. I gave it to him and bought us another one.
Similar things have happened to other people.
In the winter, someone came by and wanted to shovel my snow. When I said no, I do my own snow and can't afford to pay someone, he was so angry that I was afraid of him.
After my older sister retired, she put a whole lot of flowers in the patio. We used to sit out there in the evening. We never go out there now. It's ceased to be ours.
Since we are now considered a "changing neighbor", our property values are going down much faster than they should. Somehow, our property taxes are going up.
I are sorry that there are "economic refugees" in the country, but I feel like a prisoner here. If I could move, I would.
Let us not forget that many of the NAFTA policies have flooded the Mexican market with cheaper food and forced farmers off the land so they have risked immigration to the US to provide for their families.