A Tale of Two Countries: Attacks on Immigrants in a Nation of Immigrants

The symptoms of our acutely dysfunctional immigration system are everywhere: record levels of deaths in our deserts, exploitation of vulnerable workers, an extensive cottage industry for fake documents, billions of dollars in enforcement resources squandered, and labor market needs unfilled. The ineffective enforcement-only status quo has resulted in porous and chaotic borders and millions of undocumented immigrants.

This broken system not only has an impact on national security, economic stability, and human rights; it also provides anti-immigrant groups with opportunities to promote a virulently divisive agenda. The rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric and organizing has prompted the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to publish a weekly “immigration watch” newsletter to monitor the anti-immigrant movement. The SPLC, which has for decades monitored right-wing extremism and hate groups in America, recently stated: “The anti-immigration movement has seen explosive growth in recent years, even as racism and bigotry have come increasingly to characterize some of this country's main anti-immigration organizations.”¹

The nativists’ appeal to a vocal minority of citizens is aided by elected officials who seek political gain by exploiting the national security fears of a post-9/11 world and the economic and cultural changes brought about by non-traditional immigration patterns that have led, for example, to growing Hispanic communities in North Carolina, Utah, and Iowa. ² Rep. Tom Tancredo and his allies pushed immigrant-bashing bill H.R. 4437 through the House of Representatives in December 2005. ³ H.R. 4437, which would turn undocumented immigrants into felons, criminalizes those who provide immigrants with basic humanitarian services, limits fundamental due process rights, and poses a threat to immigrants, citizens, families, businesses, communities, the Constitution, and the very spirit of America.

Tancredo provides a veneer of legitimacy to organizations in the anti-immigrant movement, many branches of which can be traced to an extensive network constructed by John Tanton, known as the “puppeteer” of the radical anti-immigration movement. Tanton’s web of organizations and contributors has far-reaching ties to racist, white-supremacist, and neo-Nazi organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan and the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review. ⁴ Tanton is a co-founder of FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform), an organization that funds a variety of anti-immigration activities like vigilante border patrols, racially tinged advertising campaigns, and misleading reports on the impacts of immigration. ⁵ FAIR maintains ties with the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group whose picket signs feature slogans like “Immigrants are Cancer.” ⁶ FAIR has also received over $1 million from the Pioneer Fund⁷ , a foundation rooted in eugenics and racial separatism. ⁸ FAIR is one of the largest and most vocal supporters of HR 4437 ⁹ and opponents of comprehensive immigration reform such as McCain-Kennedy legislation. ¹⁰

Anti-immigrant scapegoating by opportunistic politicians has an unfortunately long pedigree in American politics. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, spurred by disdain for French and Irish immigrants, allowed for the deportation and imprisonment of immigrants for virtually any reason at any time. ¹¹ In the mid-1850’s, the Know-Nothing political party (later known as the American party) gained substantial political traction by opposing Irish Catholic immigration and demanding that political office-holders be native-born Americans, that immigrants be forced to wait 21 years before earning citizenship¹², and that public school teachers be Protestants. ¹³ Later, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 eliminated immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years. ¹⁴ In the early 20th Century, opposition to immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe led to national origins quota legislation in 1921 and 1924. ¹⁵ More recently, the 1965 Immigration Reform Act’s end to racial quotas ¹⁶ and the subsequent increases in linguistic, demographic and cultural diversity led to the English-only movement of the 1980’s. ¹⁷

As this brief summary suggests, the current anti-immigrant movement is just the most recent twist on a tradition of scapegoating the latest generation of immigrants. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. In fact, it is arguable that the only true defining difference between nativist activities of past and present is that this time, it is happening ON OUR WATCH.

So, America once again faces two divergent paths in how to treat our new immigrants. Will we choose the path that scapegoats our newcomers and dishonors our foundation and heritage as a nation of immigrants? Or will we seek to implement immigration laws that reflect the cultural, professional, and economic contributions of this generation’s immigrants, and the synergistic strength that our immigrant history has always provided America? Of course it is possible for reasonable people to disagree about specific aspects of the immigration debate and policy proposals. Many people have asked legitimate questions, for example, about the impact of immigration on low-wage workers. But many labor leaders agree that all workers will be better protected when immigrants are brought out of the shadow economy, where they are unprotected against exploitation by unscrupulous employers. There is a growing consensus among civil rights, labor, and other progressive leaders that comprehensive reform will be better for all of us.

And there is more good news. We’ve recently witnessed thousands of Irish activists coming to Capitol Hill in support of comprehensive reform that recognizes the contributions that immigrants have made and continue to make to this country. In recent weeks, this nation has seen religious leaders standing up to oppose anti-immigrant legislation – and hundreds of thousands of people taking to the street in peaceful protest of punitive, enforcement-only legislation that seeks to separate families and make criminals out of decent hard-working individuals.

Perhaps this is the moment when immigrants of past and present come together to oppose the politics of scapegoating. Perhaps this is the moment when we make the statement, with conviction and historical resonance: “NOT ON OUR WATCH.”

Footnotes

¹ “Immigration Watch newsletter.” Southern Poverty Law Center. 18 August 2005.

2 Fix, Michael et al. “Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America.” Summary Report of the Conference Held at the Holiday Inn in Ames, IA. 16 July 1996.

3 Rep. Tom Tancredo, one of the leaders in the fight against immigration, has employed some of the most shameful tactics in advocating for his cause. Perhaps best known for trying to hunt down and deport a Colorado honor student, Jose Apodaca, who publicly spoke up against the law denying his ability to pay in-state tuition because of his illegal status, Tancredo has been at the vanguard of the Congressional anti-immigrant movement. Tancredo also decried the “cult of multiculturalism” as an affront to national identity and the values of Western civilization. Rep. Tancredo’s Mass Immigration Reduction Act of 2003 (HR 946) sought to place an indefinite moratorium on immigration to the U.S. For the five years following the act, only 30,000 legal immigrants to the U.S. would be permitted.

4 “The Puppeteer.” Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report Summer 2002.

5 Center for New Community Special Report: Federation for American Immigration Reform November 2004.

6 Ibid.

7 “Pioneer Fund Grants, 1971 – 1996.” Ferris State University’s Institute for the Study of Academic Racism.

8 “The Puppeteer.”

9 Hendricks, Tyche. "The Immigration Debate." San Francisco Chronicle 03 April 2006: A-1.

10 Federation for American Immigration Reform. “FAIR: Senate Bill Would Set off a Tidal Wave of More Immigration and Put the U.S. on a Course Toward One Billion by 2100.” Press Release. 31 March 2006.

11 An Act Respecting Alien Enemies, Section 1.

12 Know-Nothing Party Platform, 1856.

13 Tyler Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery, The Northern Know Nothings & the Politics of the 1850s Oxford University Press: 1992. 246-278.

14 Forty-Seventh Congress. Session I. 1882. Chapter 126.-An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese.

15 Glasser, Ira. “Scapegoating Immigrants – Again.” 17 November 1996. < http://www.aclu-or.org/legislature/national/immigrants1.htm >.

¹⁶ Wasem, Ruth Ellen. “U.S. Immigration Policy on Permanent Admissions.” CRS Report for Congress. 18 February 2004.

17 “English Only.” ACLU Briefing Paper Number 6. http://www.lectlaw.com/files/con09.htm.