The Party That Gets It
History is cyclical.
This was always my day-one lesson for my students. Plain, clear, and to the point. While I acknowledged that we would be discussing people who died hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, I would always stress that we were studying these "old timers" because they faced similar situations in their time that people are facing today. And while technology, transportation, clothing, and even ways of thinking had certainly evolved, there still were basic, fundamental disagreements that various factions in a society would have concerning actions that should be taken to make advancements. How these factions thought about these pressing issues of their time and the decisions they ultimately made gives us a blueprint for the conversations currently being held by people in power at this very moment.
Immigration is one of these issues that has confounded civilizations since the dawn of time. The question of what to do with the foreigner. Do we embrace them and their ways or force them to assimilate to ours? Do we open our borders to those fleeing violence and persecution or allow them a way to seek safety and refuge among us? Do we allow them to pray to a different God out in the open, behind closed doors, or not at all? If we allow one family in, must we also allow other members of that same family? Do we allow these new visitors full citizenship and the rights and responsibilities afforded with this legal status? If we reject the foreigner altogether, what does that mean for the future of our society? Do we have enough of "our own" to propagate our nation or do we need foreigners to sustain our workforce in various economic sectors? Can the foreigner ever be truly trusted?
Twenty-first-century America is still, to this day, struggling to answer these questions. Despite becoming a Christian nation that preaches "welcoming the stranger" America's views on immigration are a political hot potato that neither side wants to truly touch. Republicans need the "otherness" of immigrants to scare their White voting base into voting for them. They need the myth of the drug trafficking illegal immigrant ready to rape and pillage. They need migrant caravans to magically appear in an election year. They need to instill a fear of taco trucks on every corner. They need to perpetuate these myths because they want, nay need to portray Democrats as being soft on crime, and manifesting chaos and disorder at the border is a very visible and impactful way of doing this.
Democrats, on the other hand, actually want to reform our broken immigration system. Democrats acknowledge that the 11 million undocumented immigrants aren't all vicious drug trafficking mules. President Obama acknowledged the fact that hundreds of thousands of children were brought here through no fault of their own and had no chance to become citizens due to how our immigration was designed. This led to DACA, the federal program that over 12 years has created educational and professional opportunities for over 800,000 young women and men. And, just yesterday, President Biden announced a new executive order aimed at keeping families of mixed status together. From CNN:
The Biden administration on Tuesday announced an executive action allowing certain undocumented spouses and children of US citizens to apply for lawful permanent residency without leaving the country – a sweeping election-year move that could offer deportation protections to hundreds of thousands of people.The action will provide legal status and protections for about 500,000 American families and roughly 50,000 noncitizen children of immigrants under the age of 21 whose parent is married to a US citizen, a senior administration official said. It amounts to one of the federal government’s biggest relief programs for undocumented immigrants since the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was announced by then-President Barack Obama in 2012.The action is aimed at appealing to key Latino constituencies in battleground states, including Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, that will be crucial for Biden’s chances to claim a second term. The move is an olive branch to immigration advocates and progressives, many of whom have sharply criticized Biden for previous restrictive actions, including taking steps this month to limit asylum processing at the US southern border.The president formally announced the action during a White House event Tuesday marking the 12th anniversary of DACA: “Today’s a good day,” Biden said during the event in the White House’s East Room.
Again, Democrats are proving themselves to be the only adults in the room by actually acknowledging the reality of the situation. And that reality is the fact that undocumented immigrants here living among us actually want to follow the rules and do whatever they can legally to make a better life for themselves and their children. As we've seen over the past year, Republicans have zero solutions on immigration. It's why their own House members refuse to take up the Senate bill that had bipartisan support. Because the defacto Speaker of the House, residing in Mar-a-Lago, would much rather have it as an issue to run on than an issue being addressed by a Democratic administration. For all their concern about the "dangerous" situation at the border, you'd think that House Republicans would want to vote on a Senate bill that greatly ramps up border security. But to think that is to also assume that they have a spine which clearly is not the case.
Immigration as a 21st-century American political issue remains divisive. But I, for one, would much rather be on the side that actually sees immigrants as human beings. That understands our broken and dysfunctional our system is. That knows that the overwhelming majority of those who are undocumented have fallen into this status not by choice but because there exists no path forward for them as currently designed. At a time when violent crime is at a 50-year low and immigration has been identified as a key driver of the United States' economic recovery, you'd think that Republicans would finally give up the charade that immigrants are a violent burden on all of us. But to believe that is to believe that Republicans would actually acknowledge reality and we all know that that is something they are simply incapable of doing.
Republicans need to dehumanize the other for political gain. Let us not forget that Donald Trump left us with innocent children in cages and several hundred being orphaned as a result of his and Stephen Miller's heinous family separation policy. Recall that those were families who were seeking asylum and had the legal right to present themselves at the southern border. Countless ghoulish Republicans saw no problem with this grotesque human rights violation so why should we expect anything different this time around? Republican xenophobia is a necessary character trait to be a member of the party today. Having policies that demean, degrade, and denigrate immigrants is simply par for the course. Their voters need someone to blame for Republican failed policies. Why not blame the brown-skinned guy next door for your own current situation?
Democrats are on the right side of history. So are all of us. And so are those working to support immigrants knowing full well just how broken our country's immigration system truly is. Joe Biden's new executive order won't fix everything. But it is a clear message that while Republicans use immigration as a wedge issue, Democrats are actually doing something about it. While Republicans sit on legislation, Democrats are finding workarounds using all tools of the Executive Branch. Voters, especially immigrants and immigrant families, see this. They see Democrats as the ones in their corner. They see Barack Obama and Joe Biden fighting for them. They know and understand that there is one party and one party only that sees them as actual human beings.
Which is why Democrats will have earned their vote come November.
Immigration as a 21st-century American political issue remains divisive. But I, for one, would much rather be on the side that actually sees immigrants as human beings. That understands our broken and dysfunctional our system is. That knows that the overwhelming majority of those who are undocumented have fallen into this status not by choice but because there exists no path forward for them as currently designed. At a time when violent crime is at a 50-year low and immigration has been identified as a key driver of the United States' economic recovery, you'd think that Republicans would finally give up the charade that immigrants are a violent burden on all of us. But to believe that is to believe that Republicans would actually acknowledge reality and we all know that that is something they are simply incapable of doing.
Republicans need to dehumanize the other for political gain. Let us not forget that Donald Trump left us with innocent children in cages and several hundred being orphaned as a result of his and Stephen Miller's heinous family separation policy. Recall that those were families who were seeking asylum and had the legal right to present themselves at the southern border. Countless ghoulish Republicans saw no problem with this grotesque human rights violation so why should we expect anything different this time around? Republican xenophobia is a necessary character trait to be a member of the party today. Having policies that demean, degrade, and denigrate immigrants is simply par for the course. Their voters need someone to blame for Republican failed policies. Why not blame the brown-skinned guy next door for your own current situation?
Democrats are on the right side of history. So are all of us. And so are those working to support immigrants knowing full well just how broken our country's immigration system truly is. Joe Biden's new executive order won't fix everything. But it is a clear message that while Republicans use immigration as a wedge issue, Democrats are actually doing something about it. While Republicans sit on legislation, Democrats are finding workarounds using all tools of the Executive Branch. Voters, especially immigrants and immigrant families, see this. They see Democrats as the ones in their corner. They see Barack Obama and Joe Biden fighting for them. They know and understand that there is one party and one party only that sees them as actual human beings.
Which is why Democrats will have earned their vote come November.
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