National identity

It’s easy to say, “our immigration system is broken.” Or to declare: “we are a nation of immigrants.” But neither description goes very far to explain the realities of immigration and immigration policy in America. To get closer to the reality, you need a more sharply focused statement – something like the following: “we are a nation in a long-standing struggle over immigration, a struggle that reaches back to the founding of this republic.”

This statement points to fundamental conflicts that have driven the nation for many decades. These conflicts concern issues of value and national identity, questions as to how inclusive and protective of human rights a society can be – or how oppressive it can become by virtue of policies and political choices that keep millions of people disenfranchised and economically vulnerable.

Debates will soon begin in Congress over a path to citizenship for up to 10.2 million undocumented individuals, but the run-up to these debates has already been marked by recent court rulings representing significant setbacks for immigrant rights. In July, a federal judge in Texas ruled that DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is unlawful, continuing to cast in doubt the fate of hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients (those who came here when just children, most often with parents, frequently so young they have few memories of any other country than the US, including many who are now adults with degrees, careers, and families).

Then, on August 19, another Texas judge blocked the immigration enforcement priorities set by the Biden administration earlier this year, priorities that would have pivoted sharply from the open-ended targeting of immigrants by the Trump administration.

In memoranda issued in January and February, the administration spelled out its priorities for immigration enforcement, directing the government’s attention to individuals who pose a threat to national security or public safety, or who entered the country after November 1, 2020.

The Biden directives hearkened back to enforcement priorities established during the Obama administration, diverging significantly from the Trump administration’s policy that made any person who lacked documentation (eg a green card or naturalization papers) vulnerable to ICE raids, detention, and deportation.

As a volunteer with an organization supporting low-wage workers and immigrants in Los Angeles, whose larger metropolitan area is home to almost 900,000 undocumented people, I witnessed first-hand the terror associated with this policy, as people were rounded up and detained: older workers, mothers, college students. People became afraid of going to work, going to a mall, reporting domestic violence, or taking their children to college in other parts of the state or country. The administration’s intent to inculcate fear was explicit. As Thomas Homan, Acting Director of ICE in 2017, made clear to all undocumented people, “you should look over your shoulder, and you need to be worried.”

And all this activity (raids, detentions, and threats) took place against the soundtrack of racist diatribes emanating from the president himself.

Excerpted: ‘Immigration and National Identity’

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