Today's Washington Post features Annabel Park and Eric Byler, the brilliant and courageous filmmakers responsible for the YouTube 9500 Liberty "'Interactive Documentary' about the politicization of the immigration issue." First, here's Annabel on what's happened in Prince William county the past few months (bolding added for emphasis):
...people did not come together in Prince William County. The county supervisors passed the illegal-immigration resolution. I believe the process was not democratic. One organized interest group dominated it by bullying, spreading misinformation and inciting intolerance.America is not just a country, not just a particular place in space and time, but a promise to live according to our highest ideals. If we succumb to intolerance and fear now, at this critical time in America's story, we will all have failed.
I couldn't agree more. I would add that what America most certainly IS NOT is a nation founded on one particular race, religion, or nationality. Instead, what America was founded on was the universal believe that ALL men are created equal, that we are a beacon of liberty to people all over the world. Have we always lived up to those ideals? Of course not. Should we strive to do so? Of course.
America is also what Ronald Reagan called a "shining city on a hill:"
..a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.
Does that sound like the kind of "city" (or county) the Corey Stewarts and Eugene Delgaudios of the world envision? Obviously not, which is why Ronald Reagan was a great leader and these guys are...well, not. Or, to put it another way: Corey Stewart, you're no Ronald Reagan!
Now, here's Eric:
The next night, a vandal tries to burn down Liberty Wall. Soon after, another will succeed in destroying the sign, ripping it to shreds.These are the questions facing our society. Who is American? And who gets to speak? I am reintroduced to the Chinese American boy I was in 1981 at Kings Park Elementary. I hear the word "chink." I see my classmates tugging at their eyes.
The bullies are not as distant as I remembered them. I may see the world through a lens, but my eyes are open, and my heart is where the bottles shatter, on the Liberty side of the fence.
I would argue that Ronald Reagan's heart was strongly on the "Liberty side of the fence" as well. Unfortunately, the Corey Stewarts of the world appear to be on a different side -- the fearful side, the angry side, the ugly side of that fence. Fortunately, we've also got the Annabel Parks and Eric Bylers (and Father Creedons and Rev. Boykins and...) of the world on the liberty side -- the American side -- of the fence.
P.S. Meanwhile, "Loudoun Looks Past Immigration".
P.P.S. See Eric's and Annabel's excellent new video on the "flip."
I will put up a link to this in the open thread if it goes up before I have to go offline for 90-120 minutes.
hey, I still have diaries that get only about 20 and 20 -- depends on the topic, the time of day, and what else is hot right then
unfortunately Markos has decreed that immigration is dead as an issue, despite the evidence I and others have provided that the Republicans will continue to use it, that some Dems will overreact on it, and that the Republicans will win some races on the issue. But what the heck - I try . . .
A fence is more effective at disrupting the ecosystems of deserts along our border. A fence doesn't prevent people from crossing. Even the Great Wall of China did not save them from invasion by the Mongols.
It would take an enormous amount of personnel and resources to monitor every inch of coastline and every inch of our land borders with Canada and Mexico. And no where in the president's budget or in Republican amendments to any spending bills is anywhere near the required increase to ICE's budget to hire all of that additional staff.
And what to do with the millions of undocumented immigrants already here? Again there are not enough ICE agents and Republicans aren't proposing increasing ICE's staff. Second, there is not enough space in ICE's detention facilities nor in Federal, State, or local prisons to house all of these people until they can be deported. On top of that, it would take tremendous amount of money to procure buses and planes to send all undocumented workers back to their home country. And last, that is assuming their home country will even take them back. Vietnam and China, for example, refuse to let people back into the "worker's paradise" once they have left. So are you then going to keep these people in internment camps forever?
And denying them public services just makes their harsh existence harsher. If they are Guatemalans and they were willing to risk the danger of crossing through Mexico to get here, you think cutting off their access to the public services is going to deter them? They are still going to come for economic opportunity that does not exist in their home country.
The other side seems to be completely unwilling to deal with the issue. They just want to use it score points and then proceed to do nothing about it. The people who they have managed to stir into a rage about the issue also seem to lack the ability to follow-up on whether Republicans have really delivered for them. What is absolutely amazing is that Republicans controlled both the Whitehouse and Congress for 6 years and did nothing (or rather so little as to be imperceptible) about immigration. They suddenly decide to stir the pot and people rally around them without saying: "Hold up! You were in power for 6 years, why all the concern right now about illegal immigration?" You know the old saying: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I can't see why more people who are in a fuss about immigration haven't said this to themselves over and over when listening to Republican harangues about immigration.
Seeing the Republican's diatribe on immigration for what it is (naked opportunism), is not in my mind intolerant. It is simply calling a spade a spade, which is realism not intolerance.
What to do with the millions that are already here is especially difficult. We can't grant any semblance of an amnesty or the cycle will never end. We also can't deport them all. The least we can do is enforce laws that are on the books. It is a tough, heartbreaking situation, but nobody is exempt from facing the consequences of their own decisions.
Denying public services just makes it harsher. I'm sorry. Perhaps that won't deter Guatemalans, or any other nationality, but it is one less incentive. If we went after employers that would get rid of the biggest incentive of all.
Many Republicans have done a lousy job on this issue, I won't defend them. My fear is that the Democrats will also succumb to naked opportunism when they reach out to the Hispanic vote. I have never voted for a Republican for President, but in 08 I just might.
Republicans have started to do some minor things now because they are out of power nationally and they want desperately to get that back. President Bush has waited 6 years before starting these high profile raids, before sending out these no-match letters and punishing employers. This all materialized out of thin air. Had Democrats not won in 2006, absolutely nothing would have been done. And in fact, you might very well have had amnesty as that was President Bush's plan. Had Republicans retained control they wouldn't have felt the need to grasp at straws.
If we enforce the laws on the books, that means we need tons more ICE officers to work all those cases. We would need to notify all of those people of the date of their deportation proceedings. And we would need a lot more people to handle all of those deportation proceedings. And unless you think the individuals in question are not going to flee, then you need to hold them until deportation. Again you are going down the road of a massive federal bureaucracy to do just this one thing. And when a foreign government refuses to take those people back, what do you do? If you don't give them a path to a legal status and they can neither work nor return to their country of origin, what do you do?
The cycle will never end until there is economic opportunity in their home countries. Equally, there is a definitive need for labor in America. Most organizations and the federal government are facing a massive loss of labor as baby boomers retire. Baby boomers did not have enough children to fully replace themselves in the workforce. So where are you going to get that labor from?
Finally, denying all of these people employment is a massive disruption to the economy. This isn't a consequence free choice. You can already read articles about farm labor shortages (just search for: "farm labor shortage"). I don't know if you have experience with human resources, but it is not easy to fire and then rehire an entire labor force overnight. And no labor means production delays or worse, no production at all.
Personally, I think the country has bigger fish to fry: the occupation of Iraq, a weakening dollar, a large federal budget deficit, a massive federal debt, increased income disparity, a struggling middle class, the uninsured, global warming, an aging national infrastructure, education, and I'm sure I could name more but I am tired. That's just my view though. From my perspective, I am not harmed by undocumented workers; so, it is not a big deal to me.
It continues to annoy me that the excited anti-immigrants always seem to ignore the big business employers (unlike the small business employers, such as maid services or yardmen, at whom they do sometimes take a swipe) who use undocumented laborers in droves. The anti-immigrants also complain about foreign governments enabling the "invasion" (which is to some extent true), but for reasons they never mention.
In other words, they are willfully ignoring the prominent role of our own government, especially under Republicans, in encouraging big agribusiness and other mega businesses which demand non-union, cheap-cheap labor. Not to mention the devastating effect of NAFTA-CAFTA and World Bank policies which have ruined third world's local farmers, throwing thousands into unemployment, forcing them to seek jobs elsewhere, like the United States (some, like Filipinos, have instead gone to Iraq and Kuwait with KBR).
Any whiff that the anti-immigrants might add employers to their punitive regulations arouses instant attack by business interests... So now we have a group of Virginia employers formed to lobby against restrictions on employers for employing undocumenteds. It's okay to politicize the issue, punish the victim, but for God's sake don't mess with the bottom line of capitalists, it seems.
When you think about it, do we not have an overlap, a community of interest, between the self-serving businesses who depend (or think they do) on undocumenteds and those so-called liberals who want a fair, equitable, American solution to the so-called problem of undocumented immigrants?
There is an overlap of interest between the greedy employers and liberals.... then there is the majority of Americans who want the laws to be enforced and our borders to be respected.