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A nation of immigrants
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Also by Pedro Oliveira Jr.:
- Future unclear for UW's Iraqi project (April 8, 2008)
- A nation of immigrants (April 7, 2008)
- Student facing deportation released from jail (April 1, 2008)
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- A nation of immigrants (April 7, 2008)
- Protesters support student facing deportation from U.S. (April 1, 2008)
- Kohl intervenes for UW grad student's release (April 2, 2008)
- Student arrested, faces deportation (March 31, 2008)
- Student facing deportation released from jail (April 1, 2008)
by Pedro Oliveira Jr.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
When UW third-year pharmacy student Tope Awe was arrested by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement late last month for failure to comply with a deportation order, thousands joined in support trying to convince responsible authorities to allow the student to stay in the country until her expected graduation in May 2009.
They made posters, collected signatures and created a Facebook group that currently has about 2,500 members, all in efforts to avoid Awe’s imminent deportation to her birthplace of Nigeria.
Though receiving widespread campus support from organizations like the African Student Association, the Campus Antiwar Network and the International Socialist Organization, which culminated in a march to the office of U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., efforts to keep Awe in the country have drawn both interest and criticism from some immigration researchers.
For Michelle Malkin, a conservative author lecturing at UW’s Ingraham Hall Friday, the issue of immigration is based on three principles: “Those who get in the country get in; those who should not enter should be left out; and those whose time has expired should be deported.”
Malkin, who has researched immigration and focuses in deportation policies, said it took the U.S. government until after the terrorist attacks to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, to realize there were almost 400,000 immigrants who had been issued deportation orders, but who had evaded the order and disappeared.
“We had no idea who they were. We had no idea if they had come here to do good or to do harm,” she said during the lecture, adding deportation should be treated as not only a priority, but a matter of national security policy.
According to the ICE spokesperson Gail Montenegro, there currently are 580,000 immigration fugitives who have managed to remain in the country after ordered deported.
Montenegro said the Awe family had multiple opportunities to have their case heard in immigration court, but their appeals had been repeatedly denied, and they were ultimately ordered to leave the country.
According to Dave Gorak, executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration, the United States has the most generous legal immigration policy in the world, as the country accepts more immigrants than all of the other countries combined.
But as a sovereign nation, Gorak added, “We have to determine who and how many come in.”
“There’s something wrong with our immigration policy, being the most generous in the world,” he said. “What’s broken is the will to enforce existing laws.”
For Gorak, a credible immigration policy is one that brings in those who deserve to come in based on what their contribution to society is and one that also protects American workers.
“Right now immigration represents almost 90 percent of our nation’s growth. In the end, the more people you have, the harder it gets to provide a stable living for all,” he said.
Still, the United States continues to accept record numbers of immigrants each year, along with a sizable number of undocumented residents, most of whom have overstayed their temporary visas.
According to Gorak, the immigration rate, currently at 2 million per year (half of which are undocumented) should be reduced to only 250,000 per year. For him, there is nothing wrong with limiting the number of people coming in the country, and that could be exemplified in a simple anecdote:
“Saying that someone in support of limiting immigration is anti-human rights is no more than saying that a couple who had children and don’t want any more are anti-child,” Gorak said.
Where to draw the line
Most immigration experts, however, are still ambivalent when asked what should be done regarding those brought to this country at an early age — like Awe, who came with her parents from Nigeria at age three.
At the apex of the demonstration in Awe’s support, some protesters said deporting her would not only destroy her future, but her family too. For them, Tope is not responsible for her illegal status because she was brought from her homeland without her consent.
“Unfortunately, there are going to be people who are caught up in this enforcement, who have very sympathetic cases, and certainly, Tope Awe’s case is one of them,” Malkin said. “When you have somebody who has grown up her entire life in the United Sates, yes, it does take it to heart, and the natural instinct would be to be outraged that our government would send her back somewhere that’s an alien land for her.”
Another immigrant, UW freshman Ismael Cuevas, crossed the Mexican border with his parents when he was one-year-old, and remained undocumented until middle school. Cuevas attended Malkin’s lecture and said he was glad to have an open dialogue about this issue, though for him, “her logic doesn’t make sense.”
“Many of us didn’t pick when to come here,” he added.
UW senior John Bruning, who also attended Malkin’s lecture, said the U.S. immigration system is “a little ridiculous” when hopefuls have to wait years in line to be granted rights to visit or establish residence here.
“When my family came, there was a guarantee that you’d become an American, there was opportunity, there was a place to stay,” Bruning said. “When they came, there was a guarantee that you’d show up, and you’d become an American.”
But for Gorak and Malkin, being granted American citizenship is not a right, but a privilege — one that should not be taken lightly. If illegal immigrants decide to bring their children, Gorak and Malkin added, they should be held accountable for their well-being and any implications breaking immigration laws would have.
“If their parents are deported, I think it’s something that the parents need to think about, because they are the ones who made the initial decision to bring their kids here without their consent,” Malkin said. “It’s their decision whether or not to break up their families.”
Gorak said the U.S. federal government should not be responsible for “breaking families” by enforcing immigration laws, though it is unfortunate that by being brought to this country at an early age, Awe was caught in a situation in which “she had no say.”
“The full responsibility for this student’s particular situation must lie with the parents, who knew a couple of years ago, as I understand it, that there were some problems with their immigration status,” Gorak said.
Legalization and assimilation
According to UW history professor Thomas Archdeacon, an immigration policy researcher, there isn’t much provision in the law toward legalization of young immigrants, even if they have proved their “utility” to society — Awe, for example, has been deemed an important part of the UW community due to her contribution founding and leading several student organizations.
“There was some effort a year or two ago to pass in Congress a measure that would have made it possible for people who are in the United States illegally, and who over time did things like graduate high school or college or served in the military, to become citizens,” Archdeacon said.
But since Congress turned down that proposal, the law remains limited in what can be done to keep immigrants like Awe in the country.
“But what about the people who receive deportation orders and obey them? Whom do you reward?” Archdeacon said. “These are policy calls, and there are always going to be sad stories. Somebody will always have a reason why that (law) shouldn’t apply to them, and maybe they’re right. The law, though, is designed to deal with classes of cases rather than individual cases.”
Yet, Archdeacon, like many others, admits reforms will not completely solve the problems with U.S. immigration policies.
“In any system, there will be some injustices or there will be some people for whom the situation does not work out well,” Archdeacon said. “There has never been a system in any place where everyone is satisfied.”
Anonymous (April 8, 2008 @ 7:51am):
Wow, those were not biased 'authorities' at all! A conservative author and executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration.
People are so callous when their own citizenship is assured! Citizenship is an artificial construct, it is what we make it. I for one, do not think that it should be based on the 'merit' of birthright. I also think it's obvious why the government denied their case so many times - Nigeria is one of those scary african countries AND has a large muslim population! A conservative's worst nightmare!
Anonymous (April 8, 2008 @ 10:06am):
Secure the borders. Deport the illegal aliens. Si se puede....
Anonymous (April 8, 2008 @ 10:29am):
Gorak likens immigrants to children... that is degrading and narrow-minded, and his subsequent argument fails to acknowledge the complexities of the situation.
In accordance with his analogy, unplanned children should be orphaned or forced back into the womb.
He obviously fails to reconcile his opinions on immigration with the reality of unregistered aliens living in the US.
Why all of this fuss over arbitrary lines and borders? Why is America infringing on the peoples' freedom?
Anonymous (April 8, 2008 @ 2:02pm):
Illegal immigration hurts the poor US citizens more than anyone else.
Anonymous (April 8, 2008 @ 3:43pm):
How about a nation of laws too?
Anonymous (April 8, 2008 @ 8:40pm):
"Why is America infringing on the peoples' freedom?"
The same reason you can't steal, rape or murder. It's called the rule of law, you stupid BOZO. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, right? Why don't you just stay in your own country if you have "freedom" there?
Anonymous (April 8, 2008 @ 9:02pm):
The United States might as well annex Mexico if we aren't going to have a defined border with them...
Anonymous (April 10, 2008 @ 11:21am):
there's a difference between laws that are meant to protect the peoples' livelihood, like laws against rape and murder
how many times have you jay-walked in the past week? that's more like breaking an immigration law than raping or killing someone.
IF you can't winnow and decipher the value to laws yourself, then you probably shouldn't be making judgements on international boundary laws and on other people (stupid Bozo....)
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