An egress
To all,
The bad news: As I’ve delved deeper into my local government beat at the Telegram, I’ve found it more difficult to maintain this blog. I will be discontinuing the forum at the end of this month.
The good news: This means I’ll be able to work on more local government and immigration (!!!) stories at the Telegram. For example:
A New Home: A look at the Somalis of southwest Kansas
Seeking a Better Life: The changing face of the Midwest meatpacker
Groups Help Refugees Assimilate: A growing burden on social services serving refugees in the area
Faith & Immigration: What local faith leaders have to say about illegal immigration in southwest Kansas
I began blogging about immigration issues more than a year ago because I saw the issue and its related topics — diversity, race, intercultural relations, the changing demographics of the Midwest — as incredibly important to the region … but receiving little attention from the media, the storytellers of our society. Though the blogging project has been quite hit and miss at times, immigration still matters … especially in our incredibly diverse community in southwest Kansas. And so the Telegram (and I!) will continue covering its community and all the people in it.
Thanks for the opportunity to blog … I look forward to continuing the dialogue! Best, Shajia
Subscribe to the comments for this postImmigration in the heartland
From Miriam Jordan of the WSJ: “A Tale of Two Students” — In middle school, Ivan and Laura shared a brief romance and a knack for trouble. Then they parted ways. Now he is college-bound and she isn’t. How different schools shaped their paths. Read the Saturday essay.
I was lucky enough to also visit Santa Fe South High School during a conference in Oklahoma City, Okla., back in April, where I met students like Ivan. Except some — those who were in the country illegally and most brought by their parents as very young children — shared the same dreams but not the same hopes as their peers. Chris Brewster, the superintendent of the charter high school, explained that between 94 and 96 percent of the student population of about 500 qualifies for free or reduced-fee lunch at Santa Fe South, where educators walk each and every graduating student through the college application process.
But the state’s passage of anti-illegal immigrant legislation nearly three years ago — and better known as HB1804 (a brief history on how HB1804 came to pass) — has not done much more than instill fear in many of these students, their families, and educators alike, Brewster said. Are the teachers “aiding” and “abetting” illegal immigrants — now a felony in Oklahoma — by teaching undocumented students? What does an academically motivated senior do when she’s 18 and wants to go to college but can’t because she’s not eligible for admission at most universities or for financial aid? The interpretations of the state law are endless, and people need to be asking these questions and coming to solutions in the debate about federal comprehensive immigration reform. The system isn’t working and families are stuck in limbo. Take, for example, the story of Gabriel, an illegal immigrant we also met in Oklahoma City, who is willingly leaving to Mexico after his son and wife were deported. He rose to the position of foreman for a commercial construction company, paid taxes and bought a small home for his family. Now he is returning to his increasingly impoverished and violent homeland with his 16-year-old daughter.
Anyone who’d argue that immigration issues are black and white — “What part of illegal don’t you understand?” — are mistaken. Laws are manmade and subject to interpretation, and man is prone to error. I’ve never seen a grayer issue in my life.
“The fruits of our labor absurdity”
Green Bluff, Wash., Hidden Acres Farm (Source: Flickr.com Creative Commons License)
“What part of illegal don’t you understand?!”
What part of legal do you understand?
Immigration law is more complicated than tax law, at least a handful of lawyers have told me. And there are clearly no bumper sticker solutions to reform.
Take the hotly debated guest-worker programs, for example, which allow both high and low-skilled foreigners to work in the U.S. temporarily. Seattle Times staff columnist Danny Westneat described in a compelling news-editorial earlier this week that farm jobs in America are going unfilled to such a degree that Gebbers Farms in Brewster (a huge apple and cherry orchard in Okanogan County, Wash.) has turned to flying in hundreds of workers from Jamaica.
Jamaica?!
It’s a direct result of get-tough-on-illegal immigration policies. A federal investigation into the farm’s operations that began late last year forced the business to lay off hundreds of its Mexican workers, who couldn’t prove they were in the U.S. legally. To replace their depleted work force, the farm has posted help-wanted ads for 1,280 jobs picking fruit. Westneat writes:
Must be able to lift 60 pounds, climb a ladder while carrying 40 pounds and endure “wet orchards in temperatures from 30 to 100 degrees.
Pay: At least $9.19 an hour. But because workers are paid by how much they pick, the average last year was $16.48 an hour for picking cherries and $12.19 an hour for apples, according to the state.
I don’t know how many U.S. citizens applied — the state wouldn’t say and the farm isn’t talking. Obviously, not many. Because the first plane load of 50 Jamaican farm workers shipped out from Kingston to the Okanogan earlier this month.
Up to 300 Jamaicans are expected, to be paid the same rates as stated above. In all, this one farm has applied to bring in more than a thousand temporary foreign workers.
Before a farm can use this agricultural guest-worker program, called H-2A, it has to prove there aren’t “able, willing, and qualified United States workers available,” says the U.S. Department of Labor website.
Able and qualified, I’m guessing that’s no problem. But willing?
In this recession, are Americans not willing to work for this kind of pay in a beautiful state like Washington? That is surprising. Or do they not even exist? Some experts argue that’s why labor markets should dictate America’s immigration quotas for guest-worker programs, rather than congressionally-mandated numbers. (Open borders for economic purposes, however, is fairly extremist argument and is likely to depress wages, opponents say.)
That said, this Washington orchard is a stunning example of the need to increase the availability and ease of guest worker programs in the U.S., because the need is clearly there. Do we really need to fly in workers from Jamaica while we simultaneously deport (hard-working!) people from Mexico and other central and Latin American countries? It’s an unfortunate case because in this Washington town, the workers made up nearly a quarter of the town’s population and had been living and working there for years. I can’t imagine what the economic consequences have been for the community. (For a very similar story, see Postville.)
Challenges to Birthrights Begins
A child is held above the crowd as people march by the Capitol during a rally for immigration reform in Washington, on March 21. Jacquellyn Martin/AP
Really? Really?!
If you’re born in the U.S.A., you’re an American citizen. Some lawmakers, however, plan to challenge that basic assumption.
In what might be the next great flash point in the nation’s ongoing debate about immigration policy, legislation has been introduced in Congress and a pair of states to deny birth certificates to babies born of illegal-immigrant parents.
“Currently, if you have a child born to two alien parents, that person is believed to be a U.S. citizen,” says Randy Terrill, a Republican state representative in Oklahoma who is working on an anti-birthright bill. “When taken to its logical extreme, that would produce the absurd result that children of invading armies would be considered citizens of the U.S.” (Listen to or read today’s NPR story.)
Terrill is the author of Oklahoma’s HB 1804, anti-illegal immigration legislation that has had mixed consequences in the state since its passage in 2007. While at first glance the Oklahoma state legislator’s reasoning seems to make sense, consider this: Yes, in times of war women are marked targets of sexual violence, often resulting in unwanted children. It’s happened in every war, in all of human history, and in many cases these children face marginalization all their lives because of their illegitimate background and sometimes mixed race. And you would deny these children citizenship in their country of birth why? Do you think perpetrators of violence, if they survive a war, are going to wrap their arms around these children and carry them back to their country of origin to raise them as their own? Sorry, Terrill, I don’t think so.
The use of U visas
Protection exists to assist illegal immigrants who are victims of criminal abuse or activity. They’re called U visas, and each year the DHS grants up to 10,000, a move authorized under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act. Illegal immigrants may be authorized to receive them if they’ve suffered “substantial” physical or mental abuse from criminal activity and, among other things, a law enforcement agency certifies they have information on criminal activity. (There are also T visas for victims of trafficking.) The non-immigrant visas help police departments and other local law enforcement agencies extract information from witnesses and investigate crimes.
Debate about the issuance of U-visas “illuminates a prickly point of justice,” according to Dianne Solis, a Dallas Morning News veteran reporter I met in April. She writes, “Should the federal government give illegal immigrants special treatment for a societal good such as fighting violent crime?” I am especially surprised to learn that after having been granted a U visa, giving an illegal immigrant conditional status for up to four years, a person is eligible to apply for permanent residency. My gut reaction is, this person is bumped to the front of the immigration line? How is that fair? But then I’m reminded that a lot of things about life, especially suffering abuse at the hands of another person, is not fair. Protection should be afforded to these individuals, and giving them a pathway to legalization also aids in helping them find and undergo recovery, too.